Greetings!!!
Already the middle of March! Time is flying for sure. Mrs. Joseph took me to their version of a department store called DAR for some fabric. I got some pretty red fabric for an Island style dress. Mrs. Joseph is the secretary. Her mother-in-law is making my dress. She has made me several dresses already. Then, we stopped at my first handicraft shop. It was really neat. I found a hair flower and matching earrings that will go perfect with the new red Island dress I'm getting! I enjoyed looking at everything and getting ideas for another visit. I bought many souvenirs to ship back. 

I am working on some emails to parents now. I have a couple of students that will not be promoted to 7th grade completely due to absences. After 25 absences in a year...excused or unexcused...a student will be repeating and not be promoted.  Not only that, but every 5th tardy results in a day absent. This is where many of the limits have been reached, in being tardy. I have one student that will not be promoted, that has one of the highest GPA's in the class. Believe it or not, I have some students that have over 90 tardies for the year!!! So, that is 18 days absent just from being tardy. The crazy thing is, her mom works at Marshall Island High School as a teacher! So, that means she is also late to work. The stardard in public education here is low. Even in our school one of the hardest things to deal with is the child is in charge. Whatever the child wants, the parents do. If they "don't feel good" or just don't feel like coming to school, the parents will let them stay home. And it can be ALL the time. The most current Minister of Education is trying to bring the standard up in education in the Marshall Islands, so many people are going to be shocked that things are not what they expect. I have another student that has missed over 30 days in actual absences, plus tardies. This girl was on facebook and playing volleyball and in the ocean most of the days she was out of school. One time, she missed over a week at one time. No contact from parents...no request for make-up work. We started calling at day 3 of being absent. No response. Apparently, grandma is part of the royal family, and mom and dad were thinking that we wouldn't hold their child back. For one thing, though, the principal~Mr. Buck~is not Marshallese. Another thing, we do not play favorites or give certain people special treatment based on who they are. I think some people do not think we are serious. But it will take one or two not being promoted for everyone else to see that we mean business! Plus, when they are out, if there is no note, or a legitimate reason for being out, the student is not allowed to make up work and receives a zero for any tests/quizzes that were missed. I have really started enforcing that one since I do not usually get notes of any sort...so, if they miss and have no excuse from dr or parents, they receive a zero for missed tests/quizzes. It only takes one or two to totally mess up their grades. But they have been warned. I do see more notes, though. 

Please pray for safety and traveling mercies, as Pastor Lang and his wife, Belinda, return from a trip to Guam...for a missions conference and Chuuk, visiting Mrs. Lang's family. They will be returning tomorrow evening. Talking about traveling. I will be Georgia bound June 3, and I will make it to Atlanta June 4. Then, at the end of June, I will return to Pensacola Christian College to work on some courses towards my Master's Degree. I should finish next summer. 

Well, that has been my day. Hope all is doing well. And thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed it! 
Until next time, 
Sarah