A Tribute to Vera C. O'Leary Junior High

I have been very privileged to work at OJH for the last three years as an 8th grade Language Arts teacher. I have been very impressed with the teachers, the students, and the programs there. This is the last year that O'Leary Junior High will exist, as next year it will become Vera C. O'Leary Middle School and many things will become quite different. The biggest change being that instead of being a 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade school, next year we will be a 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade school. It will be pretty different to have little 6th graders roaming the halls instead of big 9th graders.

One thing that I hope will not change is the generosity of our students, staff, and community -- O'Leary has two fundraisers that they participate in every year, neither of which benefit the school.

1. At Christmas time the students donate food items to the Salvation Army and money to Valley House, a local homeless shelter. This year they donated over 10,000 food items and several thousand dollars to the shelter.

2. The second fundraiser is in May. Several of our teachers are cancer survivors and every year our students raise money to donate to the Relay for Life. This year we raised over $12,000 in two weeks to donate to cancer research.

3. On top of raising and donating money students also give up one day of their school year to do service projects. We call this Helping Hands day. Each Prime Time (homeroom) visits an area of the community that needs physical service done. This could be reading to the elderly in a nursing home, planting flowers at an elementary school or on main street, dusting shelves at the community historical museum, or walking dogs at the Humane Society (which is what my class did). The kids love to get out, get dirty, and have fun. Every one pitches in and helps. It's a great day!

Below is a picture of my class walking their dogs.

Yard Work

First of all, I have to say a HUGE thank you to Jake who always takes such pride in our yard and keeping it looking nice.

On Memorial Day we spent the whole morning out in the rosebushes. I am not good at weeding flower beds because I can always think of something else that I would rather be doing. So Jake and I went to Lowe's and bought the black fabric weed barrier stuff and 20 bags of red lava rock.

First, we planted rose bushes that I had bought earlier that week. Next, we shoveled out all of the extra dirt in the beds. Then, we had to lay out the black fabric and cut it to go around the roses. Finally, we poured out the red rock. I say "we" but actually it was Jake. The only thing I did was help cut the fabric and hold the shovel for him when he wasn't using it.

Unfortunately we discovered that 20 bags was not nearly enough so Jake went to Home Depot and bought 40 more bags! (Lowe's and Home Depot both had special sales on Memorial Day for Veterans. Yea for places that support our troops!) The dye on the Home Depot rock was a different shade than the Lowe's rock but we mixed it around and you can't really tell.

I didn't get any pictures of the actual yard work but here are some pictures of the finished project! It looks great!