July 11, 2009

I haven’t written for this site in months – haven’t looked at it – haven’t mentioned it to anyone. I could barely remember my password to post this entry.

I’ve been absorbed in writing an application for a charter elementary school and the accompanying federal grant that will provide funds to assist in planning and implementation. The charter committee got their ideas together in early February and asked me to join them later that month. I was completely willing – their ideas meshed so beautifully with mine. I got a late start writing in late February and all the work was due by May 1.

I’ve done parts of applications before and I’ve had a $200,000 federal grant funded. But I’ve never tackled anything of this magnitude largely on my own. As we submitted revisions, I had tremendous help from the committee, the loveliest and most talented group of people I have ever worked with. I hope to count them as friends for the rest of my life.

Unbelievably, we are a one hour hearing away from full approval. We really have gotten through the roughest obstacles and should know the end results by mid-August.

The grant will bring $700,000 to the school over three years in addition to the per pupil funds that will flow from the state. One of my life goals was to put a million dollars to work. I wrote that one in my early thirties when a million dollars would do a great many things it won’t do now, but I never really thought I would see it done. Classroom teachers rarely get to see that done.

Now, I am caught up in such a mania of emotional and physical response to our apparent success. Pride. Exhaustion. Disconnect with daily activities with my husband and friends. Disgust at my dirty house. Wondering what I overlooked. And the bizarre sense that it is over. My part is over.

That’ necessary due to a conflict of interest that now exists with other responsibilities I have accepted since February. I’ll be there on the day the school opens, if they invite me. But, from this day forward, it is their school.

Once again, like the last day of school with so many children in so many years of teaching, I’m handing the baby back to the ones who gave it birth. I haven’t felt these pangs since I left the classroom and even then they were dulled by the number of times I had experienced them over the years. Not easier, just familiar. I’d have my five minute cry on the way home and look forward to the things I would do with my own children over the summer.

The years since my retirement in 2000 have stripped away the diversions I used to cope with that kind of separation. It’s anguishing. And I think I want to experience it this time.