We are packing up the schoolhouse.
Next door a new schoolhouse is being built.
Lakeland has been around now for more than 40 years. It was the first elementary school built west of I-35; it's time for new walls and new desks.
I took this picture after school today as I was waiting for the light to change.
It is in fact a young mother pulling her two children in a shopping cart. She was sweating profusely but kept walking as she wiped the sweat from her brow.
I found out today, with 7 days of school remaining, that one of my students is on her 3rd stepmother.
She lost a baby brother this week. He died after only 2 weeks of life.
Her birth mom is in jail and she shares a 2 bedroom apartment with 11 other people, not all of whom she knows.
People have asked me how I can do this job.
How can I not?
Knowing that the need is there for these children, and that I can somehow fill that need, that's all that's required to get me to work.
I cry every year when I have to say goodbye to my students. I see them more than I see my family or my fiance...8 hours a day for 9 months is a long time. We've come a long way and I'm proud of them.
Allow me my remaining days of school sentimentalism.
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