A Favorite Family

Those kiddos who were with me in the original 2/3 classroom and then in the 4/5 ended up having me as their teacher for three years. As you might imagine, you know each other really well at the end of those three years, even more so if a sibling comes through the program afterward. Thus I ended up with some families whose kids I taught for five years!

One of my favorites is the Loftus family. Caroline was a three year student, and her sister, Kathleen, a two year one. The girls are both hard workers and honest, kind, and respectful. Never, ever were they a problem in my class!

Every summer for the past three years, we have gotten together to catch up over lunch or ice cream. We've also had several informal lunches before that, such as when I had my knee replaced in 2010 and they brought a picnic lunch to my house. Last night we met at the west side Silver Dipper and chatted for two and a half hours!

Caroline, me, Kim, Kathleen

Kathleen is generally the more talkative of the two girls, but last night Caroline was positively garrulous.  And witty! I laughed and laughed at her quips and humor. She will be a junior at Harrison, and is taking all advanced classes and has a perfect 4.0 GPA. She just scored a perfect on the ECA Language Arts test, too! (ECA stands for End of Course Assessment.)

No slouch in the classroom herself, Kathleen scored a perfect on the 8th grade ISTEP Math test. And she, too, will be taking AP classes at Harrison this fall.

(Note: the family does not brag about grades and, in fact, has a very healthy and reasonable outlook on academics. I asked how school was going for them, and that is when they told me about the perfect scores.)

One of the best parts of the evening for me was when the girls began talking about Classics and the books they'd read as part of the Classic Project while in my classroom. Caroline said she thought it was one of the best things about my classroom and that it had really helped her as she progressed through school, including her writing assignments. Kathleen agreed, and we had a lovely chat about books. I wrote the Classics Project unit and it is a big part of our classroom, so to receive feedback on it like that, well, I was pretty happy.

(I nearly lost the ability to teach the Classics in 2012. Fortunately, I have a wise principal who sees the bigger picture and she supported me in my quest to keep the Classics Project. See this blog entry for the story.)

The girls also caught me up on the other kids who were in my class with them, showed me pictures of their new kitty, Beyonce, and we wrapped up with some pictures and plans to meet again next summer. 

I am so lucky to have had the privilege of working with this family. Truly, one of the best of the best!

Lunch with the Lofti Family!

Kim Loftus, mama of two of my former students, invited me to lunch last week. If you ever want the ideal person to be the parent of one of your students, it's Kim. Positive, caring, supportive, sense of humor... all rolled into one, She has become a good friend since I first had Caroline in the 2/3 Gifted/Talented class in 2006.

(And I love the way her family makes their last name plural! Such a GT thing to do!)

Last summer we met for lunch at Olive Garden; this summer we headed downtown to Serendipity. My sister-in-love, Cindie, had told me about it and we'd celebrated her birthday there, but I had not been back since. The food is delicious, and the atmosphere is conducive to talking - the perfect place to go!

Caroline (a three year student) and Kathleen (two years) both were there along with their oldest sister, Julia, who is a student at the University of Minnesota. I never had Julia, but I have come to know her well over the years, so it was good to catch up with her, too.

We gabbed for two hours, stopping only because Caroline had a driver's ed class to attend. Kim snagged the check, claiming I had bought lunch last year, so we made plans to have this be an annual summer tradition and that I would pay next year.

In the excitement of catching up, I did not get any pictures. But, both Caroline and Kathleen were in a recent production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and so I will post a couple of those below.

 Kathleen, ???, and Caroline in rehearsal.

Another former three year student, Meredith Roberts, was also in the play. She looks so grown up!