Last Day of School - Bustoz Buffalos!

Stella just had her last day of 1st GRADE on May 27th at Bustoz Elementary School!

Stella loved recess, reading, seat work (oh please), and playing babies with Jimena and Fowsiyo, and judging from the callouses on her hands she also did a lot of monkey bar playing.

Mrs. Christina Damer was her 1st Grade teacher. She had a baby at the beginning of March and got to take 8 weeks off. So unfortunately when I ask Stella about Mrs. Damer, she says she was mean. She really wasn't though. I just keep telling her that coming back to a class for the last 3 weeks of school after an 8-week absence and trying to retain some sort of classroom management as well as not sleeping because of a newborn baby might make a person a little grumpy. I hope she eventually remembers the other great things about Mrs. Damer!

Stella had excellent marks in 1st grade even though she did get her name on the board A LOT. She reads at a 2-3 grade level and has "excellent expression." We were given the suggestion to put her in some sort of drama class. I don't know if it's just because I'm not a very good homework Mom, but it was a pain to get her to do her homework each day! She understands it all, but just didn't ever want to do it. Hum, could it be because they had "seat work" all day as well?

According to the Health Alerts that were sent home, Stella visited the School Nurse more than 20 times during the year for bloody noses, stomach aches (she just needed to poop and always got a snack), and some other fake excuses to get out of class. I almost called the Nurse to tell her to not be so nice to Stella so she wouldn't want to visit so often. The front office staff ALWAYS loves Stella . . . and they know her well because she wasn't exactly punctual each day.

Principal Ken White. Seriously A.W.E.S.O.M.E! I never knew how important a principal was to a school until we met Mr. White. I can't even tell you the name of the principal at the other school Stella went to for Kindergarten. Mr. White was a crossing guard after school, knew ALL of the kids names and a lot of the parents, was super happy, was at lunch with the kids every day, and just made Bustoz a sunshiny place. Even when Stella got sent to his office (she was supposed to sit on the wall at recess for 5-minutes and she "forgot," so she got sent to the office for not listening), he made sure she was not intimidated and even reminded me a hundred times how great he thinks Stella is.

When we found out that the district was going to merge Bustoz with another school, we went to a couple of meetings to discuss. There was a little concern with the merge until we found out that Mr. White would be the principal. Any school will be FANTASTIC with Mr. White as the principal.

Elliot went to Bustoz when he was little and his 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Harper still works there. She teaches 4th grade now. All of the teachers got to keep their jobs and transfer over to the new school, so hopefully in a couple of years Stella will be able to have the same teacher her Daddy did . . . even if it isn't as a Buffalo!

Bustoz Buffalos! Bustoz Buffalos!
From North to South to East to West
You will know that we're the best!

Bustoz Buffalos! Bustoz Buffalos!
We fight for what is right
We will try with all our might!

We're the Red and Blue! We will be so true!
We Read and Write and Learn and Play
We're proud of what we do each day!

Bustoz Buffalos! Bustoz Buffalos!
From North to South to East to West
We will know that we're the best!