THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 26, 1996 TAG: 9608260028
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DENISE WATSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 62 lines
Last week, high school teacher Andrea Graham spent hours at the beach letting the waves wash away her blues. Then she and a friend splurged on an expensive seafood dinner Wednesday night because at times like this, only a platter of crabs and lobster will do.
Shopping is always good. Thus, Graham shopped.
Now, having run out of sand, sales and shrimp, Graham must face the calendar:
For teachers, school starts today.
``Yes, teachers get stressed out too,'' said Graham, a computer teacher at the Chesapeake Center for Science and Technology who's been instructing students for 25 years. ``No matter how long you've been teaching, you start to get antsy right before school starts.''
Teachers sometimes switch off ``back-to-school'' commercials quicker than their kids. They and other school employees count down their last days of freedom just like students, but for them, the countdown is over.
About 17,000 South Hampton Roads teachers and other school employees are back in school today, preparing for the arrival of thousands of students next week.
``We wouldn't do what we do if we didn't love kids,'' said one third-grade teacher who asked that her name not be used. She didn't want to offend her parents or ``lil' darlin's'' with unkind remarks.
``But, if I said I haven't been a little depressed with school starting, I'd be lying.''
Reba Stokes, a cashier in Crestwood Intermediate School's cafeteria, said her students are great. But she always knows how many days are left in the school year.
``About two months before school is out, I start screaming in the lunchroom, `We have 62 days left','' Stokes said with a laugh. ``The last couple of days we're about as bad as the kids are. We sing in the lunch line and cut up just like the kids.''
Stokes' summer break was spent in her Chesapeake yard, tending her flowers and lazing by the pond she and her husband made about five years ago. This year, she has kept busy taking care of her grandson, Bryce, who was born the day after school ended in June.
``Last week I woke up and said, `Oh my God, oh no, I've just got six days left.' ''
Graham and another teacher always begin their summer break by escaping to Ocracoke Island in North Carolina the day school lets out.
``The idea is to get off to an island,'' Graham said. ``We have to get (away by) ourselves. I fish, I don't care if I don't catch a thing. She reads, just absorbs the sun.''
Graham and her family planned to head back to their little slice of heaven this weekend, one more escape before the yellow buses pull up and the cycle starts - new kids, missed homework, meetings and lesson plans, day after day, week after week, month after month.
``I'll need to mentally get ready,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: MIKE HEFFNER
The Virginian-Pilot
Reba Stokes will return this week to her job at the cafeteria at
Crestwood Intermediate School in Chesapeake. Like the students she
works with, Stokes isn't exactly counting down the days until school
starts. She's quite happy in her garden. by CNB