A View from the Now-Retired Principal's Seat

Dear Criminal, I don't believe I know you but as I write this, it's been less than 12 hours since you tried to break into my home.  While I am grateful neither my wife, two teen-aged daughters, nor I were home, I'm even  more grateful you were unable to get beyond our garage and were apparently scared away because of our alarm system.  You did not take anything physical, and the damage to our doors that you kicked-in can be repaired.  Still, you did take something that in my restless sleep last night I realized is even more precious than anything my family or I have or own. Twenty years ago my wife and I built our house.  We contracted with professionals to design and build a house where we could raise a family and welcome friends.  We've hosted birthday parties, church gatherings, prayer groups, school get-togethers, team celebrations, and even Daisy troop meetings when our girls were young.  Our home is where we want our children and our children's friends to

Everyone expects schools to teach academic skills, but we teach so much more than content knowledge and procedures.  I recently received the following letter in US Mail.  It will explain exactly what I mean. Dear Mr. Ascher First of all, a very happy 2016 to you and the school staff! Until my very talkative youngest son went to Kindergarten class last school year,  I  confess I did not know that Novi Woods also holds tornado and lock down drills in addition to fire drills.  He came home and chattered about hiding in the bathroom for the tornado drill, as well as going to the kitchen for the lock down drill, and that they had to remain very quiet.  As a parent, of course, I am very happy that our school is taking all of these safety precautions for the kids. This past Christmas night, we were in Orlando, Florida.  Specifically, we were seated at the back of a restaurant in Disney Springs, when diners at the front of our restaurant started screaming and running further in