DuBose: Decision by Batavia teachers puts spring in step
They’re calling today the first official day of Spring. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been “springing forward” with last weekend’s darned time change. It’s looked a lot more like stumbling, in my case.
I don’t do well when my sleep is compromised, but the beautiful weather this last week has made my stumbling a lot easier to bear.
I saw early evidence of green things poking their heads through the crusty soil and I swear my grass has gotten greener by the day.
I dragged our lawn chairs out of the garage and returned my funky chicken – the colorful metal yard-art chicken Noah and I found at the Kane County fair last summer – to his greeting post by the driveway.
Actually, he has that red thing on his head – a comb, they call it – and we named him Curtis, so I guess that makes him a rooster.
But I digress.
Most days this week I counted eight kids in my yard. One afternoon they all wrestled like a litter of new puppies, which made my heart smile. Holly and her friends found the hula hoops and scooters and Noah made sure the basketball hoop in our driveway got a facelift with a new backboard and net. Many thanks to the always helpful Jeremiah Mize, hardware manager at Menards, who, with his forklift and can-do attitude, gingerly wrangled our new hoop from a swaying ‘chain-gang’ of display models perched on a high shelf.
At one point Noah and I worried the whole lot of ‘em, with their heavy metal poles and bases attached, would come tumbling down in a noisy heap – but Mize pulled it off.
And thanks to Daddy, who finished installing it in the dark after the kids went to bed.
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It’s been so warm that our real pup, Jake, even took a dip in a pool with his doggy pals one afternoon at the ‘fantabulous’ Paws in Time pet ‘resort’ located on Fabyan Parkway in nearby West Chicago.
Inspired by Jake’s water fun, the kids and their friends pulled out the bag of water balloons (that I thought were well-hidden) and got busy.
After they muddied up my kitchen, left enough puddles to float a battleship on the kitchen floor (did I mentioned that I’d just vacuumed and mopped only minutes before?) and used all of my pots and bowls to haul the filled balloons outside, they decided it would be more efficient to use the outdoor faucet.
Too bad they left the faucet in the ‘open’ position before turning on the water supply valve, which caused water to course into the little egress door that leads into the basement.
Ooh, I forgot to mention this to my husband. (Wonder if it’s still wet?)
And don’t even get me started on the bazillion bits of balloons that littered my yard after the ‘war,’ until I finally cleaned them up (yeah, I told the kids to do it first. But you know how it is. They missed about half of them and I didn’t want the dog to die.). I still need to wash the darned pots.
A mom’s job is never done, especially when the weather heats up.
Not quite ready for flip flops? You’re in good company with old man winter, who reportedly wants to have the last word this weekend.
Phooey.
***
A little snow won’t get me down, though, not after the news I’ve heard repeatedly discussed by parents in recent days. It seems that Batavia’s teachers agreed to reduce their salaries and benefits by 2.3 million dollars in the next year, in light of state and local funding issues.
Wow.
Had they not taken this action, 50 or 60 of our teachers would likely have lost their jobs, resulting in overcrowded classrooms and severely stressed-out teachers and students. The level of morale, and, frankly, of learning, would have dropped like a rock in our schools.
I really do believe that our teachers made sure we dodged a big bullet and I thank them.
Their vote wasn’t decided by a narrow margin, by the way. No, the Batavia Education Association reportedly voted a whopping 366 – 32 to accept the agreement, which was approved last week by the school board.
Some teachers in other districts throughout Illinois, when faced with this choice, have voted differently. They rolled the dice and chose higher salaries over their colleagues’ jobs and their students’ needs.
I’ve shared this news with my kids. They ought to know about the sacrifices their teachers are making and they’re duly impressed. The teachers’ decision teaches our children that we really are ‘all in this together,’ perhaps the greatest lesson any of us needs to learn – or to teach.
And that puts a little extra spring in this mom’s step, indeed.
