Greetings, GreenMount Community,
Happy
Columbus Day! I hope that some of you
are enjoying a day off and extending your weekend. You may wonder why we are open for business
as usual. As a rule, most Maryland
schools are open on Columbus Day and we have to think carefully about how our
holidays are spaced so that we have nice winter and spring holidays. Besides, Columbus did not discover America,
and some history tells us he was not a very nice guy. He was very tough on First Nations people,
causing them great hardship and pain.
But, who knows? These events
happened long enough ago that information about that time may be very skewed. Anyway, we are happily in school today,
celebrating GreenMount Day, as we do every day.
This
morning was the first of our Monday coffee-and-donut get-togethers to benefit
the 8th grade trip to Costa Rica.
It was fun to see the students enthusiastically displaying their
salesmanship and interacting with parents who stopped in to enjoy a little
break before going to work or back home to watch TV specials about Columbus. This activity reminded me once again of the
great community we have here at GreenMount and parents who are constantly
modeling the sense of community that is very unique at our school. Thanks to parents Reid Blank and Sue McClure
who worked with Ms. Tonette to get this idea off the ground.
The
coffee was welcomed this morning as we experienced some of our first chilly
air. Soon, we will be shivering under
what is projected to be a very cold winter.
Keep in mind what I explained about closings in last week’s
bulletin. For now, however, we will try
to survive the change of the season by remembering a few details. First, there are going to be days when it is
cool in the building. This is because we
have to do our annual balancing act of deciding when to switch from air
conditioning to heat. One would think
that today is the perfect time. But
history tells us that we will have some warm days (even hot) yet. Because our building has no windows that
open, we are at the mercy of our HVAC system.
We are also at the mercy of the city from whom we rent our
building. They actually have a date on
which all city buildings are switched over from one system to the other. And we cannot simply adjust our thermostat
like at home. There is a complicated
process of diverting water from the condensers on the roof to the boiler in the
mechanical room.
Is this
narrative exciting yet? The bottom line
is that until we can see a steady need for heat we are going to endure some
cool school conditions. Please send
sweaters and sweatshirts with your child each morning throughout the fall and
winter months so that they can adjust to cooler or warmer conditions. If you don’t have a sweatshirt or sweater,
just go to the lost-and-found table in the gated area. There are plenty there!
Cheers,
Steve
