A Memorable Day

During my years as principal, I had many teachers or staff members that were expecting. Elementary teachers are in general younger than middle and high school teachers for some reason and are starting their families. Probably three teachers per year were on maternity leave on average in the elementary.

Being young, these young expecting teachers had not built up many sick days for maternity leave. They often would work up to the very last minute. I had a teacher who had four children in five years! Fortunately, they did not deliver in their classrooms, but it almost happened! A kindergarten teacher had recess duty. She was approximately two weeks away from her due date. One fall day in October, she came in from the playground with a stricken look on her face and told me she thought her water broke! As it turned out, it did! The hospital was five minutes away from our school, so I told someone to get her purse and that I was going to take her to the hospital and stay until her husband arrived. She protested at first but then agreed when I brought out the large garbage bag to put on the short ride to the hospital! We have a bond to this day even though she moved to another school because of her husband’s job. The little boy is now starting kindergarten. Time flies!

Later…