23 March 2026
Reflecting the best that I can, with balance.
Let's all hope.
The first fall play in seven years was The Odd Couple in November of 2025. Eleven months after walking in the door, I had a show up.
It was hell.
The cast was supposed to be from my class, but one kid dipped from the building and one wanted to do tech. So I had to nab kids from choir to get it up and running.
And nobody can rehearse after school. Hence the class.
But we had no choice.
When I had to rehearse after school, it was without cast members.
It was so bad three weeks out that I actually had to have a Come To Jesus. Essentially: How Is This Show Going Up Wihout You?
I pulled a social studies teacher in as tech, but only 4-6 kids were showing up to build the set. She brought her fiance and let her help and I had to be a dick: the kids want this, or they don't. Do Not do this for them.
We managed, with our little skeleton crew and a couple of choir kids to get the show mounted. It was a solid show for what we went through. Only one line glitch which taught me the stage manager could not be shaken.
Then the musical ramped up.
Three choir classes first, second and third period. My sixth period Theatre 2 had tech and three leads in it. Kade (social studies) recruited kids from her SBOE class, and yet we still had under ten kids on Saturday builds, had to add Weds after school and toward the end, Fridays. Just to break even and get it done.
Because in a building of 675 kids this is going to happen. Not all 675 students are interested in theatre, choir, band, or tech, and those who are have already committed to sports, clubs, jobs, community service, ROTC...you name it. So ultimately, of the fortyish kids we had, thirty of them were doing another thing that interfered with rehearsing after school, and occasionally during school, taking them out of class/reherasal. We had two leads who were not engaged with other school activities, and they had personal/home trauma that impacted their attendance. There were seven ensemble without extracuriculars but one had a job, two had serious hisotric attendance issues and the other four had home issues. I had one lead who made it to every rehearsal, every class. He even came to class during his off period. And believe me, it showed. He owned Mamma Mia.
And there you are. The math maths.
I have worked in three buildings in three districts. It matters not what your population is: 1500 or 675---only 30% of the kids in the buidling are interested in extracurriculars. So no matter where you are, you're fighting every other club, class or community service for The Same Kids. It's a fact.
Let's just say we made some grumpy enemies with ROTC and tennis. Funny, as the tennis coach is 100% on our side and worked with us for scheduling, and the girls still tried to miss final dress for tennis, knowing they were not allowed to do so.
It wasn't just the adults who were pissy.
I have never---in 23 years---put up a show without a full cast.
We literally were missing ensemble kids both performance nights.
That said, I invited two of my star Peer to Peer---those are MI/S or SSN (Sped) kids---to join us in the show. One had family trauma and could not participate. The other, "M", showed up at preview and joined everyone like she'd been rehearsing from day one. She performed in all three shows. And you couldn't tell she didn't actually know the choreography.
The kids were interviewed by ChalkBeat. The thrust is that Kennedy is on the short list for "closure" due to our low SAT scores (more on that later), yet here we are Doing A Full Musical For The FIRST TIME IN TEN YEARS. The article was picked up by the Denver Post and made the front page. We now have 40 copies of the physical paper paper on stage for kids to grab.
While I hated the intention, the ChakBeat article got some traction, and the paper paper pulled in the community and old, old alum. We had people in their seventies who were from the first graduating class -1969-come to the show. I put that in the WIN column.
I had a crew of Hinkley kids and former colleagues show up and make me feel wonderful and loved.
And on closing night we had three---three ---kids in sobbing meltdowns. One was in the parking lot on her hands and knees. Why? She was tired and has never worked so hard and her tooth hurt. She's a sophomore. One had an Aunt in lung surgery ---which is twelve hours and had only just begun---and couldn't function. She's a senior. I don't even know what the other one was. And a fourth went down after the show---face down on the dressing room floor, sobbing uncontrollably, saying it "was just too much" for her. A Junior.
Dude. Who raised you?
AH...that's another blog.
And today, after striking and painting the stage in preparation for the band concert, I caught two boys backstage. Just dicking around. No vandalism, mostly squirrely freshmen types, but they knew they were not supposed to be back there. And they know the building doesn't hold them accountable anyway. I ran them out. They probably flushed their vapes down the toilet.
So. "School closure".
Which brings me to "closure". It doesn't mean closed. It means "reimagined" which is code for turning the building into a Charter school. Which means they fire all admin, all teachers have to reapply and they magically find engaged, high scoring students to fill the classes.
If you know anything about this approach, you know it does not work. Smart kids aren't going to magically choose your school because it's now a "charter".
Charters and school choice are what caused this mess. As soon as you told kids they could enroll anywhere their parents could drive them, the parents who could, did, and schools with strong sports programs got stronger while other schools had no choice but to wave good bye. After years of school choice, we have strangled public schools who are being held to the same testing score standard as buildings whose populations have two working and engaged parents to make sure homework is done, dinner is hot and rides to additional tutoring, piano lessons and sports practice are plentiful. These buildings have higher scores because the students have the privilege of support at home. Funding goes to the higher scoring schools, starving out the ones who need it to support their population and give them equal opportunities. Which they cannot, becuase their funding dried up and there's no auto shop, no culinary arts, no marching band and no hope.
Side note--I know people teaching in charters. They're now what public schools used to be. Same issues. Disengaged and exhausted parents. Behaviors --even table flippers. Over crowded classes.
So glad we siphoned the kids out of public schools for charters. That worked out well for everyone.
And then some kid pees on your cyc, draws penises in the shop and even a swastica. They smash the dressing room window, throw fake blood everywhere and chuck their vapes down the toilet and you wonder who is raising these people?
Scene.
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