Never give up hope...or chocolate.

I would like to point out that my blog entries are starting to happen more frequently! Aren't you proud of me?

I have a great story for you.

One of the teachers, Mrs. Radandt, has been having a rough few days because of some events that happened that were out of her control. Sadly she got blamed, and she's been having a hard time with it. (To not give away too many details, she was told that she was doing some things wrong, and it made her question whether or not she wanted to be a Special Ed teacher.)

Mrs. Radandt's sad face over her horrible day turned awesome.

Now, Mrs. Radandt is one of the best teachers out there. The kids all love her and learn when they are in her classroom, she works more hours than you even want to know, she is sweet and kind to everyone, and she has helped and mentored me more than you can imagine this year. I absolutely adore her.

Well, a few days ago, I bought a card that says,

Never give up hope (cover)

or chocolate. Never give up hope or chocolate. (inside)

I brought the card around to few different teachers that I know she had told about her situation, and then a few others besides. The chocolate fits Mrs. Radandt to a "t" because she loves chocolate. A LOT.

Sadly, today ended up being particularly difficult because of some interesting circumstances, so it actually worked out that I hadn't given her the card yet. One of our paras, Lisa, came up with the idea to "heart attack" both Mrs. Radandt and Mrs. Zuber. (Mrs. Zuber is the fill-in special ed facilitator while our facilitator is on medical leave.) She cut out a bunch of hearts, and we had students write little notes on them. It worked perfectly because Mrs. Radandt and Mrs. Zuber both had subs today. (They were both across the school in the special ed team room going through special ed folders.)
We spent all day having students write notes, and during 6th period, the speech therapist in the school, Joy Smith, went to the store and bought some chocolate goodies. She also came up with a cute note to go along with it:

There are lots of "Riesens" we love you - your friendship is worth a "million" bucks. After the audit - pure "bliss."

After school, Lisa and I had Erin (Radandt) and Leslie (Zuber) come down to their classrooms.

They were both so surprised! Leslie knew about the card for Erin, but the fact that we heart-attacked her classroom door along with Erin's totally surprised her! (And we all know how much I love surprises!) Erin was almost speechless she was so happy. In fact, she just might have shed a few tears! We had her go into her classroom and she found our little pink bag full of chocolate and the great card we had signed for her.
She was positively beaming and she told us that it was a fantastic ending to a horrible day.
We all ended up talking for way too long after school, but it was worth it to see the joy that came to their faces over seeing what we (and their students) had done for them.

Isn't life just grand sometimes?

L-R: Leslie Zuber, me, Erin Radandt (I absolutely love these two women and I cherish their friendship.)

My partner-in-service, Lisa Vezzani. This woman is amazing.

-Ms. Damron-