It is National School Choice week, and someone like me has a lot to celebrate.

“I can only answer the question, ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question, ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’”
– Alasdair MacIntyre

Every New Year Eve as a kid, my siblings and friends watched The Lion King, while the boring parents played games upstairs.  We ate kielbasa and sauerkraut, and chips with salsa.  Those are precious memories, and worthy traditions.  What traditions do you have (or did you have) throughout the year?

Well, Jamie Conrad has started new tradition at PA Distance – it’s called, “Storytime.” Every Wednesday, at 2:00 PM, K-3 students can come together through a link on the SIS homepage for some pure enjoyment, as Ms. Conrad reads them a few stories.   

But Storytime isn’t really a new tradition – Ms. Conrad is sharing something much bigger.

On December 17^th, at 1:00 PM, all the world’s a stage as 10 courageous PA Distance performers take the limelight.  Be there, or be square.

Okay…so maybe our Winter Concert isn’t that dramatic, but it is one of the coolest events of the year! Think about it: our students, our classmates, or we ourselves, perform for the whole school.  This is something special. Elisa Carpenter, our lovely music teacher, has put together an extracurricular concert featuring students from grades 2-12. 

I recently reconnected with an old classmate and friend from PA Distance. Upon discovering we live 40 minutes apart, we decided to meet halfway to catch up.  As it turns out, only rural residential land lay between us, so the only public place we could find remotely halfway was an old truck stop.  So, after 4 years, Rachel Chick Kunzen and I got coffee and sat in truck stop for hours talking. 

Soon we found that we both got married on the same day, and used yellow as our wedding color.  Besides that coincidence, since we last saw each other she’s also lived in Africa and became a fantastic photographer (check out her page here).  I caught her up on my happenings, and we had a good laugh that I was back at PA Distance.  But amidst all of life’s changes, we were able to go back to the questions that brought us together as friends nearly 10 years before. 

Warning: what you are about to read involves some thoughts of angsty high schoolers who grew up.

I’d like to introduce you to two true friends, Luisa and Jackie.

There was once a time Jaclyn Rodriguez Muniz did not know where her next meal would come from; frankly, she was lucky to have one a day.  This was when she and her husband lived in Puerto Rico with their new born child, stuck in disabling poverty. Still a minor, she could not speak Spanish and found no school that would take her.  “We struggled.” She sighed. “So much.”  But where could she go?  They didn’t have the luxury of “choice.”