On the night of the show, my wife there to comfort me and take me to the hospital if required, my 5 minutes of fame came directly after the intermission.  I made a corny joke about having just bought extra life insurance as the magician had me stretch out on a flat table.

Then he put two boards in place across my belly, so I looked like i was in the middle of a bagel cutter.  He used a crossbow saw to slice down between the two boards so it looked to the audience like I got cut in half.  Then the boards were removed, I stood up, and the crossbow saw was encircling my stomach.  He lifted it over my head to great applause (probably because I was safe since no-one likes to see a superintendent hurt).  He asked if I was okay.  I said it was easier than a Board meeting.

When I got back to my seat, my wife asked how he did it.  I didn’t see a thing so said that I didn’t know.

They raised over a thousand dollars.  I wonder how he did that though.

Cause and effect tells me that graduation ceremonies are always 2.5 hours regardless of the number graduating.  Good topic for a masters thesis.  What length of ceremony is most appropriate?  There seems to be a right answer.  I wonder why?  Unless it is related to length of time a bum can sit in a chair in an audience :)))))

Hey, it’s the weekend:)

There were no requests for budget reductions.

We should be in relatively good shape as we are in funding protection due to our enrollment decline.  Things are quite tight though because our teacher costs are increasing due to the implementation on new harmonized salary grids.  We will work through the wishlist with the guidance of the trustees and come back with some analysis and possibilities.  Sounds like our work is cut out for us for the next little while.

The parents who made a presentation to the Board advocated for keeping their small open by making it a one-room school with K - 7 students.  Their pleas were emotional and straight from the heart.  They offered to fundraise and seek donations to support the school.  But with the school so close to another school, trustees did not see how fundraising on a yearly basis was a truly viable proposition.  The debate lasted for an hour as trustees went over the merits of the school, the demographics of the area, the financial implications.  When the question was called, the final vote was 7 - 2 to close the school.  School closure is never easy, but sometimes is necessary.  Those are hard meetings to attend though.

An hour later, I was at the Prince Charles Secondary School theatre where the annual Focus on Youth event was being held.  It is a non-competitive festival celebrating student performances in the fine arts.  I was the emcee.  The audience had to put up with cheap one-liners and corny jokes between performances that were outstanding.  There was highland dancing, singing from “Les Mis” and “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Phantom of the Opera,” piano and violin.  Truly outstanding talent. 

After that, it was an almost two-hour drive through an unexpected late spring snow storm in the mountain pass.  Thank goodness for satellite radio.

After the assembly students were encouraged to wear a Poppy for the rest of the day.  The students were also encouraged to attend the civic ceremony at the local cenotaph on Saturday.  All in all a very well-done assembly. 

Our superintendents’ association held a meeting on September 29th in Vancouver.  The day focused on planning for the association.    I came back from that and we had a Board meeting on the Tuesday.  The next big task for the week was the hiring process for our new secretary treasurer.   We had solid candidates apply and the Board selected a new ST who had previous experience in another school district.  That led to the Thanksgiving weekend and we had a houseful with the kids coming home from the coast. 

On Wednesday of the next week, I headed to Cranbrook for a meeting with the Deputy Minister of Education and our fellow district staff members in the East and West Kootenays.  Interviews for a new district staff internship program started off the next Monday and Tuesday was a principals meeting.  On Wednesday, I flew to Vancouver for a meeting of the BC Public School Employers Association.  They hosted a number of workshops which were quite good.  One of them focused on computer files and how, even when you erase them, they are not gone.

I rounded off the month with another trip to the coast to chair the meeting of the Distance Education Advisory Committee.  The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how new Ministry funding guidelines were affecting schools which offered courses through distributed learning.  The changes give the schools funding by course for students in Grades 10 - 12.  However, the funding does not kick in until the student submits work for marks.  So a lot of effort goes into registering students, etc and many dollars go out in educational resources before revenue comes in.  Schools are nervous about their budgets as it is so hard to predict the enrollment.

We will see what November brings, but I’ve only got one trip scheduled at this time.  So we will see.