The last week of school

The last week of school is always crazy but this year it is also very sad ... our parish school is closing its doors after 106 years of educating Catholic youth. For all practical purposes, this Friday, the building becomes mine to run as a catechetical center. So in addition to all the usual end-of-June stuff [Progress Reports, updating Permanent Record Cards, starting the Family Enrollment Database for the 2008-09 year, textbook inventory and ordering, testing, luncheons and dinners to recognize volunteers, collecting all the catechist binders to update for September, parish calendar meeting, etc., etc.] ... I'll be doing a walk-through of the building, noting what equipment and educational "accessories" I want to keep for my programs ... it makes me feel rather like a vulture, feasting on the carcass of our dead school ... I'll have to schedule these walk-throughs to avoid the parish school teachers who are mournfully cleaning out their closets and shelves and packing up ... most of them have not found new positions yet ... they are not only experiencing betrayal, pain, loss and grief but also anxiety, even panic, when they think ahead to September ... only two of the nine teachers have found new positions. And, of course, the diocese is not helping in the least. While the displaced teachers are pounding the pavement looking for work, I'll be spending most of the summer re-fitting the classrooms to my specifications, moving my office to better quarters and converting my old office to a catechist resource room. It's all very depressing and tense. And come September, my secretary and I are going to be rattling around in the building during school hours ... the place will only come alive with the sounds of children after school and only for four days a week when we will be running double sessions from 4:30-6:00pm and again from 7:00-8:30pm on Mon., Tues., Thurs. and from 9:00-10:30am and again from 11:00am-12:30pm on Saturdays.

But even with all this going on, I am stealing time to stitch ... it grounds me and relaxes me ... and I seem to need that especially right now. I have been continuing work on Crabby All Year [which somehow fits with the general atmosphere] and have just a few of the letters in the word "Rabbit" to complete in the May block. I'll probably finish the block today and move on to the June block tomorrow. There's a very good chance I'll be able to get back to the Mystic Stitcher's Hideaway projects by the weekend. So, the June goals are turning out to be very doable.