Post Office

I wrote a grant last fall with three other teachers, it was fun.  I have never been the lead grant writer on a team so it was nice to spearhead the whole project.  Also, three out of four us on the PO team were on maternity leave, so we had time to chat on the phone and bounce ideas off one another. 

The grant was to implement a post office within out school.  We went for the real street signs, post office area for gathering and sorting mail and of course each classroom had their own mailbox outside their room.  Upon my return from maternity leave, hitting the ground running and balancing work and home the PO did not make it off the ground last year.  We had planned for the spring, but it just didn't happen.  Then on the last day of school I ordered all the materials and spent all the grant money in about an hour and a half!  The easy part of done!  Fast-forward to August of this year and the PO committee met and with an agenda and some very organized teachers and extremely effecient team-work we got the bulk of the business done!  Yeah. 

PO area set: complete with sorting station, color-coded hanging baskets for the street names and a delivery tub!  Too cool.  (I had named the halls after the cougar habitat, but after a staff meeting at the end of the year last year, the staff from those halls came up with their own...and better names.  Really fun to get their input and buy-in and all their individual ideas!)  So, the street signs came in and went up, hanging from the end of the halls...looking reall official and cool. The individual mailboxes were hung outside the classrooms, the real mailbox was by the main office and two maps were made (for the office and the PO/letter carriers).  We were set AND before the first day of school!  Yeah.  The plan was to be up and running for the first day and we did it!  There were many other details that went on and it was very fun, overwhelming and exhausting, but well worth it.  And now, a few months later with the PO running smoothly and all the kinks ironed out, it is a really great and authentic way for parents, students and teachers to communicate with each other.  Fun. 

We did have the local newspaper run an article on us http://web.newsregister.com/news/results.cfm?story_no=254615 and they then ran it in the associated press.  We went national in a few weeks and started to get letters from post-masters!  Our local post-master ordered us an official stamp to cancel letters with, complete with our cougar logo!  We are rocking and a rolling and loving it!  Thanks to the McMinnville Education Foundation for the grant money and all the hard work and dedication from our staff!  It has been a great experience.  I am glad we did it and I am more than happy it is up and running and I am oh-so thrilled that that amount of time and energy has been well spent.