For most seniors and their parents, graduation is a weekend of celebration. It is an enduring rite of passage signaling a shift from high school life to young adulthood. The weekend is filled with last minute scrambling, rain plans for graduation parties, attending the ceremony itself, and visiting with numerous friends and family.
While educators enjoy many of these same traditions with their students and corresponding families, they have some unique experiences each year during graduation week. On the Thursday and Friday before graduation, they are helping seniors make sure they finish last minute assignments, projects, and finals. They do this while juggling their other classes, conducting final exams, and preparing their classrooms for summer checkout.
Friday night usually becomes a collective moment for the staff to catch their breath. Group parties form to celebrate each other, as we may also be sending off departing colleagues. This year many teachers held a party to say goodbye to Guidance Counselor Kris Hoffman and Middle School Social Studies Teacher Peter Lucken. Both were highly regarded and our staff enjoyed many hours together celebrating a great school year and their friendship with their departing colleagues.
It is often at this one unique event during the year, where I am most proud to be a Cook County Viking. I am continually in awe of how thoughtful and caring our staff is.
For those who can still stay awake after 9:30 p.m., the night may conclude around a North Shore fire enjoying the warmth of a fire and the friendship of colleagues.
Saturday of graduation and the Sunday following are often filled with the joy of celebrating along with graduates and their families. This leads to scrambling to visit multiple graduation parties. This is a really strong tradition here in Cook County and I’m always amazed at how many people attend numerous graduation parties. We are very blessed to have such a caring and supportive community.
Graduation week for teachers often concludes on the following Monday when teachers need to submit final grades, clean out their classrooms, and checkout for the summer. A tradition at Cook County Schools is to have a staff potluck. After our lunch, we often recognize staff members for various accomplishments, and then we go back to cleaning out our rooms and making summer plans.
This year, retiring industrial arts instructor Dave Hanson added to our tradition. He passed out green jackets to any staff members that had completed their master’s degree during the school year. It was a great twist on the Master’s golf tournament tradition. This year we had two teachers complete their master’s degrees: Math teacher Megan Rubbelke and special education instructor Melissa Oberg.
The night is often capped off with a gathering or cookout of some kind, or depending on the year, a retirement party. This year, the night concluded with a retirement party for physical education teacher and volleyball coach Pam Taylor. Sue Nelson did a great job of organizing this event that was filled with past and present colleagues and friends. It was a great night for someone who had dedicated 35 years to teaching and coaching at Cook County Schools. It was also a fitting and classy end to graduation week for our teachers.
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