Oh, The Drama!

The past week has been a whirlwind of crazy.  We were ready for Richard's birthday and all was going well until I did a before-bed email check.  Sitting in my inbox was a message from the head of Luke's school.  We get e-mails from his school all the time, so no big deal.  This one was was titled "a change of plans" and began with a change to some plans that I didn't really affect me because I had no plans to be a part of the original plan. and then...the reason for the change of plans..."Unless additional funding is secured immediately, the school will close within a month."  WHAT?  This is a joke, right?  First, this is coming in an e-mail with such an unassuming title.  Second, this is coming in an e-mail.  Third, this school has been open for 40 years.  The quasi-explanation was just as puzzling.  Soooo...Richard and I stayed up talking and speculating until we could ring him the day of his birth.


The next day was a whirlwind to celebrate Richard's birthday at breakfast because - with the weekday schedule we have - breakfast is the best time for all of us to celebrate.  Then, everyone was off to school and the day settled out.  Except - there were various news reports about the fate of the school and these only caused more speculation.  We decided to make alternate plans in case the school does close, so we put down refundable money at the other school we had strongly considered.  Meanwhile, word came out that there would be an emergency meeting with the parents the next day.  We did have a nice hot dog picnic at Paul's school!


There have been a few meetings, many many many e-mails and apparently there is now enough money to stay open through December.  We paid our full tuition in June, so Luke is staying as long as his teacher is there and the school is open.  Many parents and the administration and board have hope that they can raise enough money to stay open all year, but I'm not as hopeful.  The only plan they seem to have to avoid this next year is to enroll more students.  Well, I'd say the press in the last week isn't doing them much good in way of recruiting.  Who wants to sign their child up and pay tuition to a school that is operating day-to-day?  We've only been with this school for 6 weeks, so we aren't really emotionally invested.  Richard, however, likes an interesting project, so he's staying more involved than I.


This week's drama:

I got a call from Paul's Head of School that he was fine, but has a bit of a black eye.  He didn't do anything wrong - another child hit him in the eye with a large sand box shovel.  She wanted one of us to come up and look at it.  Richard went up there and checked it out...and asked Paul if he wanted to come home.  Paul wanted to stay at school, so I went to pick him up later.  He says he was trying to help a boy who was having trouble and the boy hit him in the eye, but Paul thinks it was an accident.  He also says the boy had to "sit on the bench" and he didn't say he was sorry.  I'm not sure Paul knows what "accident" means, but it doesn't really matter.  It is swollen and bruised and...school pictures are next week, so there you go!