Sassafras Mama

I often reflect on the fact that May is - hands down - the best month in New Jersey.   Days can often be warm - but not yet sweltering - and...

The Backstory: In the world of schools, May is a juggernaut to be survived.  Getting to the end of the week feels glorious but not all Frida...

We’ve had Spring Break for the last two weeks.   I worked the first week, plugging my way through a 40 item to-do list, each task something ...

I stood in the kitchen this morning, looking out the windows toward the East as the glow of a vibrant pink sunrise slowly filled the horizon...

We’ve a half day of professional development today and classes resume tomorrow.   I am ready to return to my routines and see my students.  ...

Every school year, sometime around week five, I become convinced I have developed a terminal illness.   My body aches at the end of the day,...

September of any school year is typically exhausting but September in pandemic school was well beyond that.   In the first full week, we qua...

This day is the halfway mark on the last week before Spring Break.   Flowers are in order and for a whole bunch of reasons. It’s sunny today...

February’s status as the shortest month of the year may be a thing for the calendar but this year February found a way to drag on and on.   ...

With a Winter storm featuring 24 hours of snow on the horizon, last night my school made the call for a snow day today.   I was not mad abou...

T and I have been in quarantine since January 20.   Two weeks and three negative tests later, we’ve shoveled ourselves out from the snow and...

My second week of hybrid learning school starts today.   When we decided to invite half of the students on campus for each week (the other h...

My annual bulletin board (which is really more of an inspiration board) is one of my favorite back-to-school traditions.   In all the insani...

School starts today.   To say that I am nervous, excited, worried, hopeful…….all of that is an epic understatement.   But children belong in...

I am a planner.   I have lists on paper, lists that live in my head, symbols of the passage of time are present in so much of my daily life...

When it comes to school and work, the month of May is - invariably - completely insane.   Busy beyond measure, May usually finds me heading...

Spring Break   - the oddest Spring Break of my life - is over.   Classes resumed today and so this morning I got up, had a shower, and came...

The second half of the school year begins later this month, when we officially hit the mid-point of the year, though it might as w...

My school’s campus is located amongst the woods that line the western edge of the Delaware & Raritan Canal and the Raritan Riv...

For the last three nights, I’ve dreamt either that I was late to the first day of school or that I got to school only to that it w...