Day 3; Post 3 - Preppies in the News!

Today was a much needed day off from work (thank you, Veterans, for protecting our country). Sort of -- I was still working a lot, mostly editing report cards -- but at least I got to do it in my jammies with a cat on my lap.

It is absolutely shameful that I haven’t posted about this before, but I say it’s better late than never. About a month ago we had a BIG visitor at Prep! He was literally BIG (like, 7’ tall – or at least, he seemed that tall) and figuratively for us educator types: Arne Duncan! The U.S. Secretary of Education! He came to our school! He said "hello" to me!

So, apparently, there was a week back in October that was focused on healthy eating and physical fitness. As the only public elementary school in D.C. serving healthy and organic meals to our students, it made sense for him to visit us. Also, we’re great and I’m sure he was just trying to find a way to check out our preppies.

The downside was that we did not find out about his visit until one school-day before. You can imagine the amount of frenzy that followed the announcement that Secretary Duncan and his wife would be visiting. Despite visiting for only an hour or so, we planned and prepped like crazy. Of course, our teachers were champs (as usual) and our kids did an amazing job. He brought a couple of soccer players from U.S. Men’s team (Jozy Altidore and Oguchi Onyewu) who taught the kids some soccer moves and then ate lunch with some of our 4 year olds.

I don't know who took this picture (some news person) but photo credit to him/her.

In the end, the visit went very well. Our kids impressed Secretary Duncan, and they were invited the next week to see a screening of "Sid the Science Kid" about H1N1 Flu Vaccinations. There they got to see (and some of our 3rd graders introduced!) Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Of course, now I've had some kids wonder to me why our school hasn't received any of the vaccine. Oh well...one battle at a time.

In a semi-related sidenote: for the first time in our relationship history, Jamie has succumbed to the flu before I have! Could it be that the Capitol is even more germ-infested than an elementary school? Don't worry, Jamie is handling it like a champ!