On our morning show today, it is our time to put the focus on Ithaca schools and all the good things that are going on there.
Mr. Paul Coonan joins us and Courtney Urban is here.
We'll talk about what they're up to a couple of months into the school year.
Good morning, Paul.
Good morning,
Phil.
It's great to be here.
And we're pretty excited about meeting today and spreading the good word of what's going on in Ithaca.
So you got through homecoming and now kind of hitting the ground running.
It won't be long.
We'll be talking about the end of the first quarter, right?
Oh my god.
Isn't that bizarre?
You know, the leaves are changing and falls upon us.
It's finally getting to be a little bit cooler in the mornings, sleeping better at night.
But yeah, I mean, we're leaning into education now.
We're starting to talk about testing and all the things that go along with that.
But yeah, we're in the school year and pretty soon it's going to be playoffs for our fall sports.
We've got a lot of kids involved in fall sports from volleyball to football, cross country, all kinds of events going on.
Kids are being successful and enjoying themselves.
That's great.
Football team plays a big one tonight against
but I always say if your fall sports start out good, it seems like that bodes well for the rest of the year,
doesn't it?
It certainly does, and we're looking forward to a good year.
Wonderful.
We wanted to kind of focus, first of all, on virtual school, which is new this year
to the district.
Yeah, our Ithaca Virtual School, we've partnered with the Wisconsin Virtual School this year.
We had some needs that we couldn't meet with teachers in the classroom, so we kind of had to rely on a virtual school.
We hired a virtual school coach.
Many people know
John Clare is a past principal and science teacher in the area.
John was kind enough and he taught at Ithaca when I used to be the principal there.
And he was kind enough to have some of his time.
He said he would come in and help kids with the content area.
And so we started off with that and doing some different things with the virtual school.
And there were some struggles.
I'm not going to kid.
Yeah, I was expecting a little tar and feathering after the first week or two from some of those kids.
I can't
get this, you know, and there was a lot of frustration.
And I think there was some frustration on our part because it was new to us from the kids because it was new to them.
Our, you know, our instructional coach, Tony Ring, who is a fantastic person and really, he's really dedicated to helping the kids.
He was frustrated.
But the Wisconsin Virtual School has got some real good tutoring that goes on.
They're very accessible.
You can call them on the phone.
You can email them.
And they respond.
And they've helped us through a lot of things.
And I actually went on a trip with my wife Angie to North Dakota.
We have the dogs.
We begin to the bird dogs.
And so we took a few days and went out there hunting.
She and I were some friends.
And I came back.
And suddenly, I didn't hear all the mumbling and grumbling about the virtual school.
And my first thought was, I just need to leave more often.
Or, you know, the kids are starting to get used to it and people, you know, at first there's a little bit of panic and anxiety and I get that.
But they started to lean into it a little bit.
And we talked to him and said, listen, we're going to get you some help.
We brought in an in-person educator from the Wisconsin Virtual School.
He actually is stationed in La Crosse.
He came over for a couple of days.
John Clare came over for a couple of days and started to give the kids some support.
And things started to happen a little bit.
I just talked to one of our students last week that I know had some reservations early on and was kind of upset about, I don't like this and all that sort of thing.
And he really, I talked to him and I said, well, how's it going?
He goes, that's going pretty good.
I said, what kind of grade are you getting?
He told me what kind of grade he was getting.
Very impressive.
And I said, do you like it?
He goes, well, I still like the teacher in the classroom.
He said, but I'm getting used to it.
This is okay.
He said, I kind of enjoy the fact that I can do it on my own.
There's a lot of truth in that and we're starting to have some we're starting to have some real victories now and the kids are starting to get it but one of the really neat things is We we've talked to some other folks in education We actually interviewed somebody yesterday and one of the things he said is we told them what we were doing and they said gee I wish I would have had that in high school because they're in college right now
or just getting out of college, and they didn't have that experience.
And they were kind of unprepared.
And he said, right now in college, even if you have a class that's in-person, you're still doing virtual learning or online learning everywhere you go.
And it's everywhere.
So in order to really prepare our kids, we do need to expose them.
And sometimes there's some growing pains with that.
And I think with that, we experience it.
But the kids are really starting to get it now.
They're starting to enjoy it.
As we know, any person
And specifically in athletics, they play better when they're relaxed and kind of loose and they're free to make decisions without thinking about them too much, just reacting.
And that's what the kids are doing now.
and they're really doing well.
So is it one class, Paul, or is it a whole school day, or how does it work?
You know, that's a neat thing about virtual school.
It can be whatever you want it to be.
We are utilizing it in our science classroom primarily.
We have other kids that are taking classes in other areas.
We're going to talk to Courtney about how she is using it with her family right now.
But it can be anything.
you know, we have a kid who, let's say, is doing a youth apprenticeship and they're going out and they're working in a job site somewhere and they're gone all morning.
But, geez, they're missing that one class that they wanted to take to, you know, round out their transcript for a college application.
They can take it and do it whenever it's convenient for them or we can allot them an hour in the afternoon to do it when it's scheduled in the classroom in the morning and they're able to utilize it.
So in other words, it's archived then?
That particular lesson?
Yes.
Yes.
It's online and they can tap into it.
You know, kids can work at different paces.
And the neat thing about online learning as well is it really promotes students working together.
collaborating and what a great thing that is.
So often in the traditional world, no, do your own work.
Don't look at his paper.
You're copying.
That really doesn't exist.
We want kids to collaborate and work together to try to come up with the appropriate answer.
And then they do their own work to show that they know that content.
Was this one of the results of COVID?
I mean, when we started some of that virtual instruction.
It really is.
But it may be one of the good things that came
from that.
Yeah.
And we do it through the Wisconsin Virtual School, which is through CESA 9 up in Tomahawk.
And they really are like the state-accepted virtual school.
And everybody around here is using it.
It's like 14,000 students in the state.
I don't know how many hundreds of school districts are utilizing, but they utilize it in a variety of forms.
Let's say that I'm in a sport and I break my leg.
I'm bedridden or I can't come to school.
Well, we can set them up with a virtual class.
They can do it right at home.
And unfortunately, there's other students that have medical needs that keeps them from coming to school.
And so we can utilize it for those folks.
We can utilize it for schedule conflicts like I talk about.
The kid that wants to go out and get job experience.
And he's out working at the job site, but he's missing that class or needs to fill his day.
A good example is we've got Southwest Tech coming in the spring for a phlebotomy certification.
So they can be a lab technician in the hospital.
As a matter of fact, Kyle Kelly at school had to teach me how to say phlebotomy.
So I hope he hears this and he said it right.
I struggled with that one a little bit.
The classes are online, and then we have a lab class on campus for like three hours, two days a week for a while.
Well, that's going to mess with kid schedules.
But with this, we have the flexibility to pretty much make whatever schedule we can.
Can students do you have to open enroll?
I mean if you're living somewhere in the state then you want to be a part of it How do you how do you do well
right now?
We just serve as kids within our district.
Okay, okay in order to Service kids with the virtual school that are like would open enroll in you have to have a you have to establish a charter school We don't have that right now I mean I just came to the job here in in July and time was limited But we were able to get this up and rolling for this year.
I mean it was fast and furious there for a while
But really what we're able to do is service the kids that we have.
And they're just regular students.
So it isn't anything special.
It's just a form of delivery of content.
And attendance is based on.
the time that they spend on the program.
And so it's all charted there and everything like that.
So if we're concerned about a student doing the work at home or anything like that, we can look up because we have access to their portfolio and their student file.
And we can look at it and say, oh, the students, they're putting in 26 hours a week.
They're doing fine.
Some students, as Corey will tell you, they buzz through it and some might take a little bit less time or a little bit more time.
You know, the other student that really benefits from this might be a credit deficient student, you know?
There's a variety of ways.
I mean, I have a family member who wasn't able to attend school for a while due to some medical and personal reasons.
And this wasn't available then, so they had to, you know, go and do like the HSCD program or at the time it was the GED program.
And now...
We can reach those kids and they can do an accelerated pace if they need to.
But the neat thing is too is that when you sign up for a class, students can work on it for five months.
Not just the normal, hey, we got a semester to do this type thing.
They can have it for five months.
So even after our grading period, they can complete and we can do a grade change.
Ah, I see.
That's if needed.
We would like to have them pace for, you know, a little bit better than that.
Career exploration.
Kid wants to take a class, but we don't offer it.
They've got like the Wisconsin Virtual School and we and just because we're a little school We are have access to all of their classes and all their programs and I think it's like 260 classes that they get you know tap into you know Let's say I know and Phil I know this you've always wanted to learn.
Let's say Japanese.
Yeah, wouldn't be
bad.
Yeah, wouldn't be
bad.
You can learn that
or German, or some other thing, some other foreign language that you would want to pursue.
That kind of stuff is available.
We have like 50 classes that we offer at Ithaca in the different disciplines.
They've got 260.
That's
amazing.
And you talk about foreign language, I'm not sure if that's such a college requirement anymore.
It used to be, but if you didn't have an instructor at your school that taught that, you were kind of out of luck now.
That would change.
I
haven't gone to college in a while, but I do remember that being used to the requirement.
I'm pretty sure it still is.
Yeah.
You know, so.
So never fear.
Yes.
No, we can have that handled.
But we have a fantastic Spanish teacher and Spanish program
at
Ithaca.
And Myra Masters is phenomenal.
And she's a phenomenal person, and she's got a great project.
And the kids really enjoy your class.
And she's even teaching me a few things.
Well, that's good.
Yes.
I'm not going to
tell you what they are.
Can teach an old dog new tricks, right?
Something like that.
You actually can.
Yes.
From the home education standpoint, Courtney Urban is here.
And good morning, Courtney.
Good morning.
Let's talk about how you've utilized it in your role with homeschool.
So I started homeschooling right off the gate.
It was a value of Trent and I both when we got married that we wanted to home educate our children.
And so from the beginning, you kind of assume public school and homeschooling are on opposite ends of the spectrum.
They don't work together.
They don't coexist, right?
And I'm first generation homeschooling.
So I do not have the experience of seeing my mom pace out a course, even knowing what homeschooling should look like.
Should it be paper and pen?
Should it be on the computer?
Should it be?
What should it be?
What is it?
So I've been, you know, kind of like feeling through the dark, trying to pace my way through homeschooling.
It's been wonderful to live out our values as a family.
But when this opportunity presented itself,
Paul actually called me and was like, Hey, we're looking into this home education option with through virtual schooling.
Your kids would be enrolled in Ithaca school district.
So they would be students of the district and they would take part in, uh, Wisconsin virtual school through Ithaca school district.
And I was honestly very hesitant because typically homeschooling and public schooling are on opposite ends of the spectrum.
How do they coexist?
How does that even, how is that even going to work?
Will our homeschooling value still be honored?
through the school district.
And I am here to tell you it was the best decision we've ever made.
Through the Wisconsin Virtual School, my kids are given the proper assignments, the proper assessments, age-appropriate lessons, interactive lessons.
These lessons that you get through the platform
are so vivid, so beautiful, so interactive.
They have awesome videos that apply, the concepts that are being taught and make it super relatable for the kids.
And if you're concerned that, oh, I don't want my kid on a screen all day, I am here to tell you that is not the case.
You are on the screen for maybe 25 to 30 minutes interacting, not just reading, but interacting with these lessons.
And oftentimes it is paperwork
assessments.
And to do that, you have a Google file with the teacher.
And it's real.
The teacher is real.
She's wonderful.
She's a real person.
This is not AI.
This is not, she's a real person.
There's a Google file that I share between her, my son and myself.
I take a picture of the written assignment and it goes straight to her for grading.
This is not strictly screen-based learning.
There's lots of handwriting stuff on there.
Lots of real-life applicability.
But for a first-generation homeschool mom like myself, I was really concerned about gaps.
I was really concerned that I would be blinded to things that I'm not seeing.
I'm just assumed that my kid was fine and then they'd get to college and be like, oh, no.
And my hope and my dream was that I would never remove opportunities from my kid by homeschooling.
And what I'm seeing is that working with the Ithaca School District and working with Wisconsin Virtual School is that having someone walking alongside me as a homeschool mom is invaluable.
It is the best decision I've ever made working hand-in-hand with their teacher at Wisconsin Virtual School.
It makes sure that I'm
giving the content properly and make sure that I'm not guiding them in a wrong direction.
She gives me tips on ways to communicate this more clearly, activities that can like build up the concepts.
I truly have a partner in crime through the Wisconsin Virtual School that Ithaca School District offers now.
And I feel so supported and it is so fun to see my kids face light up when they see 100% pop up.
on an assessment.
And we give each other a high five.
I'm no longer the one, sit down, do your work.
We celebrate together.
We learn together.
We do things together.
It is the most beautiful experience.
And if you are considering homeschooling and you're like, I don't even know where to start, please start with Ithaca School District, Wisconsin Virtual School, please.
Because it is the most encouraging.
Way to ever do homeschooling that I have experienced.
Do you have a real-time interaction with the teacher or how does that?
That's
a great great question One of my biggest concerns was that it would have to be real time Because sometimes life happens Phil and sometimes I'm like I got a meeting I got to bring the kids and it's just I can't be here at this certain time.
This is completely
on your own time.
You make scheduled meetings with the teacher so whenever it works for you and that teacher you meet up through Google Meets and you have that Zoom call, not Zoom call but Google Meet call, and so everything is on your own time.
There is no time that is holding you to a certain place and that is one of the greatest beauties of homeschooling for me is the way to just live your life together as a family unit.
but make sure you're educating your kids to the fullest.
So how do you do that?
How do you schedule your days then?
Do you try to schedule them like a regular school day?
So
the beautiful part about Wisconsin Virtual School through Ithaca School District is that it gives you a pacing guide.
It tells you how many assignments in each subject should be done each week for you to finish on time.
That does not mean you can only do those.
It does not mean that if you don't get it done, you get reprimanded.
It means that this is how you should flow, right?
And so looking
Through the schedules, I realized math and language should be done every day and that I can alternate between social studies and science every day.
So my kids do three subjects every day, but there's a little bit of an alternating thing.
Now, I will say this is not a replacement school.
This is not something where you just give your kids a computer and head off to work for your nine to five and expect them to do, you know, everything on their own.
That is not the case.
I am in it with my kids and they need that, especially in the elementary ages in which I am teaching.
Having yourself present with your kids is highly needed.
They need the interaction, the talking things through the coaching and especially with the technical side of it.
I don't want my kid to have a phone to, you know, download his documents, which is why it's imperative that I am there to do that for him.
But yeah, it's just a beautiful thing to have freedom to move at your own pace But also know that this is not just a computer that's like there's a system behind the computer and it's saying whether you pass or fail This is a real life teacher who gives feedback on each assignment Who encourages the kids she just did a literacy assessment on my fourth grade student?
And those are things that me as a homeschool mom Way over my head
This is a state licensed teacher helping me home educate my kids.
And she'd be unbiased in everything.
Completely.
Completely.
She's able to see those gaps that maybe I would have for myself.
But that's the beautiful part is my kids are students of Ithaca School District.
As they proceed, they're going to be able to take part in art classes, choir classes, sports.
And on top of that, they'll be able to graduate with an Ithaca School District.
transcript, which if you know anything about homeschooling, typically it's the parent writing up the transcripts for them to go forward into higher education.
Now it's Ithaca School District handing my children a diploma, a graduation diploma, with their transcripts that will transfer them into higher education with ease.
They're going to be able to have opportunities at scholarships that as a homeschool parent I don't even know how to access.
There's so many positives about them being a part of the Ithaca School District community, but still working hand in hand with our values that we have at home of being a homeschool family.
So I had no idea that public school and homeschooling could actually go hand in hand until Paul brought this up to me this year.
So it's been the best experience my kids, when I say love, I'm not just like on the radio and trying to say all the nice things.
My kids love
virtual school.
They tell me at least twice a week how much they love it.
They love that mom and them are on the same team.
It's not, you know, me and against them, right?
We're on the same team.
We're accomplishing a goal together.
It is a beautiful thing.
It is our day to talk about Ithaca Schools, Courtney Urban and Paul Coonan in the studio with us.
We'll have more after the break.
Courtney Irwin, community member, and Paul Coonan, who is the superintendent of Ithaca Schools, in to talk with us a little bit today about virtual school.
Paul, you were listening to our conversation with Courtney about home school and its benefits, anything you want to add.
Courtney says everything so well and she's working, how old are your kids now?
They are
second grade and fourth grade.
Second grade and fourth grade.
You know and as they progress through this we're gonna learn quite a bit.
You know and some older kids may be able to handle a little bit differently more of an independent type thing.
You know as they get a little bit older and stuff like that so I guess it's any age.
But Courtney was great because her kids are young.
And the neat part is too, is Courtney and her family are very involved with the Ithaca district.
I have always been.
I hired, when I was back at the principal, I hired Trent.
And then I laughed, but I'm back.
But they've always been involved.
And when I come back and see how involved they are, it was like, wow, what a great thing that was to get Trent and Courtney and their family here in Ithaca.
And I look at what they're doing.
Courtney's at school events.
She's wearing a Ithaca Bulldog shirt right now, which I love to see.
She runs the Bulldog Challenge.
Is that it?
That's right.
The Bulldog Block Challenge?
Well said.
Yeah, there we go for our homecoming events.
And she's an official and volleyball.
And it's nothing to see Courtney come across the street and come into school because she lives right across the street.
It's great to see her.
And it's great to talk to her and see how things are doing.
And I always thought that we would probably have to maybe stop in and check in on them from time to time.
But we see each other enough that we can just talk about it, how are things going, know going great, need anything.
And there's some things that she's come up with that she might need that we're going to work on.
going well and it's a great success story about how we can work together.
And
that's really what we want to do because in education right now in general, across the board, there needs to be some flexibility.
And Ithaca, the neat thing about Ithaca, and it is really kind of a special place, always has been for me, is that we give kind of personalized service.
If we
have students that have maybe learned a little bit differently, we can change things up.
We're flexible.
And this is a perfect example of how we've been able to combine forces.
And you get that socialization as well, as you're involved in some of the things.
Yeah,
and I mean, that is a little bit of a misconception about the homeschool community.
If you know anything about my children, they are the first to talk to you, and they're extremely social.
And the homeschool community is very social with one another.
I think the biggest thing about homeschooling is...
choosing an avenue.
There's a lot of curriculums out there for homeschool families.
A lot.
I mean, off the top of my head, the good and the beautiful, Rebecca, there's so many to choose from that sometimes as a homeschool mom, you're like, what do I, maybe a little of this and a little bit of that and we'll try this and then we'll fix that.
And it can be overwhelming to say the least.
And the amount of peace that I have gotten from
Courtney Urban, you are going to give this to your children.
Perfect.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm really good at following instructions.
Just hand it to me.
It's been beautiful to have it paced out, to have the content already done, the interactive videos already done.
I don't have to find those.
It's it's just wonderful and freeing and My home is crazy.
I have a fourth grader a second grader and then I have a three and a two-year-old and that's a lot so When you're trying to homeschool and make sure there's no gaps and to make sure everyone's covered It can feel heavy This was so peace-giving to know that all we have to do we have to get on our computer We have to see what assignments that we're doing today.
What lessons we're doing today.
Oh
It's, it's electrical energy, Kate.
Isn't this exciting?
Yes, it's exciting.
And then we just go forward, right?
It's not as much brain power.
Um, it's just, it's beautiful.
And I fully understood that this was the first year we, I said we could be your test subjects,
you know,
like, try to try this out.
I knew there were going to be bumps, uh, so minimal.
on our end, um, probably because of the hard work that they put in at Ethica school districts to make sure that everything flowed so nicely.
Um, but truly because there are real people behind the computers at Wisconsin virtual school, I have had no hangups where I'm like, I'm still waiting on an answer from you.
I still don't understand this.
My kid isn't getting, I haven't had one ounce of that and it has been wonderful.
Great.
What about costs, Paul?
Well, that's the beautiful thing because in order to be part of this through Ithaca, all we ask is that you enroll your student as a regular student.
We give a computer to each student.
So Courtney came to my office and picked up a couple of Chromebooks.
We pay for all the curriculum.
you know, core subjects and that sort of thing.
When kids get older, there's, you know, as long as it fits within, you know, if we, you know, require a kid to take seven credits and the kid wants to take 50, oh, wait a minute, slow down here, you know, that sort of thing.
But we haven't, of course, you know, had anything like that.
It's used very sparingly with, you know, the older kids and stuff like that right now.
But.
We cover all the costs.
We take care of all that.
There's a 28-day period where they can test drive it and everything like that.
Oh, that doesn't quite work.
We want to switch to this.
Okay, there's no additional cost to the district.
We can do that.
After 28 days, we're locked in.
We're locked into the cost and we're locked into that course.
You know, that sort of thing.
So we cover all of that.
It's taken care of by Ithaca.
And that's the neat thing is because they are a student of Ithaca.
It's just a different form of delivery.
And that's why
They can be involved in all the sports and different clubs.
However, a student wants it.
They're just a normal student, just a different type of delivery.
And if I can speak to that too, typically each year we would spend between $300 and $500 on curriculum.
And that's on the low end for homeschool.
And we were very conscious about not enrolling in choice schools.
Like there's the Academy of Excellence out of Milwaukee that's a homeschool kind of.
Charter school, but when you do that your tax dollars go towards the Academy of Excellence Which means you're removing it from your community and that was really important to Trent and I that we not remove Anything from our community because we wanted to support it and now on top of not having to pay the curriculum fees that we were paying for a Becca in the past
We get to take part in what our tax dollars are going towards through Ithaca School District.
And our money is staying in the district, the district that we love so much, the district that has given us our livelihood and what we love so much.
Now we are working together, not just working separately, but working together and your tax dollars stay in your community.
There's a lot of options right now for virtual schools elsewhere.
But you do not have...
Adam Hess with the tech support.
You do not have Paul Coonan, you know, advocating for you on your behalf to Wisconsin Virtual Schools.
You don't have the lovely secretaries answering the phone when you have, you know, little problems and they can direct you to things.
It is different when you do school in your community versus somewhere 100 miles away.
It's very very different and it's a beautiful thing to have your money going to a place that you love so much.
One thing I would mention too is that you know this year we had a number of students because we get the open and you know we get the the open enrollment out things and we have students that
opened and rolled out, and they're going to some of these virtual schools because they didn't know we had it.
And we came late in the game.
I mean, I started my job around the 15th of July, and it all happened between the 15th of July and, you know, September 2nd.
And it was...
fast and furious.
I'm here to tell you.
But you know, and so kids didn't know that and we tried to get the word out.
We did it through the radio.
We did it through flyers.
We did all kinds of things, but you know, not everybody knew about it and they had already maybe committed.
Oh, I already committed.
I already paid for this or paid for that.
Well, the beautiful thing is, is that okay, you did that.
But at the semester, you should be able to change.
Kid comes in.
Hey, come in and roll them at the semester.
We'll get them, you know, we'll get them and we'll get them going right away.
The turnaround is real quick.
We have a meet with our school counselor, Gretchen Knabel, figured out, hey, if it's an older kid, figured out what works for graduation and stuff like that, get them signed up for the courses.
And we have a number of coaches involved, math teachers, and Tony Ring, who was selected directly for that.
And we'll get you set up for second semester.
And then you can enjoy it on have them go out for a sport or be involved in a club or you know The other thing is to it's hard to teach welding over a computer or a family and consumer Ed class or you know any one of these things We got Peg Durkin, you know art legend extraordinaire, you know hard to hard to you know, maybe take an art class But you can come here and you can take one in person
Very true.
So if someone moves in, can they start right up or do they have to wait till the semester?
No, if
somebody moved into the district, we could start them right away.
That's the beautiful thing.
It's whenever.
You know, hey, well moved in they want to do virtual school boom the way we go.
The only catch is we cannot take Students that open and roll in right now.
We're gonna work on that But that was the first the first year that is one of the things that we can't do because you have to be a charter school So we have to apply for that.
Yeah, who would have ever thought that you'd see the day, you know, you've been in education a few years Yes, yes,
this is my 36 year education and and you know and and I remember I remember the day that they said hey
Pack your stuff as you're going home and we don't know when you're coming back, you know from the pandemic I was in the cross at the time teaching Tech Ed there and I'm like what?
And then you know two weeks later there I am
doing stuff on the computer, facing my kids and, you know, doing things on my phone and everything like that.
And now here's where we are at.
But this is really the direction that the world in education is going.
Most definitely.
Anything either of you would like to add here today on our program?
You know, one thing I do is I want to thank Courtney and her family.
I know it was a risk and I appreciate you putting the confidence in us.
But it's also been great having somebody that you really enjoy talking to be that
that guinea pigs sort of speak, that is your test pilot doing it with you and if there's problems being able to work them out and because we knew that there would be growing pains but quite frankly I'm surprised there haven't been more.
It's been pretty smooth and that and that's our reflection of you know the Wisconsin virtual school and just how we're handling it and really kind of think too is the working relationship we have with our families.
Courtney, anything else you want to say?
No, I'm just very thankful.
Very thankful.
Homeschooling was something that seemed big and scary to me as a first-generation homeschooler and I was very faithful in living out that value but to have
a school district that we love so much, a community that we love so much, be able to come alongside while still upholding our values has been just the best experience.
And to see my kids absolutely love school and experience it with them has been such a joy.
So it's amazing that my kids are truly Ithaca Bulldogs and to be a Bulldog while still being homeschooled is the coolest.
concept I could have ever dreamed of.
So I'm very thankful for this opportunity.
I'm so thankful we took the risk.
I'm thankful for the support that they have given to us and I'm, yeah, I'm so confident in the direction that we're going because of it.
Wonderful.
Lots of things come out this school year.
You know, you'll have a Veterans Day program in November, Paul, and you're off and running.
Yeah, and I'm looking forward to National Education Appreciation Week.
I believe it's the week of November 16th through the 20th.
I'm looking forward to that, our Veterans Program.
just there's a lot of exciting things going on.
And I'm kind of through that first stage where I had like holy smokes, just everything is hitting you and you feel like you're a bug on the windshield.
And, you know, just going crazy.
Now we're starting to get into figuring some things out and understanding where we have some needs and and we're, you know, trying to get the help where we need the little help here and a little help there to to make everybody's job a little bit better and the kids be more successful, our staff to be more.
successful as well as enjoy their days and not feel go at home at the end of the day and feel like they're wiped out.
You know, we want them to enjoy their day.
And my goal this year was to make sure that or at least try to make sure that every day when
People came to school.
They had a smile on their face when they got here and a smile on face when they left and I try to Mentor that each and every day you should come and hear my announcements.
Oh boy.
We should
it's like
it's like a variety show I'm
sure it is all right Administrator Paul Coonan Courtney urban joining us representing the Ithaca school district.
We'll be back with more on Monday's morning show