Dr. Seuss Day

After several years of covering Dr. Seuss Day (officially, Read Across America Day) when I was with the paper, it was a real joy to get asked to be the Cat in the Hat and read to the preschoolers and all the Mancos elementary classes yesterday! (Did you know the Cat in the Hat is 51 years old? He was introduced in 1957.)

I guess there's enough ham in me that getting to read Dr. Seuss books to dozens of kids at a time was a lot of fun ... and we had green eggs and ham in the cafeteria at lunch, along with a specially decorated sheet cake. 

What a joyful day of reading for the youngsters! The nonsense words and silly rhyming make the Seuss books a joy for the kids, and many of them were able to recite Green Eggs and Ham along with me as I read it aloud. (A teacher pointed out that there are only 50 different words in that book!) I even got to read a couple of Dr. Seuss books I had never read before!

At the other end of the day, at the SWOS Accountability Committee meeting, I got to help record survey forms our SWOS students had filled out (their anonymity is protected through a closely-held numbering system; I had no idea who had completed a given survey).  As I looked at the numbers of kids who had been suspended from school in the past (nearly all, and usually more than once) and the numbers who had personally been busted for alcohol or drug use (and, even more surprising, the numbers who reported their parents had been busted for drug/alcohol infractions or for gang activities [that one really surprised me! Yes, Virginia, there is gang activity in SW Colorado!]), I couldn't help wondering what lies ahead for all those smiling little faces I was surrounded with earlier in the day.

I also heard last night that we anticipate 16 young men and women graduating from SWOS this spring, up from about 10 last year. Six have been accepted to enter Fort Lewis College; don't know about other schools. All of them, we hope, have learned enough about the Three Rs ... and about personal Responsibility ... to be functioning, productive, contributing members of their communities after they leave SWOS. 

One day at a time; one kid at a time. TV