Today marks the first day of kindergarten for our youngest son, Finn. I couldn’t tell you where the last 5 years have gone. It’s funny, as the kids made their way upstairs to get ready for bed tonight, I told my wife that the last thing I see in the house before I walk out the door to go to work in the morning is a picture of me holding Finn when he was just hours old and I’m now realizing that the tiny bundle of humanity in my arms in that photo is now walking up the steps into a big yellow school bus and going to school. I was told becoming a parent causes time accelerate exponentially, and that’s no lie. 5 years. Today also marked the second day of 5th grade for our oldest son, Brae. I cannot seem to figure out where that time went either, but what really boggles my mind is that in 3 short years, he’ll be ready to head off to high school. Time. Exponentially increasing.
Yesterday we had the 1 hour kindergarten orientation for him and being in that classroom with him, listening to his teacher, observing the classroom and the school overall makes me even more committed to doing what I can for the district to help it continue to operate and serve our kids. Finn’s teacher almost immediately mentioned something about a $25 activity fee that parents are responsible for. She was defensive at first, explaining that mentioning the fee almost always raises some eyebrows, but as she explained to me what that fee covered I came to understand the need for it. It basically comes down to teachers and schools not having the funding they need to operate in top form. We paid the fee before we left orientation but it left me thinking, $25 x 20 kids = $500. That isn’t a whole lot of money for a classroom. Imagine if the operating budget was increased to give teachers an extra $500 per year for their classroom expenses. How much good do you think that would do? Hopefully over the next couple of years we’ll be able to find out what increasing the operating budget will do for our Christina School District Schools.
Anyway, I wanted to say that I’m proud of our boys. On to another year of school. I should get back to working on my time decelerator.
Those In Favor 
Amen – very well written
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Thank you, Brian, for sharing your thoughts. I understand how you feel.
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I had no problem contributing $25 to the classroom. That is in lieu of bags of supplies we buy, too. I know that is not easy for all parents. We are the lucky ones. It would be wonderful if education were considered more important by the entire community for not only our children but all children. Hearing older members of the community gripe about how children behave today while also hearing them gripe about paying taxes for these same kids to get a better education really drives me bonkers.
In regards to Finn and Brae, they are amazing boys. I have no doubt they’ll be friends with everyone by the end of the week. I so want school to be fun for them, I want them to love learning. It makes me sad that Brae was already worrying about grades and it was only day 2. That’s not how it should be.
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