On July 20th 2014 I woke, grabbed my phone and opened up facebook!  Everything was routine until I read a message from a mentor.  Over the last few months I’ve been searching for a school leadership assignment.  A friend of mine who works with priority schools through OSPI (Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction) had a lead on a leadership assignment and a teaching assignment for my wife! At this point it seemed too good to be true.  Both of us were planning on maintaing the status quo in our jobs teaching 5th / 2nd grade respectively. Immediately I began to research the town/ school district.  WOW! What a beautiful place! As the days turned, I was starting my new school year with back-to-school meetings and classroom preparations.  My heart fell in love with the thought of truly making a difference. Taholah is a small rural school district on the mouth of the Quinault river and the Pacific Ocean.  100% native american town with, no little league, no grid-kids, no movie theaters, grocery stores, shops, gas stations or coffee shops!  Reality set in, this was not a place I could raise my boys with the luxuries they had grown accustom to.  Yet, it was a place where my wife and I could have a HUGE impact on students lives and we get to do what we are trained to do! Isn’t that why we are educators…. to make a difference?  So we put the cons on the back-shelf and began to contact the superintendent/principal who has been on the job for less than 20 days.  He seemed sincerely interested in us and over the course of several days we were off to interview. Interviews for both of us were set for July 31st, Missy and I got in our car and drove the 1100 miles!  The fact that we were still talking to each other when we pulled into our hotel in Ocean Shores WA is an obstacle overcome in itself!  We found, in all other aspect as well, God opened doors that we assumed would be closed! The next few days were a blur! 

Within 48 hours, we found a home, looked into school/sports for our boys, and where driving back to Salt Lake city. We fell in love with the sights, sounds and smells of the coast, blue skies, crashing waves and fresh seafood, all in our backyard.

Fellow, educators we are in the business of change.  Every day we change with students. Many of us change classrooms or grade levels, the needs of our students change, the demands from the district change, even the needs of the families change. I’ve chosen to stop talking about change as something to fear or make a list of cons of.  Change is an opportunity for growth. My wife and I began to change our list of “con’s” to a list of “pro’s” and realized these are things we can’t say NO to….not finding things we can’t say YES to. As we move forward with this adventure, we trust that God will allow us to grow personally and professionally. I read on twitter this week about a few schools around the country who were making decisions and policy’s based upon the wants of the adults in the schools…and not the needs of students.  Too often educators find themselves comfortable and making decisions to remain comfortable.  Lets set great examples, and be agents for change.  God knows Missy and I are out of our comfort zone!  Can’t wait to get more uncomfortable, so I can grow along side the students and staff of Taholah.