I attended my first Goldfine Gold Star Teacher Award ceremony last night. It was billed as an ice cream social and plenty of the cold stuff was dished out afterwards in the East High School Commons. It provided six principals a fine opportunity to extol the virtues of some of the best teachers in their school buildings.
Aaron O’Leary was this year’s recipient but all six teachers got wonderful endorsements from their building principals. O’Leary was refreshingly enthusiastic and ebullient. He said nice things about his building principal Brenda Vatthauer who is one of many great hires of recent years in a community of principals that is undergoing rather a lot of retirements. I think five principals are retiring this year so there will be lots of interviewing as the summer moves along.
I sat in the back of the auditorium which meant I was one of the first in line for ice cream afterward. I caught a little grief from a few friends who found themselves in a rather long line. Steve Goldfine was there and I finally passed along his offer to the Superintendent to help market the Central Sale site. I’d held off sharing this information while I still had hopes that we might be persuaded to sell the building to Tischer Creek. Steve hadn’t waited for me so the Superintendent was aware of his offer. I joked that Steve might want to turn it into a waterpark and that if so, we could expect some really excellent water slides.
Among the most spirited endorsements was Denfeld principal, Tonia Sconiers’s rave review of her teacher, Michele Helbacka. I see Michelle at every Denfeld Graduation organizing in the background and the foreground. She’s not a shrinking violet and Tonia said Michele’s son-in-law said Michele reminded him of Mrs. Doubtfire which got a laugh from the audience and an eye roll from Michelle. In the line for ice cream I discovered the son-in-law was one of the church kids I shepherded on Summer mission trips.
Tonia invited me to visit Denfeld again and I confessed I’d failed to stop by this year. I’ve been interested in the noontime Win program which gives students a chance to investigate subjects of interest in a less formal manner than a traditional classroom. Tonia also straightened me out correcting a correction I’d made a few weeks back in the blog. I’d initially mentioned that Rep. Simonson would be travelling to St. Louis with Principal Sconiers to watch their Robotics team in competition. I then got the word that her traveling companion would be the Activities Director Tom Pearson and made the correction. I can now report a new correction straight from Ms. Sconiers. Her traveling companion was her assistant principal, Jim Erickson. As they say, the third time’s the charm. Go Hunters. Tonia told me to call her any time I had any questions. That’s probably too much work for me. I mostly report gibberish.
