Emails have become extra work in this modern day of education. There was a time when the principal got all of the information from the district and anyone else and synthesize what we needed to know. They would make a weekly or daily bulletin that we all read. Now emails are just forwarded and often they are sent to everyone when only a few are impacted. We now receive bulletins via email weekly. My favorite thing to see is the person who still prints it out. There seems to be the idea that it isn’t permanent unless it is a hard copy. Another joy of teaching is “Reply to All” people. You know who you are. I am amazed at the responses. I don’t really care that you can’t complete something because you have a sick hamster! Every now and then something slips through that is actually important. I would sift through emails sent to me by my assistant principal. One day I discovered an email about something called CyberPatriot and that it was a cybersecurity competition. I was familiar with web design, desktop publishing, and multimedia but had no experience with cybersecurity. Since I am one who always seems to raise his hand, I said I would take this on. It was from the Air Force Association and the email came from our superintendent who was a retired Air Force general.
Assembling a team for something I don’t know anything about is a large hill to climb. Kids would ask what it was and I would stammer and get out the paper that described it. From the very humble beginning of 7 kids, we built a program that has been running for 13 years. It has become a part of the culture at Rangeview. This is a program that I will miss in retirement. It has given me long hours, long nights, and 2 trips to Washington DC. Over the next few days, I will go through some stories about my group over the years. I would start now but I have emails to answer!