For the past two weeks my Facebook feed has been flooded with pictures of kids marching out the front door for their first day of school. In fact, three of our contributors wrote about their Kinder experiences here, here and here (tears and all!)  Well, since Caroline and I a few years away from that whole experience, the First Day of School didn’t really have any “meaning” to me until this year.

In January, I accepted a job with IDEA to manage their Communications. Initially, I had no idea what working for a school would entail.  Yes, I knew I would be working on internal communications, news releases, media relations and all that jazz, but “preparing for the beginning of year” didn’t resonate.

When I was in school, “preparing for the beginning of year” meant picking out three weeks worth of outfits, calling everyone I knew to see if we had the same schedule and crossing my fingers some cute boys would be in my class.

Fast forward to 2012.

I found myself working with this team called “Operation BOY (Beginning of Year).”  This team, the BOY team (at least where I work,) is responsible for ensuring that every aspect of campus operations is in perfect shape for that first day of school…you know…all the things you’re totally not thinking about when you walk your little one up to campus for the first day. You’re thinking about the teacher, the classroom and the outfit (don’t lie…I know you thought about it.) Well, this team is thinking about traffic flow for pick-up and drop-off, logisitics of the cafeteria lines, making sure all the IT stuff works (printers, computers, things called COWs), making sure all the lights in your buildings are on, confirming that people that ride the bus have bus routes, etc. etc….I’m sure you get the picture. All the STUFF. We’re talking weekly meetings for months, back-to-back 14 hour days, ’round the clock e-mails, tracking orders, shipping orders, sorting orders, updating files, doing walk throughs, campus audits and the most INTENSE excel spreadsheet I’ve ever seen.

This certainly doesn’t take away from all of the work your child’s teacher put into making that first day of school extra special–because they work their tail off–this is just bonus information about bonus people that are amazing.

So why does this qualify for a blog?  Well, I thought it was worth a little shout out for all of you with school-aged kids to know that way more goes into making sure your little one has a great first day of school than you realize and that next time you get an e-mail from your teacher, know that there was probably a team of people working their hiney off in the summer to make sure that e-mail worked correctly…or next time it takes you 10 minutes to zip through the drop-off and pick-up line, know that for weeks people pined over the best route for all of you all to take. I’ve been amazed at all of the tentacles that stem from “BOY” and how many people’s time, energy {and sanity} is involved in making sure it’s a success for YOUR little baby…not even their own baby. You can ask Allison, I’ve been MIA for the last three weeks and I wasn’t even a huge piece of the beginning of year pie.

It truly takes a village and I, for one, am so grateful for my involvement in this process because {I think} I’ll be a bit more appreciative when that first day of school comes for little C…but for now…it’s just the first day of ballet and well, Caroline looks fabulous, I have her outfits planned for the next three weeks and I’m crossing my fingers she’s not thinking about boys.

Have any of your been involved in the Back to School process but without your parent-hat on?

2 COMMENTS

  1. I run children’s ministries at our church, and also run a fine arts school – and August/September are my LEAST favorite months of the year. The past month has been INSANELY busy, for many of the same reasons that you mention. Scheduling, marketing, planning, etc….I can’t wait until October because then I might be able to breath a bit more. 🙂 I had not thought about the car pick up line being so planned out…although it does run like a (fairly) well-oiled machine, so it makes sense. I won’t whine so much about my 15 minute wait time anymore…could be worse, right!?

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