End of the Year Reflections

The end of the school year is always filled with lots of emotions. There is the stress of trying to finalize schedule conflicts and deal with failures, excitement for graduating seniors and all that is ahead of them, sadness to say goodbye to students (both those leaving for just the summer and seniors who are leaving WKHS for good), and relief to make it to slower days of summer where sleeping in becomes the norm.

Two weeks ago today was Kilbourne's graduation ceremony and it was a great day celebrating the students in the Class of 2025. But personally, it also ended up being a really special day for me too. I was surprised to be one of the staff members inducted into the Kilbourne Hall of Fame. I am not trying to make the seniors graduation day and celebration be about me, but I have to acknowledge how much this meant to me. There are so many teachers, along with many of my former students, who have been selected for the Hall of Fame and I admire and respect each of them more than I can express. They are truly the best at making a difference and so, to me, the concept that I would be among these other incredible people is simply indescribable. I don't know that I am actually worthy of this recognition, but I know that it certainly filled my heart.

The end of this school year was also different because for the first time in 19 years, I had to pack up my office to move. As you are aware, the construction on the 2nd floor is now complete, but the first floor is far from done. The administrative and counseling center area is going to flip locations with the library which means that my office will no longer be my office. I have to admit, this made me really sad. My office is where I have so many memories with so many students from all of the years. My office was our shared safe space to talk about the good and the bad. As I worked on boxing everything up I also knew that I needed to go through files and purge away stuff I no longer needed. One of those files ended up coming home with me to my "keep forever box." I had cards, notes, and even print outs of emails from literally the first month of working in Worthington (which, by the way, was before all of my students were even born!) and reading through these notes was so fun and helped me to remember that the connection I have had with students and their families throughout the years is bigger than just the space of my office. And, once again, it filled my heart with so much love and gratitude.

So even though the end of each school year is always filled with lots of emotion - this one has been special and different. My heart is full, my emotions are definitely at the surface, and my gratitude for each student and family that I have had the honor of working with is without measure.