It’s been a fairly hellish summer.
Not with the family, as Holly and the kids are fine. Work’s good too, if busy. No, I managed to get myself into another job.
Holly and I somehow manage to get the shaft any time we try to help people out. A year or so ago, Holly agreed to serve on the board of a Mom’s club as well as her sorority’s UNC chapter advisory board, at which point everyone above her promptly quit and left her holding the bag on both. She was pregnant with Kate at the time, so that was hassle she did not need, and it took her months to get everything straight. After that, she said “Never serve on a board again.”
I didn’t listen to her. At the end of the spring, when Hayley’s preschool was running elections, I somehow thought it would be a good idea to volunteer to be board president. How bad could it be? It was a great preschool, two teachers, a new site on the way. Well, I quickly found out how bad it could be, when the new site fell through and both teachers quit right after the school year ended. So I got stuck with a preschool with no teachers and no building.
The parents were insistent that one teacher in particular return, so I spent lots of time trying to talk to her on the phone during her European vacation to get her to come back. All the while, as her return was unclear, parents were dropping out left and right. I finally did get the teacher to agree to return for the 2007-2008 school year, but by the time she committed, we were down to around 7 kids. Then the teacher made some more demands and wanted to reconsider, and we dropped to 4 kids. Finally, a week or so ago, she decided that she really did want to retire.
Fortunately, I had been working on a backup plan, and managed to find a great teacher willing to step in and teach, along with a very enthusiastic assistant. And I managed to get us another half-year in our current building, and one of our parents has a great lead on long-term space. So on the whole, aside from the enrollment, things are finally looking up. There’s a great teacher with some awesome ideas, a lower time crunch on finding new space, and an amazing lead on land we could use for years to come. The biggest pain was that while the old teacher was hemming and hawing about her decision, we lost a ton of kids. Now we’re set as far as plans go, but the enrollment has suffered.
So that’s been my summer, pretty much. Living with a constant stomachache as I try to keep things in line until things are set to move forward. And they are now, which is good, but I’m still suffering the after-effects. Without the help of a couple of parents who have really done a ton to help, I don’t know if we’d have made it through.
So the lesson is: “Don’t volunteer for boards.” I’ll remember that next time, Holly.