August 24th
By Nancy Oelklaus, Ed. D.

Beginning a new school year is a big deal in any city in the U.S. After all, the education system is one of the largest enterprises in any community, full of children and adults who learn and teach there, each one with “fingers” that reach throughout the entire area. When school begins a new year, it affects all of us.

Traffic picks up; store specials emphasize the season of new beginnings. People are moving on to the next level and usually excited about it.

Vividly I remember my first year out of teaching. I had moved to the central administration building. Though excited about my new work, I missed the new beginning feeling.

At the beginning of a new school year, I would have spent some time during the summer learning from the end-of-course evaluations. I would had incorporated students’ good ideas and even considered the impractical ones. I would have made the course better from our collective previous experiences. From year to year, I didn’t carry over any guilt; I truly gave myself a fresh start.

So this morning, with the sounds of the high school band wafting across the walking trail, I pledged to let today be a new beginning. I decide to forgive the mistakes from the past that I’m aware of and create a new series of daily lesson plans derived from what I’ve learned.

It’s a new school year.