We’ll be there for you

Those front porch pictures looked both refreshingly familiar and startling new yesterday as students from our area posed on their first day of school.

Some of them masked up and headed into schools, others turned around and headed right back into their houses for their first day.

I salute them all and their teachers, staff, parents and parents-who-will-be-teachers.

Go get ‘em!

I hope this year brings all kinds of cool experiences and learning opportunities and I hope you all can make your way through the gauntlet of 2020 with confidence and joy.

Four years ago I wrote a thank you note to our school district for the thorough education it provided our family. It’s a little heartbreaking to read that tribute now because a good chunk of my four kids’ experiences remain unavailable to students right now. But, I know this school district and I know these parents and I think we’re going to see some amazing innovation and extraordinary efforts to provide these students with the experiences they crave.

I also know that, whether they are working from a public, parochial, charter, virtual, hybrid, or home school, these teachers are going to lean into the curve ball they’ve all been thrown.

I’d like to deliver some fresh, first-day-of-school cookies to all of you.

Instead, I’ll just say this:

We know you’re facing challenges you never imagined. We appreciate you and all of the adaptations you’ve made to accommodate your students. We’d like to help in any way we can. You have more support than you know.

No matter the schoolroom, heroes work there, from the tiniest peanut with the fattest crayons, to the mom who is gamely home schooling for the first time in her life, to the singing and dancing English teacher.

And speaking of that English teacher, here is Appleton East’s Paul Miller with a first day of school gem:

I don’t have any first day of school pictures of my own to share this year, but my friends were generous enough to share theirs.