The 5th of July

We had a celebration at our place yesterday! Our condo association puts together a potluck every 4th of July and tons of people invade our rooftop deck to drink, eat, and be merry. This year we had 4 friends come over for the festivities. It was a lot of fun, especially the fireworks over Elliot Bay. John took some great pictures! I was too busy drinking champagne (left over from New Years!). Click on the images for a large view!

Summer school starts tomorrow and instead of the 8-10 kids I was told I would have, there are now 19!! These are all of the kids who HAVE to take summer school in order to pass to 9th grade. Usually it's pretty productive because there is a small group and they all know they have to pass summer school in order to go on. Unfortunately, someone has told them somewhere along the way that our principal does not want to hold anyone back from this group, so they have little motivation to do well (I am in the dark as to the truth of this statement). I know retention doesn't work - I've seen that first hand, but until we have an alternative program for these kids I don't think things are going to improve. If we hold them back they will do just as bad, if not worse than they did this year, they will become more of a behavior problem, and are 4 times more likely to drop out of high school when they turn 16. I am also afraid of how they will cope in high school next year. We have had to baby and cajole them way too much this year. I don't know if they will be ready. We need grade 8.5 for a semester before they go on!