One More Time

 Since I returned from Spring Break this year, there has been a part of my mind devoted to "the last time." All the uncertainty facing our school currently has placed a net over all of us that feels like doom. First of all, I would like to say that I am very sensitive to the Last Day Of School vibe that exists and has existed for all the years I have worked in education, and all the years when I was on the receiving end of said education. The countdown borders on excruciating. And now I face the potential of having this tension spread over an entire school year. 

This is the last time I will be posting student lists on the first day of school. This is the last time I will be introducing myself to the kindergartners. This is the last time I will explain to a group of kids where the walking zones are, and where it's okay to run like crazy people. This is the last time I will staple border on a bulletin board that welcomes us all to a new autumn. 

And the list goes on and on. I confess to having some great resignation to the potential closing of our school. I want to be emotionally prepared for all those last times. There will still be time and energy to wrestle with the school district's decision, but I won't live in denial. There are a number of closures in Oakland's recent history. Four elementary schools were closed in 2012. A couple more in 2019 and 2020. It seems that part of the "strategic plan" is to narrow it down to the last few public schools, fill them to capacity, and then point to diminishing test scores as the reason to shutter them as well. 

The visions I have carried with me for all these years of being celebrated and ceremoniously carried out of the building by students, staff and community members on the occasion of my eventual retirement have dimmed over this past year. I understand that I am still effectively playing with house money. I have more than two years worth of sick leave stored up, and when this is all over I could slip quietly out the side door of some administrivia job downtown, provided to me as a tribute to my years of service. And to keep me from making a stink. 

So I'm not making a stink now. I'm just remarking on the bittersweetness of saying goodbye to fifth graders for what might be the next to last time. I'm cleaning out my room with the intent of coming back. At least one more time.