Theres probably alot I could say about my last board meeting tonight but it feels like Ive already said so much here on the blog over the past three years, its hard to imagine what I could add at this point.
I did finally crack a bit this afternoon (unfortunately while trying to get through a grant deadline at work). After reading all those hundreds of emails over the past two weeks about what a huge loss it was, it did finally start feeling so.
But at the board meeting tonight, listening to the board chair, Adrienne Montani, read off the positive impacts for students from just a single year of our achievements, sitting through a sustained standing ovation for the outgoing board while the incoming board received less applause than the superintendents report (although I should say Chris Kelly gives a pretty mean report), I came to see it more as a celebration. A celebration of three amazing years of achievement and a validation of my own philosophy in life:
Make no small plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans. Aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical program once recorded will not die but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with growing intensity.
Whether or not that will hold in the face of Ken Denikes, the new board chair, blunt threat tonight ÒIt is a new board. There will be major changes. time will tell. Those threatened changes were never articulated during the election campaign and the only thing hes said since then is that he doesnt like consultation. Good luck on that one Ken -- my own experience is that the community here has rather high expectations for its school board. And I say that like it's a good thing.
Whats next for me? My first family vacation in a couple of years. Recently former trustee Kevin Millsip and I are cooking up a little project but I will save a few words on that for when I get back.