A Year to Remember
This has certainly been a school year to remember.
This past July, I was cast in a local production of Cabaret. The performances were scheduled for early October, so I knew from the start that I’d be entering one of the most challenging parts of the rehearsal process right as the school year started. I thought I could handle it. Instead, this turned into one of those productions with more drama offstage than on, to the point that we weren’t entirely sure we’d even be able to move forward with performances. I seriously considered walking away from the thing; life was crazy enough without this. In the end, I stuck it out. We performed as scheduled. The show was a hit.
I returned to work in August under a haze of smoke from a truly massive wildfire (162,000 acres) about 40 miles northwest of Seward. The wind patterns of the peninsula pushed much of that smoke our direction, causing the area around town to look like something out of a disaster movie. You couldn’t see more than 40-50 feet in any direction, and everything smelled like smoke. Everyone at the schools would keep an eye on air quality index, because that all-important number would determine if the elementary school could have outside recess and if sports teams could practice. Other communities teetered on the edge of evacuation for weeks, and were frequently cut off from Anchorage as the fire burned near the highway. It wasn’t until the very last days of August that the normal rains returned, washing the smoke out of the air and finally helping bring the fire under control.
Simultaneous with the above, the school year also began under a figurative haze, as the district and the teacher & support staff unions were still fighting over the terms of a new negotiated agreement. Things reached the point where we seriously thought there would be a strike. Literally hours before said strike would have started, an agreement was reached; instead of a day of no school, we simply had a two-hour delay.
On top of all of that, my job this year changed slightly. Last year, I effectively taught general music to students at both the elementary and the middle schools. My elementary kiddos covered the usual variety of topics found in such classes. Topics at the school varied a little based on grade level and how long I had the class; the seventh grade groups saw me for a full quarter (9 weeks), while the sixth grade groups saw me for only half that (4-ish weeks). I didn’t see the eighth grade at all. Sixth graders learned to play the recorder, seventh grade learned about singing and how to play guitar. Both groups received instruction in reading music and listening. This year, my new principal wanted to bring back band, a program that hasn’t existed in these schools for over a decade. For a variety of reasons, we didn’t get to have a good conversation about this until early August, so I spent most of that month running in ten million different directions as I figured out the logistics for this. I also had to contend with a new block schedule at the middle school, and dissuading my principal from making band a requirement for the entire sixth grade. In the end, mine was not the only elective that met for half a block, and my principal and I compromised: I directed a sixth grade choir, which was mandatory, but band was open to any student in grades 6-8 who wanted to participate.
After those crazy first couple of months, things calmed down. As I said, the fire was eventually controlled and extinguished. The strike didn’t happen, the show went on. We finally got a workable schedule going at the middle school, and the band began to make serious progress. Choir was a bit of a chore; “mandatory for all sixth grade” meant I had all 50 of them in the music space every day, and some of them most emphatically did not want to be there. Still, most of them at least tried. Outside of school, I kept busy with Community Band and Pride Alliance. I quietly celebrated ten years on T. Friends and I got together frequently; one of my favorite new routines revolved around getting together with Kira each week to watch the latests episodes of Supergirl and Batwoman. In late October, I moved to a new apartment. The new place is a vast improvement over the old: Double the square footage, above ground (my old place was half dug into a hillside), lots of windows with amazing views of the mountains, a deck, and a garage for my car. I hosted Thanksgiving this year, and we comfortably fit the ten of us around my new dining room table, laughing and having a great time.
December brought the usual concert season insanity. The kids at the elementary school worked like crazy on their pieces for the performance. I was especially proud of the fifth graders who used what they had learned during the semester about reading music to play “Jingle Bells” on xylophones and glockenspiels. The other fifth grade class decided to rewrite “The 12 Days of Christmas” with Alaskan gifts, and even though they made a few mistakes during the performance the audience still loved it. The middle school concert went better than I’d hoped. The sixth graders pulled off a good performance of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “A Million Dreams”. The band did a phenomenal job, playing several unison pieces and a band arrangement of “Jingle Bells”. I also enjoyed listening to the guitar/ukulele ensemble my coworker had overseen.
The holiday break was a welcome reprieve from the insanity of the first semester. I went back to my hometown for a visit, and felt a lot better when I returned to Seward. This semester, I thought, would be a breeze.
January passed quick and cold, the coldest I’ve been since moving away from Nunap. Snow fell often, and high winds frequently pulled temperatures down below zero. School picked up where we had left off, and outside of the classroom I began working as a board member for both Pride Alliance and the local theatre group. Related to that last item, I started having meetings with the production team for our spring show, which I would be directing. I even got in a couple of days of skiing.
Unfortunately, January also brought the news that I would no longer be teaching music at the elementary school next year. Shrinking student numbers mean cuts to teaching staff. At the time, I was still on the books to teach music at the middle school, but that’s only a half-time position. Thanks to the efforts of my principal at the middle school, by the end of February I was able to secure a second half-time position in the building to bring me back to full-time status.
February came and went in whirlwind of activity. I ran one event for Pride Alliance, and continued to plan two more for the following month. I held two rounds of auditions for, cast, and began rehearsals for my play. Several of my middle school band students started attending Community Band rehearsals, although they sat out the concert we put on mid-month. Quite possibly my favorite day of the month was when I accompanied the seventh and eighth graders on their field trip to Alyeska for a day of skiing.
The week before Spring Break brought a welcome present: My contract for next school year. I signed and returned it immediately.
Spring Break was very much that: a break. I deliberately didn’t schedule rehearsals for my play (we’d been chugging along nicely and could use the break), Community Band was taking the week off, I had no meetings or events for Pride Alliance. My plans for the week involved skiing, relaxing, and running away to Anchorage for a day or two.
During Spring Break, my world turned upside down.
Every day, part of my morning routine includes looking at the headlines on several news sites. Like many others, I watched from a distance as news of the novel coronavirus first broke. I monitored its spread through the internet, wondering if and when it would hit the US. I was actually surprised that so many people were still planning to go out of state for spring break; by that time, things in the Lower 48 had already started to heat up. So I guess I wasn’t too surprised when, on the Thursday of Spring Break, I read the news that Alaska had its first confirmed case of the virus. I was a little surprised but relieved when said news was followed in short order by a series of health mandates from the governor’s office that, among other things, closed schools to students for the next two weeks and created a 14-day quarantine for anyone traveling in from out-of-state.
The week following Spring Break was one of the hardest I’ve ever had. Not only did I suddenly have to come up with a new way to teach music, I also had a large portion of my coping mechanisms (band, play rehearsals, Pride Alliance events, hanging out with friends) suddenly stripped away. I eventually settled in to my new routine, but it’s been… Well, you know how it’s been. We’ve all had to cope with this new world.
Last week, I went into the elementary school to clean my things out of the music room. Walking in the school felt decidedly odd; no students have been in the building since before Spring Break, and some teachers have been taking advantage of the time to thoroughly clean out classrooms and storage rooms. Already, stacks of extra chairs have been put in the elementary music space, although one of my coworkers assured me that those are the only things that will be stored in there. That way, teachers can still use the space with their classes.
According to the district calendar, today is the students’ last day of school. In an alternate universe, one without the coronavirus, it’s Field Day at the elementary school, while the middle school students are off on some field trip. Instead, in this universe, instruction effectively ended last week when families had to return materials (books, computers, etc.) to schools. This allowed for a 72-hour quarantine before staff start disinfecting and putting things away. I spent Monday afternoon entering grades for the elementary students, and will do the same this afternoon for the middle school. I spent yesterday morning at the elementary school, helping to box up old curriculum materials for shipment back to the district warehouse. In that alternate universe, as the busses pull away from the school in the afternoon, the teachers and staff all line up on the sidewalk to wave good-bye. Yesterday, a fellow teacher took a 3-second video of me waving; they will stitch similar clips of all the other staff together to make a montage that will be posted to the school’s Facebook page. Tomorrow, I’ll attend one last Zoom meeting with the elementary staff, then turn in my laptop and keys. I’ll also swing by the middle school for a bit to put things away up there and turn in those keys.
It definitely hasn’t been a boring year, but I sincerely hope next year is nowhere near this exciting.
everydaytrans 