Changes

Today is the first day of school for both Zach and the kids, and for Zach, today is the start of a new adventure for him. Something very exciting happened for our family while my blog was on the back burner. In March, after two years of hard work, Zach graduated with his Masters degree in Leadership & Educational Administration! Not only, that he graduated with a perfect 4.0! The time and effort he put into this took a lot of sacrifice, on both his part and mine. There were many things that he had to miss or sit out on so he could get all of his work done. I had to pick up more of the household duties and go to things with the kids by myself so he could get his work done. We were both SO excited for March to arrive and have this journey behind us!

But that’s not all! Most of my long time readers know that Zach has been a band director at a private junior high for the last six years. He took on a very small, struggling program and put blood, sweat and tears into it to try and revive it. His first couple of years were ROUGH. ROUGH. But, each year he got more and more students enrolled in the program and the talent kept growing and growing!

This past school year, his band received their 2nd set of straight 1s at marching contest. They accomplished this the year prior, also, but fell short in accomplishing 1s in their concert contest. In March, he took his kids to concert contest, and for the first time, they got superior ratings (all 1s), and for the first time in school history, they earned the sweepstakes award, which means they got superior ratings in marching assessment, concert assessment, and sightreading. This was one of the last goals he had set when he first started that he had not accomplished by this point. I was so proud of him and so happy for him that he got to achieve this!

 

It seems only fitting that this happened this past year, kind of the climax of his career as a band director, because shortly after this performance, we found out that Zach would be starting a new job for this school year! He’s hanging up his director baton and is now going to be working in administration. His school has undergone a complete leadership overhaul and his new job is going to be the Dean of Academics and Admissions. He will be assistant to the principal and has completely changed his line of work. We are SO excited for his new role and can see how this has been where God has been leading him the last several years. He has assumed many roles the past few years helping with administrating all while continuing his band role. He will no longer be doing any band work and while I know he will miss it some, he sure is excited for being key in helping to revamp the school. This is a blurb that was sent out to the school community when his new position was announced:

I am so very proud of Zach and the hard work he’s done over the past several years. His new school year starts today and it will be a different year for us with the changes he’s made, but we are all very excited!