Dear Parents

thank you

Dear Parents,

Thank you for trusting me with your beautiful, precious kids.

Thank you for coming to Open House and being so excited to meet me so your kids aren’t scared.

Thank you for bringing an alarming number of school supplies that we certainly didn’t have to provide when I went to elementary school.

Thank you for addressing me as “Mrs. Loeffler” to model respect for your children. I’m assuming it’s that, and not that I’m generally older than you are.

Thank you for digging through your child’s backpack to find the papers, often crumpled and oddly damp from whatever that is in the bottom of the bag, that I send home for you.

Thank you for sending boxes of Cheez-its or granola bars for days we don’t have snack provided.

Thank you for bringing in your child’s glasses (or snow pants, boots, lunches, permission slips) when they leave home without them.

Thank you for coming up with a few dollars every time we manage to have a field trip.

Thank you for sending in extra glue sticks and boxes of tissues when we run out in February.

Thank you for being kind to me when I call you to tell you something your kid did. Sometimes it is something good! Often it isn’t.

Thank you for laughing with me when the thing they did was too ridiculous to believed.

Thank you for having conversations at home about events that occur at school, so that our kids know that you are engaged with their life at school.

Thank you for sometimes bringing in a puppy, but mostly refusing to bring your child’s pet to school. I really didn’t want to meet that tarantula.

Thank you for bringing them back to school after their dentist appointment, showing your kids the importance of being at school.

Thank you for missing work to come to music programs, and for being so excited and impressed for your oh-so-proud children who work so hard.

Thank you for grinning when your child spots me “in the wild,” allowing them to hug and greet me, and then whisking them away so that I can grocery shop or swim with my own children or talk to adults.

Thank you for sometimes becoming my friend in the “after” time of me being your kids’ teacher. It makes me feel human, and that can be hard to come by at times.

Thank you for letting me know you appreciate me, whether with thoughtful gifts or simply with a text or email. Thank you for acknowledging that I love that kid of yours, even when they drive me nuts. Thank you for doing everything you can to get them to school, and trusting that I’ll take it from there.

Thanks for reading.

Love, Susie