A lot has happened and changed since my last post in April. It was a blog I wrote about saying goodbye to some of our wonderful teachers. As I'm sure you can imagine, we have hired new teachers that are doing an exceptional job!
Miss Caitlin joined our team this year as one of our four year old teachers. She is so wonderful! Each day when I walk by her classroom, I can't help but to stop and listen. She manages her class so well. She has done an excellent job at setting her class up for success and I'm amazed at all the things they are already learning. Each student is happy and engaged every time I see them. Caitlin brings so much experience with her and I am so very grateful that she decided to join our family!
We also hired a new two year old teacher this year. Miss Laura has been a wonderful addition to the CDS family. She is so kind and sweet and has quickly made friends with all of our staff. She came into this position with so much excitement and we couldn't be happier with the way it has turned out. While most of her teaching experience is with older children, she is knocking it out of the park with our littles. I love walking into her classroom and seeing our smallest students learning just like our big ones do!!
Here is a photo of Laura and Caitlin :)
In addition to hiring new staff since my last post, we also spent the summer with some of the coolest campers around! Summer Camp and Summer Preschool were a blast this year! Can I just tell you, Miss Veronnica is a rock star! She planned a summer that was fun for all and was so organized and smooth. Our days were filled with field trips, art projects, games, messy activities, and sweet friendships. We enjoyed beach days, pool trips, movies, water parks, farm days, working out, boat rides, and so much more! Here's some pictures from our summer:
As summer came to an end, I was of course excited for my favorite time of the whole year--the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!! We have a wonderful group of new families and of course all of our faves from last year! We had an amazing morning at the park, getting to see all of our little friends we missed over the summer and meeting new friends as well. Our staff worked hard preparing classrooms and lesson plans to help our little students have the best year possible! They really are the best group of teachers around and I am so honored that I get to be their friend and leader. Here we are goofing off at the Family Picnic:
Another thing that has happened since my last blog post is Coastal Day School turned ten years old. It's not something I celebrated this year and spent most of the day feeling down. I had visions of spending our tenth birthday in our new location or at the very least breaking ground on a new building. As you can see, that didn't happen. I had a hard time even feeling happy about what we have accomplished over the last ten years and spent the whole day beating myself up for not being where I thought we should be. But the truth is, we have done a lot in the last ten years. I forgot about a lot of those things until tonight (well, it's morning now) when I reread all of our blog posts. What a crazy ride this has been. Some of the best times of my life and most rewarding parts of my days are because of our little school and the sweet faces that walk through those doors each morning. The encouragement and love we receive on a daily basis from our wonderful parents brings so much joy to my life. Watching my staff joke with each other, dance together when the day gets rough, and laugh their butts off makes me so thankful that I get to do this everyday. Not many people get to love their job but I DO! And just because we didn't spend out tenth birthday in a new school doesn't mean that we won't for our 11th! We are still working on finding a perfect location to grow in and also working on finding a way to afford it :)
The last few weeks around CDS have been wonderful! Our school year has started out great and all of our sweet students are adjusting to their new classrooms and teachers. Like always, our families are super supportive and kind and make our jobs easy. Coastal Day School is such a fun place to be. Thank you for your continued support in this journey!
-Ashley :)
