Why is Charlie sitting all alone in the lobby of Willow Woods Elementary (Go, Wildcats!) in Sterling Heights? Because the school was a ghost town on our visit today. At least in the number of normal teachers there. Today the school was staffed by substitute teacher after substitute teacher. Why? Conferences and–yikes!–the dreaded flu. Even our hostess, media specialist Lisa Kennedy, was out sick for the day. Bummer! She and the other absent teachers missed a great afternoon. Lucky for us, Principal Melissa Hardy filled in quite nicely. Thank you!

Maybe it was the fact that we visited on a Friday afternoon. Maybe it was the coming three day weekend. Or maybe-maybe it was the presence of so many substitute teachers. We’ll never know. But the audiences at Willow Woods were LOUD. And I mean L-O-U-D loud. They clapped, cheered, and hooted as if today was the last day of school before summer vacation. I would like to hang with this bunch in June when school is actually ending, rather than a 19-degree, snowy day in January. Keep up the excitement!