School Stories III

I honestly have no recall about how I went from a teacher's aide to professional staff at the Crete-Monee school district.  I think the Asst. Supt. liked me, for some reason, and offered me a position as Media Center Director at another district school (Balmoral).  Since it was available at teacher pay and would count for retirement, I took it.  I had no college paperwork for library science, but (at that time) none was required.  What I DID have was certification to teach grades 6-12.  The building I was assigned to was K-6.  It required that I take more college courses to get certified.  I did that through Governor's State University, local to the area.  I think I had to take a music course and a math course.  Yeah...lots of fun!

I had one aide to help me administer media services.  She was a no-nonsense gal named Pat (who reminds me a lot of my current housekeeper) who followed me around, picking up after me.  (In retrospect, I wonder what she must have thought of me.  I was getting credit for MY ideas that SHE made happen.)  She had a green thumb.  She brought wonderful pots of begonias and impatiens and other goodies to grace the top of our bookshelves, which gave me the idea to make an island of lovely plants for the middle of the center.

I had a budget.  I bought a kids' swimming pool, filled it with bark, put a couple of tree stumps of different sizes in it, then bought trees and plants (at a discount, all) to put on the stumps and in the pool.  The administration loved it.  (So did I!)

I also started a program at the school where the teachers didn't have to come to us to get AV equipment.  They submitted a request, and we brought it to them, when needed.  I know how simple that sounds, but in those days, the teachers thought they'd died and gone to Heaven.  Sometimes, I would have to go to a classroom to replace a blown light bulb.  The teachers thought I was an angel.  (Know what?  I didn't know any better than they did about how to change an AV light bulb, but I wasn't afraid to try.  Then, too, I didn't have a class of kids waiting for me to make something work.)

1.  We had a 13% bilingual population at that school (migrant workers from the local Balmoral Race Track).  It was both a blessing and a curse.  Our Bilingual Program was considered a model in the state because we included both Spanish-speaking and non-Spanish-speaking kids, as requested, in the program.  Interestingly, the parents of the bilingual students objected to the teachers because they were Cuban and not Mexican.  Then, too, our district Superintendent essentially lost his job because, when challenged in an open school board meeting about low test scores, he claimed that the Hispanic population was dragging test scores down.  Obviously was not well-received.

2. One interesting story in that location had to do with a first grader who had borrowed a library book, then urinated on it in the bathroom.  His Spec. Ed. teacher (who was a friend of mine) told me it was just his way of saying "Piss on reading".

3.  I guess I made a positive name for myself in this position because the Asst. Supt. proposed to put me in charge of the Media Center remodel at Crete Elementary School.  The whole school was being renovated.  I was to be given $150,000 to update the Media Center (library) and given the time off from teaching to develop it.  (Doesn't seem like much by today's standards, but was then...mid-70s.)  I was to be "grandfathered in" to the position without library science paperwork. 

4.  It was in this position that I met my future husband--before the Crete School renovation.  The rest is history.