I’m woefully behind on anything blog related, but I’ve really been making a valiant effort to slowly chip away at the backlog of things that I wanted to post about!
There won’t be too much to include in this recap, since most of it was work related, and that’s not really the type of thing to detail on a public blog, but I thought I would include a quick little basic recap of what we did and why we went. It was a really cool trip, and I’m so glad that I was able to go!
So, little bit of background: Theo is the executive director of our school. That basically means he’s the CEO, or the top guy. I don’t say “top guy” to be braggy- I literally mean it in it’s most literal sense- he’s the guy steering the ship, making the ultimate decisions, and also fully responsible for the outcome of the school. #nopressure
Thankfully, he has an incredible team of three people directly under him- a principal who is in charge of students, academics, and teachers; an operations manager who is in charge of the day to day operations of the school and the human resources side of things; and a community relations director, who is in charge of all community events, athletics, school spirit, uniforms and all those fun details that make up a community!
Theo and these three directors reached out to a school in Georgia for some advice and for an opportunity to tour and interview some of their staff in order to gain some insight and vision on how a similar school is operating. The concept of hybrid schooling/university model schooling is a newer one, so it’s always helpful to learn from someone who has a similar set of unique circumstances in the education world.
We left Wednesday right after school got out to head to the airport. We arrived and got all checked in, then grabbed some dinner before boarding our 7pm flight.
Look what I found in the Cincinnati airport- A Little Big Free Library! And I found this book- !!!!- which I happen to be #96 on hold for at the library.
The flight was quick and smooth, landing in Atlanta just before 9. We had to navigate that airport and find the rental car area, and then drive about 40 minutes to Woodstock, GA where we tucked into our cozy little Airbnb for the night around 10pm.
Pease note- we all traveled decently light, but Theo won the prize by only packing this tiny backpack. I don’t understand how he did it, but he did! It wasn’t even stuffed full- there was plenty of room left!
We got up on Thursday morning, got some breakfast and then headed over to the school, The Kings Academy. We spent the whole day in round table meetings with administrators and staff, just learning how they operate their school, and gleaning insight from them. They have been in operation for 16 years longer than our school, and they are just over twice the size of our school, so there were lots of questions to ask!
We left the school around 5pm just totally exhausted- so much information! We all downloaded with each other over dinner and then went to bed pretty soon after getting home.
On Friday morning, we did the same thing- up and out the door (I managed to squeeze in a quick walk- the weather was so beautiful, I just wanted to be outside!) – this day held lots of observations, meetings, tours of the facilities and so.many.questions! We ended our day around 4pm and headed back to the Airbnb to discuss/download all that we had learned. We went out to dinner and ended up just talking for several hours. When we got back, we ran a load of laundry and got our suitcases packed up.
Saturday morning we were up by 5am and out the door to the airport by 5:45. Our trip home was smooth, although Theo got stuck in very long security lines. He dropped us off at the airport door and went to drop off the rental car. By the time he got back to the main airport, the security lines were over an hour long (we got through in 7 minutes). He made it through security just a few minutes before we were set to start boarding- but then our flight ended up being delayed by a few minutes so it all worked out in the end!
We arrived back home around noon and met up with the kids. It was so nice getting back to the house by noon, but we were both so tired we were literally counting down the hours until bedtime!
I will admit, as a teacher, I don’t do a lot of “work trips”, so this was a fun one, and a learning experience for me! We learned so much from visiting the school, and we also gained a lot of insight on how our school is operating very well. My biggest takeaway was seeing on a deeper level how hard our school administration works, and how deeply they care for so many tiny details that no one else sees or even has to think about! I’m really thankful for these four people and how hard they work and I got a front row seat to that on this trip!