Paul's Infrequently Updated Blog

The school year is finally over and summer is here! It feels good to know that I do not have to worry about school until August. A whole three months for me

The last few days of school were a huge waste. Most often, this is always the case, but this year it was even more so. On Monday we got to spend what seemed like most of the school day hiding in the hallway or in the boiler room at school. We got a couple of pretty large storms pass over us, which came with tornado warnings. So no teaching or much of anything else got done.

The thing that always bothers me with the end of a semester or school year is that they always end on a Tuesday or a Wednesday. I do not understand the reasoning behind this. It would have been better to make the last day Friday and then have teachers come in on Monday to clean their rooms and check out. Monday and Tuesday this year were a complete waste of time, but when the powers that be ask for your opinion on the school calendar you just get ignored.

The storms that passed over us on Monday did quite a lot of damage. Irene’s car suffered hail damage and has lots of dents. We were lucky compared to a lot of people who lost windows on both their cars and homes. When we drove past Reganis Auto in Scottsbluff, it looked like their entire inventory of cars had been damaged. There was not a single car or truck on their lot that had not had its windows broken.  In addition, one of the apartment buildings a few blocks from where we live lost its roof. I hope that all those affected carry insurance to repair the damage.

I will have to call Progressive in the coming days to see if Irene’s car is worth repairing. Since the car is ten years old and not worth that much money, the insurance may decide to total the car.  Right now I am just lounging around enjoying the first days of the summer break, the car and pretty much everything else can wait a few days.

I finally got through graduation and all the graduation parties again for this year. It seemed like all the graduation events this year would never end and, indeed, this year I got about 50 invites from students, which for me is a record.

I do of course appreciate all of the invitations, but being the homebody that I am, I hate being out and about the weekend of graduation. It’s a relief that it is over for another year. As always, I handed out a graduation card and the “mystery” gift to each student and I do wish them all the best for the future. Now that it is all done, I can look forward to the summer break and not have to worry about school until August.

Next school year I will have tenure, so no formal observation and a lot less pressure. That will be nice for me and nice to know that I will be staying in one place for more than three years.

Today was another “day” at Gering High School, most specifically today was County Government Day.  This day was a little different from Senior Service Day last week as it did not involve the entire school. In fact, it involved just 26 juniors and myself.

Every year, Scottsbluff County organizes their County Government Day. Most of the school districts within Scottsbluff and Banner Counties send either junior or senior students to this event. The number of students that can go is limited to 26 so we pick which students get to go.

This year, I got to organize this event, which was pretty straight forward. I just had to decide who was going to go, what County Government departments  they were going to represent, and I insisted that students dress appropriately for the event. We then walked down to the County Government Building (its only about a 5-10 minute walk from the school) and the students went into a room upstairs to be introduced to the day’s events. After that, students were broken up into groups to learn about the areas of county government to which they had been assigned, such as District Attorney, Sheriff, County Commissioners, and so on.

While the students were in their groups, we teachers got to go to McDonald’s to chat and drink coffee, which was not a bad way to spend my morning. I got to meet Social Studies teachers from around the area and we had some interesting conversations.

At lunch time, we got to have lunch in a local church. We heard a few speeches and got to see how to properly fold an American flag. After lunch, students got to see some demonstrations by local law enforcement and then a  mock trial was held. The students were asked their opinions on the trial and whether a conviction based on what they had observed would have stood up in court. I was pleased to see that most students thought the case in question would be thrown out because it was based on an illegal search.

Once the day was over, we walked back to school, but I let the students have some time play on the swings, at the park. We got back to school just in time for the bell to ring. Overall, it was a pretty good day. I got to get out of the classroom and spend part of my day with other teachers. I do hope I get the chance to do this again next year. I am pretty sure that I will.

Today was Senior Service Day at the high school. I always like this day. While the sophomores spend most of their day testing and juniors both test and have to sit through a presentation, the seniors get to go out around the Gering/Scottsbluff area to do some community service for various organizations around town.

This year was actually my first year with the seniors. The last two years I had to spend at the Freshmen Academy with the 9th graders who have to take their Terra Nova tests on Senior Service Day. This year, I was picked to supervise a group of seniors as they spent part of their day helping out at the Panhandle Humane Society.  In total I had about a dozen seniors who were divided up into groups once the got to the Humane Society. Each group spent a little time doing different tasks, such as working with the cats, cleaning parts of the building, and working and playing with the dogs.

Although we were only there a few hours, it provided some insight into what the Humane Society does and just how much work is involved running a community organization. For me, the big plus was that, while I was there, I got to see Cinders. She is doing pretty good, but the healing is very slow. I think it may be after the end of the school year before we are allowed to take her home. I think she appreciated the fact that she got a lot of attention today.

After senior service was completed, the seniors returned to the high school for their senior picnic and then there were games where the students won prizes. It was organized so that everyone won at least one prize and some of the prizes were pretty good, such as flat screen televisions, ipods, and even a microwave oven.

At least for the seniors, it was a day away from the academic grind and for them a chance to hang out with people who they might not see again after they graduate next month. Unfortunately, there is some talk of not having senior service in the future, which would be sad as I think the students actually get something worthwhile out of this day.

Today I am sitting at home not at school, resting. Why am I not at school? Because yesterday I got into a car accident and wrecked my car. I am pretty sure it has been totaled, but I will have to wait for the insurance company to assess the damage before I can be sure.

Basically, I was pulling out of the McDonald’s onto 10th Street in Gering when I got hit by another car on the driver’s side of my vehicle. The sun had just risen and the glare was pretty bad and, even though I looked and then looked again, I did not see the other car. Both myself and the driver of the other vehicle had to be taken to the hospital and I have been told to take a week off work to recover. Fortunately, there were no major injuries, although I did suffer a shoulder injury and some whiplash.

I am pretty sure I will make a full recovery, but I am pretty bummed about the whole thing. I really liked my little car and don’t know when I can get a new one. I also think it will be months before the insurance is all sorted out and I will not get another car until that is all sorted out and paid off.