Back to school - a clean slate

PALOUSE –– Our long hot summer is turning the page and readying to morph into fall and the beginning of the 2024-25 school year.

The first day of classes for the Garfield-Palouse District will be Wednesday, Aug. 28. On Monday, Aug. 26, the Garfield campus will offer all-day new student registration; please call the school at 509-635-1331 to make an appointment. Later that day, from 5-7 p.m., Garfield Elementary and Gar-Pal Middle School students and their families are invited to campus to an Open House to meet teachers; middle schoolers will also their receive locker assignments.

As I consider back-to-school and my educational journey — from both sides of the teacher’s desk-fall’s return brings with it the thought of “hope,” a new beginning, a chance to start over, and to do better. It is a clean slate, with the possibility that this will be the year that (check all that apply) I will learn my Spanish past tense verbs, apply myself to Algebra I, and/or turn in my lesson plans on time.

If I was to choose a symbol of this season, it would have to be the humble Ticonderoga pencil. What a gift! What possibilities in that simple tool. First of all, it honors its basic functions of holding a point and making, in a clean manner, necessary corrections. Let’s face it: Not many items can live up to those claims. Even the battle-scarred ones with almost non-existent erasers and literal tooth marks along their length have stories to tell. They are witnesses to effort; to be willing to fail, to try again, and to refuse to give up. At first glance, they may appear similar to their cheap rivals. It’s when it’s time to get to work that the truth emerges: Then, as in real life, behavior never lies.