The End Of KRECR And An Unrelated Picture

Here's another view of the Bald Hills, just because it's such a beautiful place. It's unrelated to the rest of the post.

Today was a beautiful fall day. We hiked out to the ocean through the Tolowa Dunes, just one of several amazing ecosystems that surround us. We passed by many different mushrooms on the trail, and way too many of the yellow banana slugs that call this place home, too.

Once we got to the beach, we watched the waves, picked out beautiful rocks and driftwood, got kisses from a dog there with other people, and left as the fog reached back onto the land.

On the hike back to the trail head, we realized that it's almost exactly a year since Michael came back to Del Norte from Pennsylvania. Darcy and I moved back two months earlier, but Michael needed to finish up some work at Delaware Water Gap before coming back to Redwood. In the last year, we have settled back into our community here almost as if we'd never left.

When we left Del Norte for Pennsylvania, the last place we stopped was Darcy's school, the Klamath River Early College of the Redwoods, known as KRECR (pronounced krecker -- with a short 'e'). We had asked Darcy if she wanted to see our empty house or just remember it as we lived there and she chose not to see it empty. So she went to school like any other day and we picked her up in the afternoon and drove out of town with very heavy hearts.

Her classmates and after-school friends had loaded her down with gifts -- unexpected things I needed to find space for during our long drive across the country. She also had a pea shoot to try to keep alive on that drive. (You can see it in a Pennsylvania hotel here.)

Darcy started back at KRECR just three days after flying back from Pennsylvania last year. She had a great year. 

She went back again this year. We had high hopes despite a staff change over, decreased enrollment, and other issues, but KRECR was facing serious hurdles. After weeks of late night discussions, we moved Darcy to a new school this week. It was a difficult decision, one we didn't make lightly, and one that created a lot of sadness and guilt in our family. We wanted to support the school. We tried to hold on during a difficult transition. In the end, we just couldn't let Darcy watch her school fall apart around her any more.

For most of this week, I had put away the sadness. My last three minute encounter at KRECR on Darcy's last day had made me so angry that I hardened my heart to the school's troubles and moved on with my life. The anger was justified, but the cause isn't important now.

Yesterday, KRECR announced that it will close after December 19th. There are simply not enough students left to maintain the school. At first, even hearing this, knowing that a dear friend's heart would be breaking with this news, I couldn't feel sad about it because of those last three minutes.

But truly, KRECR is bigger than my last encounter and it's bigger and better than this shortened school year. It was started with love to bring an alternative to this community, one focused on place and culture. It's goals were to help every child thrive at their own pace, to instill a dream of college in a community where that is so often not the dream, to use restorative justice to resolve conflicts in a more meaningful way than suspensions and expulsions allow, and to create a school that honored this place and the people who have lived here since time immemorial.

We gained two new school board members in this week's election. Neither of them, based on the non-partisan debate I attended, seem likely to support the kind of learning environment we valued at KRECR. It would be nice to think that we could bring some of what we loved about our school to the larger school district. In very small ways, maybe we can. But a larger overhaul of the system will require that all parents stand up and demand change and put tremendous pressure on the school board. 

Darcy was elected last month to be KRECR's school historian. Now that it is closing, it is up to all of us who loved the school to make sure its legacy is not judged by its last few months.

The Great Thing About Not Posting Much

The great thing about not posting much at all this whole year is that now, when I most need blog topics, there are so many things I didn't post about! And I can post about them now!

So, for example, this was a stellar year for lupine blooms in the Bald Hills. The Bald Hills are gorgeous open mountain sides in the southernish part of Redwood National and State Parks. Some springs, they are dotted by lupines. This year, they were carpeted in them:

 That bit of red is me, for scale. So dense. So lovely. (The flowers, not me.)

 Our little imp almost blends in.

The Braces

Day 2 of NaBloPoMo features a photo I wanted to post about a month ago, when Darcy first got her braces on! Our girl has been so tough through the whole process. Her orthodontist commented on it after he installed (?) her braces and she has adapted to the metal in her mouth amazingly well.

Apparently, the only person traumatized by her braces is me. Having never had orthodontics, I don't understand them and they look like they should hurt. Michael and Darcy hardly give them a second thought these days except for brushing time. 

According to Michael, the reason I couldn't post this earlier is that iPhone 6 broke his iPhone 4S. Ever since the new release, his photo stream hasn't been working properly, so photos aren't getting transferred from his phone to our computer. It's annoying, but a very first world problem. We had to do this the old new-fashioned way: Michael emailed me the photo from his phone. Or is that the new old-fashioned way?

Either way, it's NaBloPoMo, so rejoice!

Election News and NaBloPoMo

I thought my sister loved me, but then she threw down a gauntlet (perhaps not purposefully) about National Blog Posting Month, which is celebrated every November. It has often been celebrated on this blog and will be for the rest of the month.

Yesterday was election day and I was actually on the ballot! It was pretty fun to vote for myself and the campaign I ran with my friend Angela (who won!!) created a community conversation about the library that will be good in the long run. Also good in the long run? The incumbent lost! The library needed him to move on and the voters made it happen.

Unfortunately, Del Norte County wasn't ready for TWO Angelas on the library board and I came in third, by fewer than 100 votes. With only two available seats, it means I won't be adding the library board to my to do list. Our larger goal of bringing change to the library board was achieved, though, and that's the most important outcome.

Thanks for all the support and watch for improvements in our library coming soon!

Democracy Is Awesome!

Three years after I was legally able to vote, the Del Norte Library Board of Trustees appeared on the ballot for our local election.

They have not appeared since and I just turned 45. It's been a long time.

But this year, the Board of Trustees will be on the ballot again because I am running for one of the two available seats! I am just a few signatures away from having my nominating papers completed and I've already filed my initial papers. I am running with my friend Angela (one of many awesome Angelas in our community).

Why are we running? We started attending the monthly Board meetings back in September because of a restrictive new borrowing policy and kept going because of what we saw in the first few meetings. Now our local newspaper is covering the issues we have been witnessing, so you can read all about it.

The first article was about an unrestricted fund balance that the Board of Trustees denied actually existed from November until June, when the county auditor came to their meeting and told them that it did, indeed, exist.

Angela and I wrote a letter to the editor in response, announcing our intention to run for the Board of Trustees in November.

Last week, the Board of Trustees called a special meeting to discuss the first Triplicate article. Many people showed up, including the Triplicate reporter who wrote the first article. He has now filed two follow-up stories. The first appeared on Tuesday and was about the meeting generally. Today's is specifically about the Board's avoidance of elections and their recent appointment process to fill a vacant seat on the Board. The article itself isn't online yet (should be up either tomorrow or Saturday morning), but you can see a picture of the front page with the prominent headline on the Triplicate's home page.

All the stories have been front page, above the fold. The July meeting of the Board of Trustees is on Thursday the 24th at 9am at the library. If you are local, please consider attending the meeting. The Board will be finalizing their budget for this fiscal year and discussing the fate of the $346,000 surplus.

(Those of you who know me AND can do math will notice that a quote was attributed to me in today's article that should have been attributed to the "other" Angela. She was, indeed, just 8 when a Board of Trustees position last appeared on the ballot. I was legal to drink that year, so a little bit older.)

Darcy Jo's First 5K!

I'm betting it won't be her last!!

We all joined in for yesterday's Mother of All 5Ks to raise money for our local domestic violence shelter. Del Norte County has the highest rate of domestic violence per capita of any county in California -- by a lot. Raising awareness of the problem is an important step.

So we took 5 kilometers worth of steps. Michael was planning on running the race, I was planning to walk, and on the drive to the start we told Darcy Jo that she could choose whether she wanted to run it or walk with me or some combination.

It will come as no surprise to those who know her that she chose to run her own race. We weren't sure what to expect because she's never run that far before or even done much organized running.

But she ran the whole thing in just under 34 minutes! The more-or-less official photographer for the race got some great pictures of Darcy Jo and Michael as she was coming into the finish line. These are pulled from Facebook, so the quality might not be all that good, but here they are:

New iPhone!

Hooray for the new iPhone!A blue iPhone with a yellow case!Today,the second day with the new iPhone,I went downstairs to open the window blinds for Paige.But just when I was starting to open the blinds,I saw something pink out of the corner of my eye.I could not believe what I saw.A few weeks ago,some of our neighbors had been "flocked".There's this fundraiser in town where they put flamingos in your yard overnight.There were flamingos in our yard and our neighbor's yard.Near our house lives the Sedgwick family.They gave us the flamingos.One good iPhone!