Posts

Showing posts from April, 2020

School Superintendent's Reflection and Prayer

My personal, professional, daily struggle as an school superintendent during this bizarre time... Are our 700 students in NBSD OK? Do they have everything they need? How are they feeling? Who do they have to talk to, process their feelings with? I know how frayed my emotions and temper has been with my own kids as we struggle to maintain things in the Kelly-Perez house...and I know we are blessed. We both still have jobs. No one has missed a meal. Heat is still on, internet buzzing, etc. What about my kids, where that's not the case?? How are my kids managing distance learning when their parents are working or home with them but can't help? Of our 700 scholars, more than 70% qualify for FRL and 120 meet the federal definition of "homeless"....but less than 300 kids have requested lunch/breakfast delivery. My daily prayer, the last several weeks, is that this situation moves us as a nation closer to my ideal world where there are certain "rights" tha

Palm Sunday, April 5, 2020

Palm Sunday. For any Christ follower or even lover of history, Palm Sunday is an important day. Matthew 21 and 22. Mark 11 and 12. Luke 19 and 20 and John 12. All books tell a similar story in a slightly different way. Christ's re-entry into Jerusalem, riding on the back of a donkey while onlookers laid coats and waived palm branches...no one could have predicted that in less than one week Christ would be put to death and later rise from the grave. My reflection today is the connection point...the through line if you will...between Christ's time in Jerusalem, prior to his crucifixion and our time, right now.....April 5th through 12th, 2020, in the middle of the worst pandemic to strike America, and perhaps the world, in my lifetime. I'm intrigued by Christ's actions during this week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. The stories read that he spent time each day at the temple. He observed what was happening there...didn't like it...and did everything in his p