The People Around You

Last week, my blog centered around choosing the right people to surround yourself with, so that they make the right impression on you. This week, I gained a new perspective on how the people that surround you serve as a support system and how important you can be to them as well. No sooner than I had submitted my blog last Friday, I received a call from my wife to tell me that her mom had suffered a stroke. By Sunday, I had a house full of her family including Erika's dad, his dog, Erika's sister from Alaska and her brother from New York. Needless to say, it's been a long week with many trips to and from the hospital. Despite the ups and downs of the week, I have been impressed by how much people step up to help out when a member of their circle is in need. I saw it not just with my wife's family, but also with her co-workers and with several of you here that stepped up to help me. (Special thanks to our APs that did a lot to let me leave early several days this week.) The people you surround yourself with, not only impress their values and character traits on you, but also work as a system to support you as a member of the group. There's no formality of asking for assistance or anything like that. People just help the ones that they care for.

I see the same among many of you and you may not even notice it yourself. There are countless times that you have covered classes for one another when there was an emergent need arose. I saw our English teachers team up and support Mrs. Medrano's freshmen English class while she was out on maternity leave. I see teachers that support one another when they know that a colleague is having a tough time outside of school. These efforts make the people around you better, and as a result of their improvement, you are better as well. So much about this job involves the people that you work with and how you help one another in a common goal. While our monthly "Whatever It Takes" award usually goes to just one person, there are times when I really think it should go to many of you as a team instead. Thanks to all of you that silently do so many things to help support your colleagues and our school family as a whole. You make us better every day.