Good questions, but we are.
This blog started with an idea that this was the last year of our school's history before we were to merge with Ousley Junior High School, and it would be a great idea to spend some time chronicling that experience. In my original idea, I envisioned 180 different posts by 180 different people -- students, faculty, staff and even some guests.
Things have not quite turned out that way. It seemed like a good idea to give voice to as many as possible, to record this year through the impressions and opinions to those who were most affected by its changes. The truth is, I have written far too many of the posts myself.
So, thanks to those who have contributed, but it just feels like its time to call this one.
I say that, first of all, because we began this extraordinary year of transition thinking we actually had 180 days left as Ferguson Junior High School. That's not quite how things have turned out. Our district leaders had other plans.
We had one semester with Mr. Zahn as our principal, and then Mrs. Thurston (principal of Ousley) became our leader in January. We have begun to blend the two faculties and staffs and have even planned join student-oriented activities as well. Instead of one more year as Ferguson, we have become FerOusley Junior High. Nothing is more symbolic of this than the fact that our principal wears a nametag with the name of the campus taped over, and someone made her a school shirt that has the logo of one school on the front and the logo of the other on the back. It is time to graciously and completely welcome her and follow her leadership instead of counting down the history of an organization that does not really exist any longer as it did at one time.
A second reason is that, for whatever reason, we ran out of voices. I have neither the time nor the inclination to blog for an entire year about my last year as a Titan. For what ever reasons, my invitations to contribute posts for the blog have fallen on deaf ears. Perhaps our lives have begun to change, Personnel issues are beginning to be resolved, and within the next few weeks the once foggy images of our employment future will be more clear for most faculty. My own personal future has now been decided and I will be dividing time for the rest of the year between teaching AVID at Ferguson and teaching computer information applications at Arlington Collegiate High School. It's a strange and unusual arrangement, but there's something kind of fitting about it for me.
This blog was a noble idea with the best of intentions, and I choose to believe that it served a good purpose for many people for a shorter than expected time. It is time, however, to move on because truthfully, the final campaign is over -- whether we want it to be or whether we are ready for it to be over or not. That's just the way things go sometimes.
So, lift your coffee cups (or whatever beverage you have in mind) in a toast to a great school, an even greater faculty, and to all of the students we have sent out into the world. Let's also toast to all of the truly amazing things we will do in the future, because greater things yet will be done than we have imagined possible. We are a part of that as surely as we are part of our past. God is not through with any of us.