Sean Gillies (Posts about school)

School open house night part 2

Sean Gillies — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 05:11:25 GMT

Whew! Another long school open house evening in the books. Bea and I spent 2 hours at one of the middle schools we're considering. It's her first choice because of friends. I know two teachers there, but I'd never been in the building before.

There's an LGBTQIA+ organization at the school and a very fun and smart group of kids representing it with a table and poster in the school gym right next to Science Olympiad and Chess Club. Fully supported by the staff as far as I could tell. Fort Collins is a bit behind the curve, but seems to be catching up.

The 6th grade Language Arts (English, we used to say) teachers are trying some new stuff that seems cool and very likely to engage my daughter. They are teaching as a team in a combined classroom. Lectures are out. Discussion and role-playing are in.

I was ambivalent about this school going in, but the staff impressed me. I'm glad I went.

Another highlight is that dinner was made for us while we were out. One of our family's standard easy dinners is pasta with a vegetable like cauliflower, potatoes, or green beans – blanched in the same pot – tossed with pesto. Arabelle nailed it.

Champagne Vent White Smokers

Sean Gillies — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 04:28:33 GMT

Friday I was bragging about what an awesomely agile and zen dad I am, but today I am deeply toasted from a non-stop day of shuttling, cooking, cleaning, and swatting the worst software bugs. We're deep in the season of extra orchestra and dance rehearsals, school fundraising events, and fiddle and guitar recitals. Tomorrow, my youngest's elementary school is having its annual "Spaghetti Dinner" and Book Fair. It could be fun, but they forgot to check my schedule: we've already got French lesson and swimming lessons happening at the same time and I haven't yet installed the app that Bea's guitar teacher wants me to get for her and there are all these quality reports for work that I can't seem to get to during the day. Thanks for allowing me to vent.

Back-to-School Night

Sean Gillies — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 23:00:07 GMT

On day 12 of my 15 day stint of solo parenting, I'm heading out to get some tacos before an epic 2-1/2 hour back-to-middle-school night. Ruth did this last year and now it's my turn. I'm going to ride my bike to middle school, just like I did in 1981 when I was in 7th grade.

Update: back-to-school night was interesting and fun. I was pleasantly surprised. I support and admire public school teachers by default, and was extra impressed by Arabelle's teachers. She's going to learn and grow so much this year.

Back to School

Sean Gillies — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 11:46:22 GMT

It's 5:46 a.m. Mountain Time and my kids and I are wide awake and getting ready for their first day of school and my first day back in the pixel mines. Jetlag (décalage horaire, in French) is a funny thing. I expect we'll be crashing from exhaustation early this evening. Still, it feels good to be home!

Today is day 6 of a 14 day adventure in solo parenting and there's a lot of back-to-school and fall dance and soccer club onboarding to be done. I won't be doing a lot of open source stuff this weekend or next week, so bear with me if you mention me on GitHub and don't hear back promptly.