Twas the night before school starts....

I love the feeling of the school on the last night of summer. These rooms have been quiet and cool all summer.  Each has been in various state of disarray all summer, as teachers take down the trappings of last year and begin planning for the next year. These last days before schools starts have been filled with all the final little tasks. Sharpening hundreds of pencils. Hanging paper and borders on bulletin boards. Carefully writing each student's name on folders, binder dividers, seat markers. Rearranging tables and chairs.

Slowly, the energy has been building. More and more teachers coming to school each day. Different music pumping out into the blinding heat of summer as we all find the right beat to motivate us through poster hanging and lesson planning. We poke our heads into each others rooms, asking "you ready?", "how's it going?" and smile at each other with a hint of giddy joy.

Tonight the anticipation is so thick that you can almost taste it. Everyone has gone home to relax, to lay out their outfits for tomorrow, get some sleep. I walk through the rooms as the light outside dims. Everything is in place. Perfect pink erasers, scissors and new pencils on tables. Chairs stacked neatly or placed out at tables. Bulletin boards that are smooth and empty, waiting to be filled with art, writing and projects.

Tomorrow they will be filled with a bright, hot burst of excitement, with the sounds of children greeting old friends and meeting new ones. They will rush towards the building in their brand new first-day-of-school outfits, all nerves and smiles.  Tomorrow, the hallways will be full of parents...proud, loving and slightly misty-eyed as they watch their children head into another year. They will whisper to each other, "I can't believe she is in ___ grade", "just yesterday he was in Kindergarten". Tomorrow, the teachers will step onto the stage of their classrooms, bursting with the joy of the journey they are about to start on.

There is such a burst of pride in me as I look around. This started as just a dream, a spark of hope in my mothers soul. And what a dream it was. A dream that spread to my father, to me, to my sister. We built this. From the ground up. With our sweat and worry and love and hope, we nurtured this dream, fanned the flames. And one by one, other people joined us and what a team we are. Some of the best and most beautiful people I know. People who poured so much of themselves into the building of this dream. Until a school, a community was born. And what a school it is. A place that ignites passion and creativity and confidence and love of learning. A place that has changed lives. A place that I am honored, humbled, blessed to be a part of.