here is a guest post from my friend rebecca. she is a very fun and energetic person with that midwesterner's sense of hospitality. she has kind of stumbled in to being a teacher in a high school special day class for "severely impaired" (the district's lovely term) students. last week she helped out with the special olympics AND volunteered to chaperone two of her students whose prom was the first date for both of them. sorry i am posting it a bit late.
thanks rebecca!!!!
p.s. she also sent a link to some cool photos
Happy Memorial Day to you all. Thanks Jamie for giving me a chance to post on her amazing blog. Here’s SF Weekend Wrap-Up – take #1.
Things were hoppin’ in San Francisco this weekend among the under 21 crowd.
Friday was the inaugural SFUSD Special Olympics Track and Field Day at Kezar Stadium. The stadium was filled with over 350 elementary, middle and high school special-ed students from 26 schools plus parents, teachers, paras and therapists of all sorts- speech, physical, occupational, and more. The students competed in a variety of running/rolling events, turbo-jav, ball toss, and long jump.
Emily’s school, FS Key, brought 5 general-ed classrooms of kids along to cheer on the inclusion kids from their rooms. They cheered their own cheers at top volume. Totally adorable.
And my own group of rambunctious high schoolers gave it their all. One threw a softball 92 feet – about the distance from 2nd base to the catchers box. Way to get SF’s special-ed population on the map!
The weather was glum on Saturday, so Em and I tidied the house, or at least I did, while Emily danced her own version of the entire Nutcracker.
Then, it was off to the next big event of the weekend: Balboa High School’s PROM.
Two of my students had wanted to go with each other. So, I met N. (chaperoned by his mom) and K. (chaperoned by her 19 year old sis) at the In-N-Out Burger joint on Jefferson for some viddles and to shake off everyone’s nerves. They were dressed to the nines – N in a black tux with white tie and K with a lovely cantaloupe colored floor length knit frock and a pretty black jacket zipped and tied modestly to the tippy-top. When we finally made our way into the ballroom’s entrance the mom, sis, and I kept our distance of about 20 feet or so while the young coupled made their way to a table right in front of the dance floor. It was a memorable night for them I think – awkward at first but then eventually doing all the prom things dancing, nibbling appetizers, mingling with other students and teachers, dancing some more. But when the first whiff of smoke from the soon to be smoldering dance-floor hit the consciousness of the family chaperones our young pair was quickly escorted OUT OF THERE and back to their pumpkin, I mean car and sent back home around 9:40.
I had to stay a bit longer just to soak in the ambience. The students looked great. All of them! The young men now dress to match the colors of their dates’ dresses – with some combo of shirt, vest, tie, armband, and boutonniere the same color. So I was seeing guys with the de rigueur black pants with shocking pink or lime green or lemon yellow on top. Really looking sharp. As for the young ladies: strappy floor length dresses of every possible design were all the rage. Along with up-do’s of every possible creation. Sexy and elegant. A fun evening and my first prom in over 20 years. Next year I’ll have to bring a date!
Sunday in San Francisco’s hippest event had to be the annual Capsule Design Fair in Hayes Valley. The rare sunny weather beat down on shoppers, vendors, and French Bulldogs.
Tomorrow’s back to work but here’s hoping you all had an unbelievably lazy Monday.
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