BY KAREN VAN EGMOND, ACS PARENT I’m currently working on my Masters in Education. People ask me why, and I’m at the point where I’m asking myself that same question. Let me tell you, if it was easy, everyone would do it. In addition to the coursework, I have to come up with a project [...]
BY CARRIE LOCKWOOD, GRADE 7 TEACHER As if bragging, my Dad claimed that he got the strap 27 times in grade 7. I do wonder what he was doing that was so bad as to warrant such punishment. Fast forward 75 years. I have been supporting Mrs. Barthel in band class. This one particular class [...]
BY LAURA VAN MAREN, ACS PARENT It was the first day of school in a brand new place. We all had a wonderful relaxing summer, while trying to prepare the kids for a new school. We talked about the new school, met a family from the school, and toured the school. The older kids had [...]
My daughter came to me last November and said, “Dad, a co-worker in the ER wants me to join CrossFit; do you want to take the three week Foundations Class with me?” “Does it involve strenuous exercise and pain?” I asked. “No, thanks.” She finished three weeks of training and couldn’t stop talking about the [...]
BY TRACY RAHN, ACS PARENT I didn’t expect to start my Saturday morning off by being jolted out of bed at 7:30 am to dive headfirst into a discussion about defusing bombs. But here we are. To be clear, the subject matter at hand was actually how to defuse a situation with our words, but [...]
BY NICOLA HEIDEBRECHT, SECONDARY FRENCH TEACHER I am known to most students as “Madame H.” I’ve been the French teacher at ACS Secondary since September 2017. It’s somewhat ironic that this past fall, I was asked to submit a story for the January blog. At the time, I had no idea life would take a [...]
BY JACQUELINE BUSINK, ACS PARENT I am a mom of 2 middle school kids; my daughter is in grade 6 and my son is in grade 7, putting us right in the thick of middle school. Over their school years, we’ve endured some rather interesting trends! Our kids find joy in all kinds of strange [...]
BY KARIN RIEMER, ELEMENTARY VICE PRINCIPAL AND UPPER PRIMARY TEACHER I’m married to a chef. My husband can make food so scrumptious, it yells, “Eat me!” He treats food like art. Even finishing salt gets sprinkled on by hand, with a flourish, while leaning in closely to the plate. Gary can look in the fridge and [...]
BY: EDGAR RIVERA, BUS DRIVER When I was a kid in Guatemala, my friends and I used to go to a candy manufacturing plant. For just a few pennies we would receive a huge block or bag of chocolate, mints or whatever they were processing at that moment. Broken or incomplete marshmallows and cookies were [...]
Last spring, my Mom was diagnosed with untreatable cancer. In that moment, our family felt a sense of sad apprehension, like storm clouds gathering in the distance on a sunny day. We suddenly had to come to grips with the fact that a part of our story with Mom was coming to an end. We [...]
