March Fourth- the day

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Yesterday Alta gave me a bunch of pink paper to write the job titles for twenty five chairs to put out for our demonstration. I was not able to get to this task, but fortunately Susan volunteered today to help me. These pink "slips" will be draped on the chairs to symbolize the number of jobs lost in our district over the past 3 years due to job cuts. The number is 25 with 5 more probably coming this year. So we will have thirty empty chairs.

After school yesterday from 4:30 to 6:30 I had a meeting of Sonoma County Association representatives. Among other things we shared our plans for tomorrow on our own campuses. Many schools and principals have accepted the "disaster for education" formula and are doing disaster drills. None of our principals liked this idea. We could have done it so easily as there is a disaster drill scheduled for tomorrow. I am thinking about getting the teachers on board to apply the disaster drill tomorrow as a way to educate students on the disaster that is our state budget.

When I got home last night about 7 PM, the house was empty. I began immediately to look up slogans for today's demonstration. I had about 25 placards and 25 sayings. I added some cartoons to some of the sayings.

By Thursday morning I still was not entirely prepared. I had a stack of papers to go on the backs of chairs. Fortunately Susan came in our local association VP and volunteered to the job. By 6th period I had my class in the computer lab. Magically Greg showed up to help me. The plan was to scoot the chairs out right at 2:16 PM when the bell rang. It all went like clockwork. (Except that one of my students absconded with a chair to go joy riding down the science building hallway.)

As students exited, parents politely stopped in their cars and we held signs, talked to parents and students and gave out information on the demonstration. A lot of the students gave us thumbs up. A few students and parents joined in. Other students students looked puzzled. We had several representatives from the classified association, some parents and a couple teachers from a nearby school. About a dozen of our teachers showed up and I was grateful for that.

One of the photos above is of me in my cool new glasses. I actually never realized that they are sunglasses, because they adjust to the sunlight and I am always surprised to see them dark.