My office smells like sunscreen.
And that can only mean one thing.
School must be coming to a close.
There is something special about the final days of a school year. The rhythms change. The pace softens. Backpacks are lighter, if they are even here. Children walk through the doors carrying yearbooks, field day shirts, and of course, the faint scent of bug spray and SPF 50. Teachers are somehow simultaneously exhausted and deeply energized. Every classroom holds evidence of a year fully lived — worn books, full recycling bins, goldfish ground into the carpet, and dried-up glue sticks.
At Crossroads, we talk about Strong Minds and Kind Hearts, but this time of year reminds me that schools are also built on partnership. Parents and caregivers trust us with what matters most to them. Teachers pour themselves into the daily, often unseen work of helping children become more capable, confident human beings. Students show up each day trying again, growing inch by inch.
And somehow, together, we make a (great!) school.
So as the sunscreen scent drifts through my office and summer edges closer, I simply want to say thank you.
Thank you to our families for your trust, your encouragement, your patience, your carpools, your cheering from the sidelines, and your partnership in raising children who are curious, resilient, and kind.
And thank you to our teachers.
Schools run on lesson plans and schedules and calendars, but they are sustained by people who stay late to reset a classroom, who reread a student’s paragraph one more time, who tie shoes, bandage knees, calm worries, redirect frustration, celebrate breakthroughs, and somehow return the next morning ready to do it all again.
The world often measures schools by outcomes, and Crossroads is no different; but a common theme in these Morrissey Minutes is the quieter moments: the encouragement whispered to a struggling student, the extra recess duty covered for a colleague, the patience shown at 2:45 on a Friday in May. That is the real work.
My office smells like sunscreen.
School must be coming to a close.
And what a gift it has been to share another year together.
