Friday March 5

Today was one of those long faculty meetings but through the years our leadership has endeavored to make these meetings efficient and meaningful. The assistant superintendent announced that, as of yesterday, there were enough people taking the early retirement incentive to bring down the number of pink slips to 62, a little less than 8% of the district's teaching staff. It's an improvement over the initial 90. The K teachers had a meeting with the district literacy coach and I felt eyes looking at me to represent not only who we are now, but to speak almost as an historian on many aspects of the teaching practices we had over the years.

As usual, the instructional day flew by. The kids were great for the most part. At afternoon free-choice time Eboni came in and we did our serious weekly debriefing of American Idol. My days as an erstwhile singer have caused me to get sucked-in to that show. She and I have detailed discussions of performances, 'pitchiness', stage-presence and star potential. I can't call who the winner will be, I haven't done it yet, but it sure is fun to live out these young people's dreams week after week. Eb is a great thinker and I love her perspectives on the competition. While we were talking, B started destroying other children's Lego and train projects, and I had him come sit at the table near me and Eb. He is so detached from his actions. I am so worried about him.

After school I had two parent conferences, mostly about the progress reports but also about behaviors and things going on in their homes.

I rested before visiting Dad in the hospital. Dad got panicky in the early evening. He was having trouble breathing and they put him on an oxygen mask. He told Carmi he thought he was dying and that he wanted her to call me. I felt bad I hadn't gotten up their earlier but I was exhausted and needed to rest after work before doing a hospital vigil. He was trying to get out of bed. He always does that when he gets disoriented, and the hospital hired a CNA to stay in his room 24/7. Both he and the patient in the other bed were trying to get up. The hospital knows if a patient gets up and falls, they will be sued. The CNA is definitely a cost-saving measure.