An amazing day!

Today was the first day of our yearly middle school tours here at Career Center East. My mind was blown today when we had the first two schools come to visit. In the morning, we had Downing Middle School which feeds into Marcus High School, and Creek Valley Middle School which feeds into Hebron High School. We had our CCE designers greet the students and spend some time with each of them, and then we offered brochures and asked the students to sign an interest list if they felt that our class might be a good fit for them. There were 38 Downing students that signed the list in the morning, but there were a whopping 90 from Creek Valley who signed! In just one day, we have over 120 students who have shown interest in the class. That is amazing, especially considering that 120 is the maximum enrollment that we can handle here at CCE during the course of one school year! And we got that in one short day!

It really makes me excited to see what happens the rest of this week when we host Briarhill (MHS feeder), Lakeview (TCHS feeder), Arbor Creek (HHS feeder), Lamar (MHS feeder), and Griffin (TCHS feeder). By all practical purposes, we should be able to add another 100 per day, which means that we will have over 500 potential new students on a list within the end of this week. Wow! Maybe we will benefit from this and maybe we can expand our course offerings here and even offer some more on the other side of the district - at a new DJCC! That would be great. I doubt that I will be teaching for more than about 6-7 more years, but it will benefit the teacher that comes in after me greatly for us to recruit all of these new students.

In other news, my students continue to crack me up. They are such a social bunch of kids, and a few of them are really funny. They keep me laughing up until I leave every day! I've been happy to say that I have gotten to know many of them very well this semester, and they really seem to have a strong interest in design and art, but are also fun and well rounded students. I have always said that I feel lucky to be able to teach such a diverse and interesting group of individuals, and every day that I am here convinces me even more of that.

Carpe Diem!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The happiness train is back on track today!

Image
Ahh. Like a breath of fresh air, my mood is back to usual today. I don't like feeling down in the dumps. The happy train is back in the station, and boy is that a relief. What can you do to elevate your mood when you are feeling glum? Sometimes stress can actually cause you to feel sick. If you have a lot of stress, I have come up with some very simple ways to feel instantly better. These work for me, they may not for you - but if these don't work, there are probably some that are just as easy to accomplish that would work great. Really, all you have to do is ask one question. If someone looked at you and said, "Hey, tomorrow there will be no jobs that you have to get done, no chores, and no one is depending on you at all. You can do whatever you want to do for one 24 hour period, just because you want to do them." If someone gave you that permission, what would you choose to do? I have a few... I would take a long, relaxing bath. I would go to a florist with
Read more

A new topic...Mark has been facing a new challenge.

Image
Just for the eyes of our family: the challenge of prostate cancer. Since the beginning of May, last spring, Mark has earned so much respect from me. He has bravely faced his diagnosis of prostate cancer. He had surgery in July, and now in August, he is recovering from that. I am so proud of how he is dealing with the whole thing. He (thankfully) seems to have caught it early, thanks to his regular yearly physical. His PSA was slightly elevated and his biopsy came back showing cancer in four of twelve cores in his prostate. He had the option of radiation or surgery, and he opted for surgery. We are now post-surgery by exactly one month, so I can report good progress at this point. We have a follow-up appointment coming up soon, and are hopeful that the reports are good. Since I have not discussed it since the diagnosis and surgery, I felt that I should start the dialog here. He is being so proactive and is working hard to do everything he can to get past it all. His diet has flip
Read more

Conner keeps hitting them out of the park!

Sometimes people just get on creative hot streaks, and Conner seems to be on one right now. First he created a new logo for the Dale Jackson Career Center. Then he created an awesome motion graphics typography-based piece in After Effects. Then, when asked to create a new logo for the Career Center East, he created a unique and professional logo AGAIN! Conner, we are proud of what you do every day in terms of your relationships with your classmates and your high standards, but now you also deserve serious respect for your professionalism as well. We are very honored to have a talent like yours in our studio every day. Conner designed this motion piece in After Effects that features the logo design that he created in animated form. The logo is a symbolic representation of a pathway to the top of the earth. The slogan is "Paving the Way" and it is capitalizing on the switch to "career pathways" that we are using in Career and T
Read more