A Heavy Load to Carry

Dear Friends-

The halls outside the office are super quiet today. Our school has been hit with some sort of bug that has left large numbers of our community at home this week sipping soup, tossing and turning in bed, sweating, shivering, coughing, aching and sleeping. Fully half of our Downstairs students have been out at some point this week. The result is a sort of hush during the day here at school, which is a true departure from the normal chitter-chatter and laughter that usually marks our mornings and afternoons.

While our thoughts are on our laid-up little ones, I have also been thinking about our parents and how difficult it is for them during these times. We live in an era in which many of our parents are put into the no-win situation of either having to miss work to care for their child, or to miss being at home with their sick child. It can be an intensely stressful and disturbing set of choices, in which it is difficult to feel comfortable and confident in whichever path you chose to take for your family and children.

We ask a lot of our parents at Randolph. Just this past month alone, we have asked that Upstairs parents to take four Fridays off in a row to accompany their children to Catamount Mountain. In two weeks the Downstairs parents will be asked to join us at Bear Mountain for an all-school skating event. The Upstairs parents will in the meantime be setting up a large-scale car pool for the event. These sort of things add up, and require a ton of determination and sacrifice on the part of our parents and guardians. To add nursing duty on top of this is a heavy load to carry.

We feel the absence of our sick children today, but also can’t help but admire and applaud the effort, love and grit that each of their parents is putting forth behind the scenes to make sure their kids are safe and snug while they are out from school. Thank you all!

Be well,

Ben