And the blows just kept coming!

This week could have been better.

The district that both Dan and I work in is facing huge budget deficits as most districts in the state of Illinois due to the extremely inadequate way our state has elected to fund education. And since those of us who live in Illinois know, the state has zero money, it has been defaulting on all the money that it had promised to the school districts to fund such unimportant things like READING and EARLY CHILDHOOD.

So everyday we have been hearing about more and more programs that will need to get cut, many pure rumor, but since no decisions have been officially made people have begun speculating and worrying. Why, might you ask is this MY problem? We since I am one of the co-presidents of our teacher's union, I get to deal with the questions and concerns. And in periods of frustration and worry, EVERYTHING becomes a major problem that must be dealt with immediately-like we don't have actual teaching jobs or families of our own! Since I have become co-president I have to admit I am shocked at how many people cannot communicate! Most of the problems that we get brought to (almost daily) can be solved with a bit of communication, but NOOOOO, that would be too easy. So needless to say I have been kept quite busy with emails and phone calls and meetings for the past few weeks.

But the worst news of all came to us Friday morning. As I was dropping Megan off at the house of the family we carpool with, Mrs. B told me that it was official, they were closing St. Mary's at the end of this school year. I missed the call the night before (dealing with aforementioned issues) so it was such a shock. I got back into my car and halfway to work I had to pull over because the crying took over. I cried on and off for a big part of the day.

My heart felt broken. It still is. St. Mary's began as a convenience for our family, but grew in the short time we have been there to part of our family. It feels like we have just lost a family member, and we are grieving.