Making Waves

No, not yet. But I have made waves before and know that the day will come (and might be overdue) when I have to do it again.

In 2000, I can into this county as some one with some experience in special education, but none with the severe and profound disabilities. I had worked with mostly LD and EBD settings, albeit very restrictive in a psychoed and state hospital. But what I lacked in experience, I more than made up for with the fire in my belly from just recently having my oldest son diagnosed with PDD-NOS at the age of 18 months.  I had some extra motivation that needed an outlet, and fighting injustice was just the thing.

The situation I walked into was pretty appalling. We were getting students with more and more severe disabilities, but there was no changing area. We had one student who we had to catheterize and change and we did it on a computer table in our little office area. The school nurse was prohibited from helping us with catheterizations. There were no accessible drinking fountains. The conditions we were working in showed me that there was a very clear pattern of discrimination, exclusion and prejudice. So I amazed and shocked my new administration by detailing several of these injustices in writing, listing all of them as recipients and then filing it with the county special education director as a list of section 504 violations. Looking back it was an extremely audacious thing for me, a new hire, to do.

The special education director did come out to the high school to meet with us in order to rectify several of the issues. While she was amused at my boldness, she was supportive and worked with us to address my grievances. Not all of them were addressed right away. Some of them were never resolved. But we made gradual headway and progress. The administration seemed to be genuinely interested in meeting the needs of our students.

NCLB has not been good to students with severe disabilities. In fact, it has totally thrown all of us under the bus. Sure, there is lip service toward ensuring that all children have a quality education delivered by highly qualified teachers. But with the constant drumbeat of accountability and test scores, these students and their teachers are totally marginalized and alienated. It is all about college preparation. What does someone with an IQ of less than 20 have to do with a college prep curriculum and diploma? And what does that say to those who really work hard to get one if they just give one to these kids by virtue if their GAA and staying until 22? Administrators all over the country, faced with tough economic choices are following their keenest business instinct; getting “the most bang for the buck.” That means test scores. That means NOT my program. That means disproportionate overcrowding.

Consider this:

The state sets various limits on class sizes for various grades, as well as disability categories. The limit for a PID class is 5, with at least one para. For a regular high school class it has been around 30. This means 1 student with severe disabilities is about equal in support to 6 regular education students. So what if I have 8 in my class? An administrator might see this as still being a small class. Numerically, it is. But support-wise, it is equal to increasing a regular class to 48! Even under the toughest of economic times, I do not know of a single regular teacher who is expected to be with 48 kids for one class period, much less being with all of them all day long all year long. Even with extra para support, there is a limit to how many one teacher can handle, no matter the level of experience or competence.

Numbers alone never give an accurate picture of anything. IQ is not a measure of character, worth or how much dignity a person deserves. And yet, this is the climate that is driving more and more decisions that routinely leave those who most need support and care into situations that are rife with neglect and abuse. It’s time we push back before we get run over.

It’s official!

Today was the first “Official” day of preplanning, and we started off with our annual county SpEd meeting which lasted the entire morning. It’s always nice to see all the teachers, young and old. It’s really the only time that ever happens. I didn’t happen to see any of the other SID/PID teachers but did manage to see a few EX SID/PID teachers.

So many changes in leadership! All the way up and down the chain, there are gobs of changes, which means breaking in an entirely new cadre of people. Most of the new folks aren’t really new so much as promoted from the teaching ranks. For the first time in a long time we’ll have a special education administrator who has actually taught special education. In fact, that is a first for the past 10 years of my career.

I didn’t think it would ever happen, but I am considering trying for some sort of leadership certification. The state has just made the process a lot more difficult, so I’m just considering it for the moment. Actually, just about anything looks appealing. My class roster keeps expanding, courtesy of “school choice.” As it stands now, things are untenable given the staff that I’m assigned. We’re over run with both severity and numbers. I’m not sure how 4 people handle 6 wheelchairs plus a couple other kids who tend to wander off.

In other news, Percy is counting the days until school starts and Thomas is trying to enjoy all the summer he can before he has to go back. The kids go back Aug. 3rd.

Getting it Together

Today I continued getting my room together.  It was and remains a huge job.  I still have to unpack boxes and bring the adaptive equipment.  Standers and wedges!  I forgot to factor in space for those big pieces of furniture when I arranged my stuff!  They are incredibly important for the students who use them, but they also spend a lot of time just getting in our way when they are not being used.  I actually have a very large space compared to most other rooms in the county, but there are lots of windows and other things that limit how space can be arranged.  I have to work to create spaces to work, learn, play, relax and change positions.  We basically live in this room (unlike other high school students, who change classes every period.  A period this year is defined as a 90 minute block.

I didn’t spend all of my time at school today, as it is Saturday afterall!  I did get quite a bit done, but there is still a ton of work to do.  Some of the unpacking I will leave for the paras, because i do have other things to do, like actually planning for the students and figuring how I might best use the paras I’ve been assigned.  I’ll handle that delicate subject in a later post.

Today, the building was officially open for all the teachers to come in and begin getting ready.   We have over 130 teachers in this building and I don’t think I saw more than a dozen.  This seems incredibly odd to me.  All week long, the middle and elementary schools have had hordes of activity around them as they busy themselves with various preparations.  What is up with my school?  Where was everyone?  Granted, none of us are getting paid for this time but this is true across the entire system.  I’m wondering if there is some lack of ethos at the high school level, or maybe it is just in our building.  I’ve often wondered at the differences between middle grades and high school communities and am very, very keen to find out one day soon.  One day.  But not today.

I did take pictures and shoot video and i may eventually post some sort of vlog showing my progress. The cosmetic work has mostly been done, for now except for doing stuff to the walls.  If I have a weakness (I do have many), arts and crafts are chief among them.  I’m lousy at bulletin boards and making decorations.  I actually favor a blank wall.  If I do happen to make a bulletin board, it will stay up FOREVER!  Seriously, at my last job that I did for 4 years I put up a board in the computer lab that never changed.  EVER.  It just sort of faded.  The only reason I changed classroom boards was because they moved me to a different classroom.  Fortunately I have paras that are talented in that area.  Or I hope I have paras that are talented in that area.

Mentally, I shift from dread, to anger, to anticipation to grim determination in regards to the coming year.  There’s always some sense of hope going into a new school year but a lot of that has been diminished for me.  I still feel the remnants of last year’s betrayal, which flairs up every time I see other people advance, move on and do other things while I’m still stuck.   So it  is that I gear up and get my room and my head together for year 10 in the SID/PID room.

Preplanning

Believe it or not, the start of school is just around the corner.  We are scheduled to begin preplanning next week, but that may change in light of the latest actions of our beloved governor.  According to the link, we may be looking at a reduction in work (and pay) for 3 days and it is extremely likely that at least some of those days will come at the expense of preplanning.

No doubt, this economy is a giant crap sandwich and everybody is going to have to take a bite.  However, preplanning is about the worst possible sacrifice we could make.  As it is, I was staring in the face of a massive shortage of time to get ready.  In fact, in my building we are now looking at a perfect storm of chaos the likes of which we have never seen before.

It started last year, when the school board decided everyone was going to be on a block schedule.  Not a huge deal for me, but it was and will still entail a considerable about of time retooling and retraining all of us.  This would be part of preplanning.  Next, our building is the oldest high school in the county and was supposed to be undergoing major rennovations over the summer.  That meant thet my paras and I spent days and days packing up all of our stuff into boxes and labeliling all our shelves and cabinets and moving these things to storage.  Then, in reaction to the budget woes, the school cut para preplanning to one day, which is the day of our open house.  So now I am looking at having to reassemble my classrooom and all of our stuff by myself.  And then there is an annoying email informing us to NOT come in early because the construction crews are not finished yet.

In addition to training on the block schedule, there has to be at least one school-wide meeting lasting several hours, a department meeting lasting hours and a district-wide special-ed meeting lasting half a day.

Basically, we’re totally screwed all around.

So now I’m noodling how to respond to all of this.  First off, that email about the construction not being finished; I’m going to go in anyway to pick up my mail and to see how deeply my classroom area is affected.  If it’s not, I need to get started because it took 4 of us several days to pack and I haven’t the time to spare.  Next week will be a bust regardless.  One silver lining might be that if the board decides to take a day or two off the top, I can still go in without having to worry about the inane meetings.

Heaven help the new teachers who are going through their new teacher orientation this week.  Orientation is SO crucial to them in getting to know the school, colleagues, administrators, procedures and just getting ready for the kids.  Truncating that transition for them will be costly down the road even more than for the rest of us who have been through past openings and have some semblance of an idea of what is involved.

There are some ways that some aspects of preplanning could be streamlined:

- New teachers need to be introduced.  Have each make a short video bio and post it on our intranet so we don’t need a meeting to see it.  Now that I think about it, ALL teachers could do that, and it would benefit everyone in knowing each other throughout the year.

- Replace meetings with video presentations.  Last year our superintendent did that, and it worked very well, except the principal still called us all together to watch it.  We need to be in our rooms working, instead of waiting for a video to start.  The principal did one video last year, and I thought it worked well.   There’s no reason for taking up a lot of face time if we are not expected to interact.  In other words, administrators rarely want to field many questions during a faculty meeting and such questions could be fielded online in the open for future reference.

-Get memos and notices out electonically and early.  We always have to submit a syllabus, information and course descriptions.  Many of these could be done collaborative on the intranet (Sharepoint).

Special educators also have a huge stack of files to go through for new students, and get assorted medical and emergency plans ready for them.  Our paperwork machinery is already ginning out new forms and data collection precedures even while I’m writing.  Just finding a place for all the paperwork and forms is a chore!

So what it really means is that teachers will be doing what we alaways have been doing; donating a ton of time to the service of our students.  It’s just going to be especially intense this fall.

Teachers with Disabilities

I was asked by another blogger about my thoughts concerning being a special educator with disabilities. At first, I didn’t think I’d have anything to say about the subject since I don’t don’t have any identified disabilities. At least not a physical disability beyond severe myopia although some might argue that I have some sort of emotional or behavior disorder! But over the years, I have known various teachers who had disabilities of various sorts and most had gotten along pretty well.

One of the earliest persons I met in the business was a para who had a visual impairment. He was quite successful at his job, working with students with moderate and severe disabilities in an elementary school. While I only briefly met him, he was highly thought of by his fellow teachers and paras and was well-liked by the kids.

I also knew a teacher who slipped and fell and broke his hip. He had several complications which put him in a wheelchair (and several medications) for over a year. He got pretty good at getting around in the wheelchair. He taught students with mild disabilities in co-teaching and resource settings in the high school so his capacity to teach was less severely impacted. However, before the end of his second year in the wheelchair, he did resign because the medications he was on were having an impact on his overall health.

Something we don’t often think about is short-term disabilities, when a teacher becomes injured. In fact this happened to me way back when I was a para, and I twisted up my knee while chasing a kid. I was on crutches for several weeks, and so was limited in the things I could do. But since this was toward the end of the year, we had the kids pretty much into a routine. So while it was a royal pain trying to get around, I was still able to work with the middle school students at the psychoed center albeit in a more limited capacity. I learned how much more work is involved doing simple things with a physical disability. I was going to grad school at the time at Georgia State, and it was a lot of work just getting from the subway to class! By the time I got there in the heat of May, I was drenched in sweat. Any one of us could become disabled through accident or illness at anytime so it just makes good sense being compassionate toward those with differing abilities and exceptionalities.  We’re almost all destined to be on that list at least once.

And then there is a teacher who I’ve known for a few years who has mild CP. She went to college and became certified as an elementary teacher. Just getting through college was a victory, but once out, she discovered that getting a job would be more difficult. There was a lot of prejudice against her as a teacher because of her disability. In fact one administrator she interviewed with told her that she had no business teaching or even being around children. I can only imagine how hurtful that must have been. However, this lady had the pluck to continue trying to find a job and landed in our county where a principal gave her a chance. And she was successful. The obstacles she encountered, as well as a lot of the prejudice and discrimination just made her more determined to prove her detractors wrong and be more successful. She is now a media specialist at one of the elementary schools in our county. She is married and has a son about the same age as my youngest. Her CP presented challenges to her all along the way, but she persevered and met all of them. Things we take for granted like driving or even changing a diaper were things she had to deal with and learn how to do. She is respected and admired by everyone who knows her, not just on account of having such an indomitable spirit, but also on account of her kindness and bigheartedness.

So for people with disabilities who are considering teaching as a career, I would encourage it for several reasons. First of all, we really do need more diversity in teaching all around. While there are many groups under represented on the faculty of any school, those who have disabilities have to be the most underrepresented group of all. Is it because teaching is so demanding? That’s possible, as it can be physically and emotionally taxing. However I think a lot of it is simply part of a larger culture of discrimination against people with disabilities. Just because a person has limitations, we often think of them being less than a whole or capable person. This is a tragedy, I think, because we can learn a lot by being around people who have overcome their limitations in order to improve themselves and the rest of us.

As far as my particular position, it would be very difficult or impossible to do if I had to be in a wheelchair. There is a great deal of lifting involved and while I have capable paras, it would be tremendously unfair to ask them to do all the grunt work that I was unable to do. I do believe there needs to be a certain level of physical fitness required to be in a SID/PID room, but that threshold is relatively low. One needs to be able to lift at least 50 pounds, be able to get on the floor and get up again with relative ease. Other than that, it is mostly mental/emotional. Basically, if a body is able and willing to change the poopy diapers of a young adult, everything else is gravy. The biggest obstacle, in my experience, is a willingness to do it more than ability for most otherwise capable people. I see this especially with guys who were first hired to coach football. If I had to chose between the young guy who coaches football and the young lady who wasn’t as physically strong, I’d pick the lady every time. Someone, no matter how physically fit, who has a poor attitude is all but worthless.

And that’s the take-home message here. Attitude is much more important and critical to success than any physical characteristic and limitation, no matter what field you get into. One can often deal learn to compensate for a physical disability but compensation for a poor attitude just means everyone else has to do more work and put up with it.

On Vacations and Family Reunions

We’re returning to Georgia, Thomas and I, from our vacation with my folks.  We had a real good time visiting with relatives, swimming, going to the county fair and visiting assorted local attractions in the area.  We stayed busy and Thomas was happy, for the most part.  Most of my relatives have gotten around to dealing with him on his own terms, and he made it very easy by being very good and well-behaved, meaning that he didn’t get into too much trouble.

But that was not always the case.  When he was younger, he did have a penchant for getting into things.  Christmas gatherings were always a chore, because he was forever getting into the tree, presents, decorations as well as all the other bric-a-brac that people have in their homes.  We nearly gave up having a tree of our own.  However, getting to the point we are at now involved a lot of work, firmness, diligence and consistency.  And most of that was from Jane, although this is one area where I was involved in being more of a stone wall in standing firm and expecting good behavior.

But there are things that will never change, no matter how well Thomas does.  He is a curious person and will always have to be supervised to some extent.  And parents can simply not rely on anyone else to do it as well.  We’re not just the first line, we’re most often the only line.  Other relatives often allow their kids to run amok and get into everything and they expect everyone else to watch their kids.  Not so with Jane and I.  That’s not to say Thomas’ grandparents wouldn’t or couldn’t or didn’t watch him, because they are all competent.  1:1, Thomas is a very good child.  But in a large gathering like a family reunion we have seen the wheels fall off, behaviorally.  And this can often make large family gatherings very stressful.

My preference is to keep the events very small, simple, intimate and low stress.  Outdoor venues seem to work well for us, especially if there is sufficient space for Thomas to withdraw from the crowd and excitement if he has the need.  If all else fails, I’ll go ahead and take him out or somewhere to get away, even if it means just sitting in the car for a bit.  The thing is that if he is experiencing stress, so am I.  He likes being around people for the most part, but he does get overwhelmed sometimes.  This is true of all of us at different times.  Sometimes, as a parent I don’t often have a chance to talk to people for very long if I’m responsible for watching him because he will wander off and go his own way.  I jus like to know where he’s going in case he decides he might want to take a hike on the street!

Thomas is always wary of meeting new people and don’t always do well with a lot of hugging that happens when family member greet each other.  But by the end of the week, he was fairly happy to give his grandma a hug which did help make her day.  He got used to other family members and we had a lot good experiences which will make for some good memories.

I’m rambling a bit here, just thinking about the past week and all the neat things we did together.  It was only at the end that he started to get somewhat homesick for his mom and brother, and was ready to go back home.  Overall, it was great to get away with just the two of us.

Autism and Summer Vacation

For the first month of summer, I was reading and learning and generally focused on my teacher-self. But for July, it’s about being the Dad. I mean, I never stop being a parent, but I’m simply blogging it more now. And I recently got an email from someone who is doing some similar things as Jane and I, and wondering if it’s the right thing. So let’s see if I can set her (and your) mind at ease.

My experience is that among all the best things to do with someone who has autism, is to travel. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a kid with ASD who didn’t ride well in a car or bus. Once you get to where you are going, it might be a different story altogather, but generally my experience is that they like to ride. I spent many, many a long night when Thomas was a baby just riding him in the car until he fell asleep. He has always liked to ride. I have kids that I teach who will raise a huge fuss until we get on the bus to go somewhere. Kids that will do nothing else, but when they see the bus, they are totally ready to go.

As I said, once they get somewhere, it is a different story. My son Thomas, like many with ASD, likes things to stay consistent and the same…sort of. He also likes a certain degree of novelty, which going for a ride symbolizes. When he gets in the car, it means something new and exciting. So where are some places to go?

The park is a fairly easy choice, and has the virtue of being free. Thomas loves the swings and will sometimes go on the slide and climb some the equipment. He’s also getting more social, so likes playing and running around with other kids. Even tho it’s with mostly younger kids, he generally has a good time.

Movies are iffy. The first movie we saw was Finding Nemo which went over fairly well, except it was so loud. The next time we went to a theater, he refused to go into the place as it was so loud. The following outing was Polar Express which he definitely liked and loves the DVD to this day. So it’s hit and miss on those and this brings up something important. Just because something works once doesn’t mean it will always work and just because something doesn’t work, doesn’t mean it won’t later.

Jane bought season tickets to the Georgia Aquarium, the Coke museum, the Zoo, the High Museum and the Botanical Gardens. I know that the first time he went to each of those places, Thomas had issues of some sort. Sometimes he wasn’t into it, sometimes he didn’t pay attention and sometimes just wanted to get the heck out of there. But he eventually warmed up to all of these, and found things to like. One thing that I think helped was that after the first exposure, he was given a choice. He could go with his mother to one of these fun places or stay home with his dad and do stuff at home or in the garden. Most of the time he chooses to go with his mother.

Restricted interests are one of the cardinal features of ASD, but over time and with persistence, those interests can be expanded. I’m blogging live from a hotel somewhere in Illinois, as Thomas and I are going up to visit my parents. He is in for some new experiences, and he’s off to fine start. All the way up, he was pretty insistent that he wanted and cheeseburger and fries for dinner. I offered and teased with other choices, but that is wat he wanted and what he was stuck on, tho. I was fine with that, generally, as we are on vacation, afterall. But next to our hotel there was a Chinese buffet. I offered that as a choice and surprised me by accepting that as a good choice. Suddenly he was feeling adventurous.

His fist plate was noodles, onion rings and an eggroll I put on his plate. His second plate he got even more adventurous with some dishes having sweet and sour sauce which he later described as “amazing!” It was a breakthrough of sorts. He decided that trying new things was pretty neat. So we’ll see how the rest of the trip goes.

Sometimes you never can tell what our kids will pick up or what they are attending to. While Thomas often misses obvious things (like we don’t barge in on people in the toilet stall at rest area bathrooms) he picks up on other things like the friendly waiter at the Chinese restaurant who wanted to help him learn how to use chopsticks.

So what do you do if you’re a parent who wants to enrich your child but he/she doesn’t seem interested? I say continue to introduce various novel experiences and then make subsequent visits something that is more optional. After visiting several places of interest, offer choices. You might be surprised when they choose something that they previously didn’t have a lot of interest in. And then be prepared for them to fix and glom onto new things that you never expected. For Thomas, this happened when he went to the Georgia Aquarium and saw the Titanic exhibit. At first he didn’t really like it that much. Then he liked it. Then he really liked it. Then he really, really really liked it, that is he got obsessed with everything Titanic. He can tell you what time it went down, who the captain was, how many drowned and how many survived as well as the fate of the two sister ships. And he continues to obsess on it. You never can tell.

The splinterizing of attention and skills is another cardinal characteristic of ASD that is both fascinating and frustrating. It’s basically an adventure for the rest of us who don’t think or learn that way.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I’ve been on summer break for about a month. In less than a month, I’ll be heading back. I know that sounds crazy to you folks that just got out of school a week ago! I’m sure that in a decade or so, the feds will require all schools to run on the same calendar.

So I’m getting my mind wrapped around the idea of doing a 10th year with the SID/PID classroom. Not an easy thing, and for several weeks, I was headlong into denial/escape mode. Basically, I’ve been doing quite a lot of reading this past month. All of these books have been extensively reviewed, and they should be widely read. Here they are, with my short take:

Disrupting Class:How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. By Clayton Christensen Curtis Johnson and Mocheal B. Horn. Most of the books that I’ve been reading make the case that our method of education is outmoded and outdated. It has not essentially changed in 60-100 years. But now technology is making change possible, but in order for real change to occur it’s going to happen through the backdoor, which the authors describe as being deployed disruptively. Most change happens in areas of nonconsumption or where existing programs or technologies are not getting to. In education, that means drop-outs, or students that need to make up credit or have been kicked out of school or students who need courses not offered by their schools. This is primarily looking at making online education more universally available which is happening as several states have virtual schools, including Georgia. The authors do a good job of describing a process that is already underway. It’s a wothwhile read, but I can see it becoming really dated in a few years as online education becomes more ubiquitous.

The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner – In this book, the author describes how far behind U.S. schools are compared to other schools in the world, and how students are not being taught the skills they need in the modern world. Basically, the current system isn’t training kids for work, or for college or for basic U.S. citizenship. After he get through describing the shortcomings of the best schools in the country, you begin to wonder, “What are public schools even good for?” It is deeply disturbing in a lot of ways and gives a lot of food for thought. According to Wagner, the skills needed are the seven suvival skills. The seven survival skills are critical thinking and problem solving; collaboration across networks and leading by influence; agility and adaptability; initiative and entrepreneurship; effective oral and written communication; accessing and analyzing information; and curiosity and imagination. Copies of this book are going to some influential people I know.

Two Million Minutes by Bob Compton. Okay, this isn’t a book, it’s a documentary. Yes, I actually ordered the D VD after watching the Youtube videos. He made a documentary following 2 students from the U.S., India and China and compared their educational practices, attitudes and habits. Like Tony Wagner, Compton points out that there are serious problems with U.S. education compared to just two of our biggest competitors. While Compton’s videos are disturbing they do not go into the source of our ills as much as Wagner’s book. While the DVD might be a worthwhile purchase for a school district, I think Compton’s Youtube channel gets the message across handily enough for most individuals. You could send it to your legislator!

Why Don’t Students Like School? by Daniel Willingham. I’m about half way through this book, and Willingham chops and cuts and slices and dices through a lot of cherished beliefs teachers have about learning styles and learning modalities. As a cognative scientist, his specialty is learning and memory. His basic premise is that 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking are fine, but students actually need to have content to think about and background knowledge to draw from in solving problems. Students don’t like school, mostly because humans are designed and setup to not think or at least keep thinking to a minimum. It takes a lot of work and effort to think, so teachers have to devise strategies to make thinking less burdensome and less painful. Out of all the materials I’ve looked at and read so far, Willingham’s book has the widest application for teachers, parents and even students. Unlike the above books/movies, Willingham’s book does have relevance for the kids that I’ll be teaching, no matter who they are or what age or grade level. Basically, cognitive scientists have done a lot of research on how we remember things and how we go about applying the knowledge we learn. So until I picked this book up, I was looking more at broader policies that will change how education is done, but this will influence how I look at teaching and learning on a day-to-day level. I’m already working on an online course that I might try to offer in the fall using this book, thus applying all of the concepts I’ve been reading about. Take a look at his videos for some quick learning. His video on merit pay alone is worth the time.

I also spent a considerable amount of time attending various webinars on the Web 2.0 comunity. These are good ways to get some knowledge without burning up a lot of time or having to travel. Steve Hargodon is into all sorts of nifty collaborative efforts, including the recently held EduBloggercon. My goal is to be able to make one of those one day. I also want to get a video up to contribute to the PBS Frontline project they have going on. And in it, I’m going to document a conversation I had with a couple of administrators last fall about my educational videos.

So the first part of my summer was devoted to a lot of thinking about education, technology and learning and most of it doesn’t apply much to the job I’m getting ready to mark a decade of doing. But my mind is shifting a bit back. Plus, my oldest son and I are gearing up for an adventure together traveling across several states together next week. I might blog that a bit. Once we get back from our trip, the preparations for school starts in earnest as I’ll have less than 10 days before preplanning!

Stay Cool!