Assistive Principles . . .

(Deep inhale)

2011-05-02T12:34:00.000-07:00

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!

Aboard the Train to God-Only-Knows-Where

2011-04-12T14:33:00.000-07:00

The conductor spoke up. "I don't think we had any business being sent off on a siding, that switch wasn't working right, and this thing's not working at all." He jerked his head up at the red light. "I don't think the signal's going to change. I think it's busted."
"Then what are you doing?"
"Waiting for it to change."
(Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged)

I recently discovered that some local school districts were accepting applications for Assistant Principals. One, in fact, is a district that I've tried several times to get into. I've certainly got the credentials now to be competitive, if not the favorite, in such searches. And I'm not even gonna send in my resume.

As much as I'd like to change things up for myself career-wise, I've decided that this just isn't the time: the economy's just too precarious to be placing myself back at the bottom of the seniority chain of another district when I've got ten solid years in my current placement; I've got two kids (one 17, one 19) who will still need the security of a working father as their needs for medical insurance, college tuition, and a safety net continue; and if I'm going to make a serious change of career I may as well make the one I want, which is out of the education field altogether, and I'm not ready to do that just yet.

I think the big question is this: Is this red signal I'm staring at going to remain red? Do I wait for it to change, or do I change what I'm doing to compensate? A large part of me believes I can tough it out, that it can't remain this bad forever, and that I can just do my job, smile, and bide my time until conditions improve. (Those who read this blog probably know that the field of education, particularly at the administrative level, is nothing if not political; that makes it unpredictable and, at times, dangerous.) I can't say for sure that I'm making the right decision by staying put and going with the status-quo-flow of things, but I don't have enough security in place to try something risky just yet.

Because I blog anonymously, there are things about my specific community, school site, and school district that I cannot share, lest I give myself away and share information and opinions that would place my employment in jeopardy; let's just say that there are large issues at all three of those levels that cause many of my colleagues to look over their shoulders from time to time to make sure that the 'Professional Grim Reaper" isn't on their heels. Myself included.

I know that it's probably safe to proceed even though the signal is red. I'm just not ready to take that chance just yet.

"Vocationally Confused," Indeed.

2011-01-05T09:20:00.000-08:00

It's been nothing but complants today. You'd think that the two week holiday break would have mellowed people for a little longer; instead, it seems the urge to complain has just been incubating with no release until now.

Students with attendance problems and low grades want permission to attend another school's dance.

Parents want the teachers to "lay off" their kids and give them extra chances to do things they've deliberately blown off.

Teachers want the computers to start doing more of their jobs for them.

Me, I've just come back from what I considered to be a refreshing (if quirky) holiday break. I spent more thime than I usually would have visiting other people, but I still got to spend time writing, reading, playing with my new toys, and hanging out with the love of my life. I'd have thought that the urge to run screaming from my job would have abated somewhat, but here I am only three days back, and already I'm again thinking about how to change professions.

Looks like we ALL got back into the swing of things in record time.

How Broke Does it Need to Be Before We Fix It?

2010-11-17T18:34:00.000-08:00

There are lots of things wrong with education today. Lately, and not at all in a good way, I find myself asking, "Why?"

I guess my first criticism of the current educational paradigm came when I started teaching High School English in the inner-city. The novels I was "forced" to teach (although standardized and aligned curricula was still years away, required reading lists were well established) included The Outsiders and The Scarlet Letter. The first, written about teenagers in the 1960's midwest, would only be mildly accessible to students in 1990s South Central Los Angeles; the second, written in the late 1800s about events in the mid-1600s, made even less sense to me. Classics, yes, agreed -- but aren't these the books people are supposed to read AFTER they develop the ability and a passion for reading? I came to a simple conclusion: we're doing it wrong.

I taught them, of course. I was a young, new teacher interested in keeping his job. Fortunately, the rules did not forbid me from teaching additional works, so I added Stephen King ("Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption") and John Grisham (one year, The Runaway Jury; another year, The Street Lawyer). And wouldn't you know it? Both the interest as well as the discussion were greatly heightened with books that the students were able to access: modern literature, written today, about today. In time, I think, those students would learn to enjoy reading enough to take a bite out of Hawthorne or Fitzgerald or Hemmingway or Austen.

Years later, as a secondary administrator, I see student after student running at top speed toward a brick wall. What is the purpose of high school, these days? I know a [more frequently disgruntled each day] colleague who is not at all fond of high school athletics, who describes the student athletes' school lives as working day in and day out to achieve nothing more than putting a ball through a hoop or into a net. Lately I see AP and Honors students working like mad to satisfy college entrance requirements and I wonder if there's any difference at all between the two?

Of course, once I start to doubt the logistics (or even the legitimacy?) of the educational system, similar thinking seems to come out of the woodwork. (It's like buying a Volkswagen Bug, or becoming pregnant: as soon as it's relevant to you, it's suddenly everywhere.) There are blogs and movies and more movies and Internet videos that make the same arguments, and I'm left wondering where it's going . . . and why I can still stomach being a part of it.

I see the current education system as a large tunnel, a one-way road through an enormous mountain. It has parameters, it has a course to follow, and once you emerge on the other side you can make turns, choose your own direction, or even blaze your own trail. And as wonderful and noble as that all sounds, I use the tunnel metaphor because it includes some very serious setbacks.

Example: a tunnel, though it keeps you on track and on course toward a goal, blinds you to everything outside the tunnel. If there are better roads, or landmarks of which to take note, or scenery to enjoy, it makes no difference inside the tunnel.

Example: a tunnel keeps you focused on one goal, and one goal only -- the light at the end. So what happens when someone comes along and tacks on four more years of tunnel extension, calls it college, and makes it a [more or less] required part of your journey? It's not like you can turn back.

Looking even closer at my tunnel metaphor, I can't help but think that some of the problems we now have to deal with -- concerning not only educating young people but just concerning young people in general -- are not just a burden to the educational system, but a direct result of the system.

Example: ADD/ADHD can be described (and, for all I know, has been described) as the educational equivalent of claustrophobia. If we go back to the tunnel analogy, consider: students who "have a difficult time concentrating" demonstrate that they are not comfortable or able to focus while in the tunnel. As there is no other option to travel this particular road but through the tunnel (at least, no generally accepted way), it becomes necessary to alter the brain chemistry to the degree that it can function within the tunnel. When did ADD/ADHD begin to become prevalent? Well, it would be stupid to assume that this condition, which most agree is nothing more that the specifics of brain chemistry, arrived so recently in our evolution as the early 1990s, but that's exactly when this particular condition of brain chemistry was named and treatment for it was developed. So what else happened around that same time to bring things to the forefront?

Every system -- be it eco-, socio-, or otherwise -- has what's called a "carrying capacity," which is a term that describes the amount of consumption that a system can sustain and remain viable. If the system is under it's carrying capacity, there are plenty of resources to go around (and then some); if the system is at its carrying capacity, there are only just enough resources and we'd better not waste any; if, however, the population of the system exceeds the system's carrying capacity, there is fierce competition for the available resources, and those who go without are not sustained. I believe this is what happened with the college system beginning in the 1990s: colleges and universities, plagued with insufficient seats for those who wanted them, began to exceed their carrying capacities. Before this, as far back as the 1800s and as recent as the 1970s, not eveyone went to college and there were ample post-secondary resources for those that wanted them. Today, the mantra has changed: "You GO to fucking college." The university system, unlike the compulsory K-12 public education system, is neither designed nor funded to accommodate everyone, has exceeded its carrying capacity, and we now find ourselves with a problem (the "problem" being that you now need a 4.3 GPA in order to even be considered for entry, which is mathematically, staggeringly asinine). Where some people once stayed out of college by choice, we now find many who are left out against their will ("their" being a stupid term to use to describe the will in question, as many are going to college at the behest of parents, societal pressures, or economics -- their own desires being last, if present at all, in that list). Those students who, so long ago, would not have opted for college -- and now must -- find themselves needing medication in order to fit through a tunnel of that length and duration.

Add to all of that the transition we made from the Industrial Age to the Information Age, a transition that many seem to have either missed or intentionally ignored, as we haven't really changed the education system since the transition and have made few (or overwhelmingly misguided) efforts to prepare students for the radially different workplaces the 21st Century will have to offer them. (Some would suggest that calling this the "Information Age" is, in and of itself, unwise -- I observed a 12th grade AP Literature class the other day as they analyzed a poem: not one of them knew what a "bog" was, nor could they describe some other simple thing. For children born into the "Information Age" they seem to lack the requirements for the title.) I shudder whenever I hear someone say that the students we're currently teaching must be prepared for jobs that don't exist yet -- how the hell are WE supposed to prepare them for something like that?

And so, at the end of it all (and if you're still reading, thank you for putting up with all of that), I find myself asking, "Why?" Why do we continue to turn the crank on an antiquated educational paradigm? Why do we push so hard, so far, so fast? With all the technology, knowledge, and expertise at our disposal, why can't we figure out how to slow down? Why can't we have a 21st Century Period of Enlightenment that enables us to change our focus and relieve the pressure?

Why do we do all of this, again? And why don't we do it differently?

A Moment of Peace

2010-09-09T14:36:00.000-07:00

Today I had a short daydream about quitting my job. I didn't even give my boss the satisfaction when I pretended he asked, "Can we talk about this?" I imagined myself casually replying, "Nah. No need." And when he asked, "May I ask why you're quitting?" I simply replied, "Does it matter?"

Only a moment's peace, but a needed moment.

We'll Be Talking Through Puppets Next . . .

2010-04-13T14:07:00.001-07:00

In an attempt to improve communication on our campus, a box will be created--with a lock on it, no less--for teachers and staff to submit complaints and concerns . . . about anything, but primarily about the administration. Moreover, a committee will be formed (union reps excluded) to sort, prioritize, validate, and communicate these complaints.

You need a moment to roll your eyes. Go ahead; I'll wait.

As I understand it, we're dealing with a teaching staff that lost faith in its administration/principal quite a while back. Some of those who have complained in the past feel they've been punished in various ways (difficult schedule changes, finding problems, etc.) and now everyone keeps their input and problems to themselves, fearing reprisals. Since transferring here last summer I've managed to keep myself out of the mud fight for the most part.

Nontheless, I hope no one asks my opinion of our new complaint box. As much as I want to be/seem a team player, this is a stupid move. It makes a very bold, very public statement, one that is insulting to every adult on campus: we have become incapable of talking to each other. In fact, we have actually invented ways to avoid talking to one another. This box represents the first brink in the large wall we are about to build between us.

I suppose I can understand how the fear of reprisals has sparked a need for the anonymity of those who would lodge complaints; there's got to be a better way than this, though.

Grade Calculation, Student Focus, and Winter Sports

2010-02-24T10:52:00.000-08:00

The more I listen to teachers, the more I hear about this same problem over and over again: the obsession with grades. Both students and parents, it seems, are guilty of idolatry when it comes to grades. The end of the Fall semester brought with it the semi-annual begging and pleading to have mathematical scales tipped, debating over grading authenticity, or wishing for a visit from the Extra Credit Fairy. (The use of online grade reporting doesn't help; publish gradebooks on the web and suddenly everyone is a math whiz.) The grade rules all--so much so that the students pay attention to little else.

Posit: Students are able to log on to the Internet and see the teachers' gradebooks in real time.

Consequence: Students will monitor, scrutinize, and calculate exactly what is needed for a desired grade; or they will use the data as evidence when challenging a grade.

Result: Students will focus as much or more on the calculation of their grades than on the actual learning in class.

Conclusion: The students' focus must be shifted away from grades if effective learning is to take place.

Of course, to shift the focus back to the learning and away from the grades we need to re-examine our entire approach to grading. After careful consideration, I've decided upon the best place to look for a decent model:

Canada. Vancouver, to be specific. And I don't mean their schools.

Consider Olympic athletes: they train for [at least] four years for three weeks of competition. There may be some minor competitions along the way, but nothing that has any impact on the actual Olympic games--that comes much later. Everything during that training period is geared toward one goal: to make excellence automatic, so that it can be done perfectly during the actual games. It's all about training, it's a discipline meant to bring about excellence, and it's not judged in its final form until the three weeks of competition. The Olympic athlete focuses on the training and the sport the entire time. They don't settle for something that is "good enough," they work to be the best. As educators, we need to find a way to infuse that ethic--to train, to focus on the learning, not the grade--of striving for excellence.

Here's what I propose as an "Olympic" model for curriculum planning: make the final exam worth 90% of the final semester grade*, then schedule everything as "training" [preparation] for the "games" [final exam]. Granted, it does require quite a lot of backward planning; in fact, it may not be a bad idea to let students know at the outset what they will be asked to do and required to achieve during the final exam. Feedback will need to be genuine, but it should only be feedback as it pertains to the final exam requirements, just as all Olympic training pertains to performance at the games. There may be some minor grading along the way, but nothing that would be worth trying to calculate, scrutinize, or manipulate. By taking everything else away, all the students can possibly focus on is the learning.

When I shared this idea with my wife, she remarked that it seemed unreasonable to judge the whole of a semester's worth of preparation on a two-hour final exam (people do crash, endo, melt down, or otherwise have a bad day). My reply is this: it takes three weeks and numerous rounds to determine an Olympic athlete's rank in the games; why should this curriculum model be any different? The final exams relative to this kind of approach should last about the same, in my opinion: a battery of tests and exercises which, if the student has trained properly, should not be difficult. If anything, this method would be more equitable than the Olympic games, since there really is no limit on the number of gold, silver, and bronze medals available.**

It's an idea, at any rate, and admittedly it's not without its complications: the parameters for the final exam would need to be worked out well in advance, and the planning would need to be exhaustive. Parents would lose their minds, having nothing to keep score with as the semester progressed. How this would impact colleges (other than admitting hyper-prepared students) is anyone's guess.

Since the transcript grades--the ones reported at the end of each semester--are the ones the students (and parents, and colleges) care about most, let all/most of the actual grading occur there; until then, remove all other distractions and focus on training. Without grades to worry about, they may actually learn something.

* . . . or 95% or 100%, I don't care. The point is to make mid-semester grade calculation either impossible or meaningless, so that the focus can't be anywhere but the learning.

** I know, I know. It sounds a lot like the framework for an AP class: all the assignments and exercises designed to prepare for one big test at the end. Ironically, it's the Honors and AP students who are most guilty of scoremongering and ignoring the learning.

Insert Big Black Line Here

2010-02-24T10:46:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged for quite a while, adn there are several reasons for this. One is that I can no longer find the Carnival of Education I once submitted to; another is that I'm having time issues (which I'll probably get more into on my personal blog); yet another reason is that I'm a little worried about posting things while working at this school. Things are different here--more different than anywhere I've worked to date--and the grapevine/gossip fence/rumor mill is on some sort of nuclear overdrive. The result is a bit of professional paranoia, and I've found it best to keep silent for a while.

That is not to say that I don't have things to say about education, general things that aren't site or district-specific. Perhaps, then, I should make an attempt to start over, or to steer myself inot a more general posting methodology. In any event, let's have this post be the marker that reads "Healthy Educational Debate Beyond This Point." If I have any readers left, maybe they'll weigh in.

The Simplicity of Theft Prevention(Which Doesn't Work)

2009-10-17T05:30:00.000-07:00

I spent part of lunchtime today supervising near the school's rows of bike racks. We've had a bit of theft from this area since school began, and I've sometimes thought about radical ways of curbing the problem. (My tendency toward radical solutions, of course, brought about by some of the books I've been reading lately, including The Power of Less by Leo Babauta and In Pursuit of Elegance by Matthew E. May.) One of the less elegant, obvious solutions include caging the bike racks, overmonitoring them, and opening them only at dismissal; but it takes manpower, it takes time, it creates additional procedures and policies, and it's difficult from the standpoint that our campus has about three different dismissal times for various subgroups of students. Another inelegant solution involves video cameras; but those are expensive, require footage monitoring, and are more reactive than proactive (the presence of cameras doesn't stop people as much as we'd like to think).

The inherent problem with theft is that the true violation of law isn't a physical one, it's a psychological one. The second most elegant solution to theft is a state of mind: "That item does not belong to me, therefore I must not touch it." Were everyone like minded (or even mentally conditioned) in this regard, one would be able to park his bike anywhere he were allowed, unlocked, only to find it unmolested and untouched at the end of the day . . . or even the next day.

I heard a story once--one that I'm sure isn't true--about an American aerospace worker doing some consulting work in Turkey. On his walk back to his hotel one night, he sees a paper bag in the middle of the sidewalk. He kicks it off to the side, and out spills piles of cash. Thinking this isn't something that should just be laying about, he takes it to the local authorities and explains how he found it--only to find himself dragged into a side room where they remove his shoes and cut off his big toe. When it's over, he demands to know why he has been treated this way. The police chief replies, "It was not your bag to kick."

Of course, my elegant solution to theft--touch only what is yours, or what you have permission to touch--is already part of a social contract that few pay any attention to anymore. And while others are looking at cages, locks, and video cameras, I'm trying to find a way to combat several hundred years of "ignore your fellow man" conditioning.

For the most elegant way of solving theft, in my opinion, try looking HERE.

Greetings from Square One!

2009-09-14T11:03:00.000-07:00

I haven't felt like this in over five years.

Well before my current relationship (now a marriage) began, my personal life was in a severe state of disarray--to the point where panic attacks, several a day, were a normal part of my routine. The panic attacks were frequent enough, not to mention unpleasant, to consume every waking moment of my life. It took some time, some introspection, and quite a bit of effort to get my life to foresake the panic attacks and move on to a state of mental peace and harmony.

Ah, those were the days.

I will not be spending much time ranting about the conditions and dysfunction of Phoenix High School; while this blog is anonymous, bloggers have been outed and dismissed, and I need this job. (Though in light of the first week of school around here, it might not be the worst possible of outcomes.) Suffice to say that my opening week with students went well, but learning to tiptoe around my new boss is a little more nerve-racking than even I had planned, and I had planned for quite a bit. In the end, I know that at some point I will need to stand up to the guy, and when that moment happens I hope I come out of it with nothing more than flesh wounds.

(Writer's note: I began this post several days ago. Since then, things have become incrementally better. I'm still a bit nervous when it comes to meetings and such, but I'm trying to take steps to cement myself in the school enough that I can better bounce back from whatever fallout may occur at some point.)

All in all, I still feel like I'm getting through this by the seat of my pants, and it's not a good feeling. Little by little, day by day, I'll get there.

A "Gulp" Moment

2009-09-02T21:29:00.000-07:00

I'm back from a summer of relaxation, commotion, and confusion. Didja miss me?

When last we left off, our hero (that's me) was being transferred once again to another campus. (For those keeping score, that means that in this district I've been at School A for seven years, School B for only one, and now I'm starting my first year at School C.)

A blogging friend and former colleague of mine has created a pseudonym for his school, and I think that may be necessary here. I may not blog a whole lot about the site itself--I don't want to get found out and fired, after all--but it'll be easier than typing "School-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named" all the time.

Therefore, I now work at Phoenix High School. This is not related to the City of Phoenix in any way (especially not since the campus is, like, six blocks from the beach); the school is just completing some construction--which will still continue for the next month or so--and the name may be physically appropriate given that the new buildings have grown from the ashes of the old. This blog is devoted more to concepts and educational theory anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Remember, though, that my prior two schools in this district employed me as a middle school assistant principal. I'm now the AP at a high school.

I'm going, as they say in baseball, to the show.

I caught my wandering, daydreaming mind today--in the midst of the first-day-back-for-teachers-so-let's-hold-a-big-old-meeting meeting--drifting toward a large cloud of insecurity. I've always wanted to be a high school AP, I've been training to be a high school AP, and I've dabbled a bit in the duties of a high school AP, . . . . but am I ready for this? I'll be the sole administrator incharge of discipline for a campus of over 2000 students. I'll be in charge of campus safety, technology, and attendance. These are all tasks I've handled before, so it's clear I have some experience.

I think my main problem is that I must now perform for yet another principal, one whose perspectives, attitudes, and managerial processes I've not yet completely learned. It's kinda hard to impress someone you don't know how to impress.

After speaking with my family about it over dinner, I discovered two things. One is that I have a professional strain of first-day-of-school jitters, nothing more. The other is that there was once a time in my life--not as long ago as some would think--where this feeling of insecurity was the norm and confidence was rare; it's the opposite now, and it's a great feeling.

As my son suggests, let my Dr. Pepper hat's embroidery be my guide:
"Be You: Do What You Do."

Leave Your Message At The Tone . . . .

2009-07-14T11:35:00.000-07:00

I realize I haven't been posting a great deal lately; the fact of the matter is, simply, that since the move to my new school site NOTHING noteworthy has happened to me, and I've been doing so much reading that I haven't had anything to blog about. So I'm gonna hang up the "Gone Fishin'" sign until things start ramping back up in mid-August.

When I get back, though, I'm gonna need some input on an approach to school discipline I'm thinking about putting together. I'll also have some interesting play-by-play about my new assignment, other things going on in the district, and more submissions for the Carnival of Education.

Enjoy your summer! I know I'm gonna try to.

I Think I Need My Towel*

2009-06-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

Finally, a chance to blog.

It's been a while, and quite a few things have happened about which I would like to blog. Perhaps with the summer "vacation" now here (administrators work year-round, but it's slower) I'll be able to get to some of it: happenings at my current school, happenings at my former school, and things I've seen in the news about which I have opinions.

But first, I think I'll bring you up to speed on my transfer.

Two weeks ago I was officially told that I'd be transferring to a high school next year--told by the Assistant Superintendent, a man who, apparently, it would kill to say something nice about me to my face. Earlier this week I met with the principal with whom I'll be working. Fortunately I didn't get blindsided by anything; this man's been running this particular high school since before I joined the district, and I've heard plenty of stories (some good, some bad, some unbelievable, some mildly worrisome). I honestly don't know how much I'll get to post about this new assignment--the principal likes his people to be loyal, play things close to the vest. I'm reminding myself that this blog is anonymous (those who know my secret identity: consider yourselves reminded). My new school made the paper three times this week over some athletic issues . . . fortunately, that won't be my department.

I'll be handling Campus Safety (with the help of three security officers who, according to my soon-to-be-predecessor, aren't all that helpful), Activities Oversight (I'm told the Activities Director is great, but her assistant is not), and School Discipline. Four grades of it. I'll be the only AP working discipline--and THAT'S the part that's got me scared the most. It's going to be a lot of work, it's going to be labor-intensive, and I'm apparently not going to have a whole lot of competent people to back me up. What's more, I don't think my new boss is going to give me a whole lot of time to prove myself.

The only fact easing my mind at the moment is that the person I'm taking over for has been doing this for two years, and it's not like she's a quivering puddle of goo or anything. So maybe it's something I can pull off after all.

I'm still a little worried, though.

* Hitchhiker's Guide fans know what I'm talkin' about.

Drum Roll, Please . . . .

2009-05-20T18:58:00.000-07:00

Now that State testing is over it's time to enter the home stretch. Tonight's Open house isn't as well attended as I'd like, but since it's only my first year here, I didn't really know how to gauge attendance. (But I'm OK with a low turnout--it's been a busy day: playing border collie for the 8th grade panoramic picture, a minimum day schedule, a marathon--and landmark--IEP meeting, a retirement celebration at the district office, then Open House.)

(Insert sound of changing gears here.)

There's reason for anticipation: I'm supposed to be getting a call tomorrow from the district brass about my assignment for next year. I don't know where I'm going, but I've learned to embrace change. (The irony here is that I'm supposed to help chaperone a field trip to Disneyland tomorrow, so I may miss the call.)

Stay tuned.

Stupid Is As Unions Do, I Guess

2009-05-15T18:01:00.000-07:00

If I were a California State Legislator, I would be laughing my ass off.

This week the Los Angeles Unified School District's teachers' union, after failing to stage a one-day walk out (the contract says they can't), decided to stage a number of protests today. Over 700 more teachers than normal called in sick, and several of them were arrested for sitting in the street outside district headquarters and stopping traffic. The court-denied one-day strike, and today's unorganized sick-out removed almost three thousand teachers from the classrooms--teachers who were protesting . . . . wait for it . . . . the removal of teachers from the classrooms.

Now, look: I was once a member of UTLA, so it's not like I'm playing armchair quarterback here. Anyone who knows me (as a former teacher and current assistant principal) knows that I am all for the teacher, that I believe that teachers should have as much as possible, that there should be as many of them as possible, and that they should be paid better. (I even raise the hackles of the district leadership, I'm THAT MUCH for the teacher.) I think the whole thing served both camps: the teachers showed us what it would be like with fewer teachers in schools, and the politicians saw that they were perfectly OK with the results. The pols have been saying that all along. They don't think they have any choice.

The reason I don't think this was the brightest move has less to do with the walk-out and the protests, but because this comes on the heels of some very powerful criticism two weeks back from the L.A. Times. They ran a few stories about teachers who should be fired/released from contract/let go and haven't been. One feature chronicled the daily routines of a few teachers who are "housed": they're on contract, being paid, and either doing crossword puzzles at their desks or doing them from home. They can't be in the classroom; complaints against them are still under review. Of those who wrote in about the articles, many were outraged about the protections that teachers enjoy; only a few successfully identified those protections as having been put in place and enforced by the union.

And here's where I have my problem: if teachers are allowed to unionize (and I believe they should) and guarantee certain protections for its members, then they should do a decent job of policing their own. The contract should not only include such protections, but should also state--blatantly or implicitly--that the union will do everything possible to deliver a quality workforce. And if teachers' unions are defending the jobs of teachers known to violate laws (of society or of nature), we have a problem.

To be clear: I don't have a problem with unions. I have a problem with unions who protect themselves without regard for or at the expense of the students and schools. Perhaps if everyone were on the same page about who should and shouldn't be a teacher, needed funds wouldn't be wasted on lawsuits and housing. Maybe if the teacher workforce were policed from within as well, then all the spending would be meaningful, produce results, and convince others not to cut budgets. Hell, even if it appeared that the union was helping to save money, that might mean something.

I once worked at a school where a teacher was drinking on the job. All day. Every day. Teachers noticed. Students noticed. That teacher's job performance was visibly affected. And that teacher still works there, two years later, despite the efforts of site and district administration to remove that person, thanks to union protection.

If I were a California State Legislator, I probably wouldn't be listening, either.

Further News As Events Warrant . . .

2009-05-02T18:07:00.000-07:00

I have unofficial word from a district higher-up that I'm changing schools again at the end of this year. There's no word yet on where I'll be moving, but most educated guesses seem to be pointing toward one of two high schools (NOT the high school at which I once worked).

My current office is decorated in a very minimalist fashion, fortunately, so this move shouldn't be too terribly difficult.

The Waiting Game!! (Cue Theme Music)

2009-04-18T18:48:00.000-07:00

If you've read this blog for a while, you know that I got transferred to a different campus this year. (If you haven't, let me bring you up to date: I got transferred to a different campus this year.) As we head into the month of May, most site administrators are all asking the same question, over and over: "Have you heard anything?"

More administrator shuffling is about to happen and all we have to go on is rumor at this point, which is odd because these moves are usually decided upon and announced by now. This isn't any longer a question of "if" moves will be made, it's a question of "who" and "when." One intermediate school site is losing an administrative position (from 2 assistant principals to one), and someone's already been let go at a high school. It's now just a question of shuffling people around. Yes, it would make sense to just take the intermediate odd-man out and place him in the hole at the high school. Done. Finito.

There are, however, a number of mitigating factors that make the whole thing much more complicated--really, what in a school district ISN'T complicated? There are rumblings that the district brass plans to make some principal changes in the future (or sooner--more on that in a moment), and might want to place APs at certain schools with the intent of making them the heirs apparent for the principalships. That would shuffle quite a few people, and might even reverse one of the changes made last year. Moreover, the budget crunch thing has got everyone battening down the hatches and putting people where they'll do the most good with the least amount of expense or worry. I guess if we're all going to bury our heads in the sand we should make sure someone's feeding the dog and bringing in the mail as needed.

The whole principal thing is interesting, actually. A couple of months ago the district announced that there would be no principal moves for next year; not long after that, the sh*t started hitting the fan. One high school principal (one who can't retire too soon, in the opinion of most) has his teaching staff gunning for his head AND he's not reacting to his testing data to the district's satisfaction. A second principal actually defended his crappy data to the Assistant Superintendent, and a third principal is facing not only an angry teaching staff, but an ACLU lawsuit as well (this one's also, apparently, taken to yelling and screaming at those both below and above her on the chain of command, which isn't making matters any better). So there may be a few principal changes in the making--or at least in consideration--after all.

This is the part of the blog post where the image morphs into a dream sequence.

What if they ask me to step up to interim principal? Or principal? Or one of the Assistant-Principal-On-Deck-for-Principal spots? Am I ready for such a move? Do I want to give up more of my time to my job? Am I reading too much into the idea? If last year's administrative shuffle has taught me anything, it's that I serve at the pleasure of the district. I guess I'll go where they put me.

At this point, I'd just like to know where I'll be next year.

Maybe There's Something to Darwinism After All . . .

2009-04-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

Educators have grappled with the issue of student motivation for decades, and I'm no exception. I've been working all school year with lower-income seventh and eighth graders who, were it not for the constant prodding by the school staff, couldn't be bothered to walk upright let alone learn anything. As many of you know, I spent seven years before that working at a school site where most were competing for some of the best universities in the world and were motivated to do much more than the minimum requirement.

Why are the two groups so different? I refuse to believe that either group of students has enough forward vision to anticipate what they'll need to accomplish. I know that every parent wants the best for their kids (though I admit that the latter group probably has parents who are better at expressing it and more empowered to give rewards). I know that both groups have an equal chance for success (not for the all the reasons that Malcom Gladwell explains in Outliers, though I'll get to my review of that book in due time). So why is the motivation missing from my current students? What am I missing?

About a year ago an unoffical black mark was put on my record. It was said that I didn't believe that all kids could be successful. (This apparently came from an interpretation of something I said at some point, though I couldn't tell you what it was I said that gave people--including some district officials--this idea.) It's a misunderstanding I've tried to clear up since it happened; I honestly don't know if it's worked.

Here's what I do know: Every kid CAN be successful, but not every kid WANTS to be successful. We can deal with different definitions of success and this statement is still true. Some students set the bar too high, some set it just high enough, some set it far too low (by any standard), and some don't set a bar at all. It's like having given someone a gold brick only to discover he's been using it as a doorstop.

So I'm left with this overwhelming feeling of frustration because I can't get these kids to care enough about themselves to do well. It's a terrible feeling that comes from watching young people blow off the opportunity to succeed--not miss it, but actually turn it down--and I try not to let it get the best of me. Chuck Palahniuk put it best in Fight Club: I really wanted to put a bullet between the eyes of every endangered panda that wouldn't screw to save its species and every whale or dolphin that gave up and ran itself aground.

I wish I could figure out a solution to that problem. Of course, if I could, I'd probably be writing the books instead of reading them.

Okay, Okay, . . . I'll Read The Damn Book

2009-03-23T05:47:00.000-07:00

So I posted a rant not long ago about using business books and manuals in education, and my frustration that (a) they don't really cross over, and (b) education isn't important enough to have it's own section of the bookstore. That rant is partly motivated by a general sense of urgency in my profession, but it also affects me personally.

My boss--the principal of my school--LOVES these books. He can't get enough of them. He reads two or three a week. He copies chapters out of them and hands them out at meetings. He's always talking about them (and he's the kind of guy who never remembers if he's told you something or not, so I get repeats). And his new favorite book is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

I read Gladwell's Blink, and I thought it was insightful. I didn't think it was written for specific audiences (like business or education), but that didn't stop people from trying to apply the concepts to everything they did. I [am almost sure that I] skipped The Tipping Point, for no other reason than people told me it was too similar to Blink. My boss now goes on and on about Outliers--and fine, I'll read the damn book. What worries me is that according to him, it's about what the traits that make people successful; and to listen to his examples, 90% of these traits are beyond the control of the individual (like what month of the year you were born). I don't want to read 300 pages of "Here's what makes successful people tick, but there's nothing you can do about it" or "These are the things you didn't do for your kid and now he's irrevocably screwed up."

I'll read the book, but I have to finish the one I'm on now (The Power of Less by Leo Babauta) and read the next one in line (Fool by Christopher Moore). Then I'll read it, boss.

Oh, Maestro, How I Miss You So

2009-03-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

This week provided my first opportunity to hear a music concert by students at my school. It was . . . well, it wasn't what I expected. It wasn't bad, really, given what our music teacher has to work with, but it wasn't what I was used to.

At my prior school works a man of music who teaches his students along classical lines, but has the benefit of teaching students who either take the class seriously, have additional lessons on the side, or who have been playing the instrument(s) for a number of years. His concerts are just under two hours long and include instrumental, jazz, and vocal--up to ten numbers in each section, at times. I always made a point of going to his concerts, partly because I enjoyed the students and the program, partly because I prefer the arts over athletics.

At my current school, students have only the classroom time to learn; practice time at home is probably distrcted and not all it should be; and the students have no outside, formal training. The concert the other night included the beginning band, the choir, the jazz band, and the concert orchestra. There were fewer selections (the entire evening ran about 45 minutes), the acoustics in the gym were less than adequate, and the audience was . . . (perhaps "rude" is the wrong word) unaccustomed to attending music concerts--there was talking, there was moving about, there were distractions. At one point, I felt bad for the teacher (who was very upbeat throughout the whole thing, actually), and then I felt a little bad for the students who had worked so hard but clearly didn't get the audience they deserved, and then I felt glad that our school, where the students don't have much and still work hard to satisfy, had a concert at all.

And I missed my previous school's Maestro.

Whew!

2009-03-02T14:51:00.000-08:00

Budgetary issues being what they are in California, everyone in education gets nervous around this time of year. (For those who are unfamiliar with the education calendar, districts must notify you by March 15 if you're going to be released. Pink slips are called Reductions in Force, or RIFs.)

On Friday, I got a postal slip notifying me of certified mail. My heart sank, then leapt into my throat and did a little dance, then stopped altogether for a few seconds as I considered why I would possibly be receiving certified mail from "school district." In my mind, for a few minutes, I had been RIFfed. It was a very scary feeling, and my now-well-exercised heart goes out to all those people, particularly educators, who have experienced this feeling and have been left holding a pink slip at the end.

The district had not mailed me a ticket to the unemployment office, but my contract for next year (plus a note reminding me that my salary was being cut slightly for '09-'10 . . . that's a whole different story). I have a job, and I'm happy with that. I don't know if I'll be staying at my present assignment or changing campuses again, but I don't really care overmuch. I'm employed.

One for My Profession's "Action Item List"

2009-02-25T05:36:00.000-08:00

School administration is, in my opinion, a world unto itself. We aren't exactly a business, per se, since the market economy has less to do with our strategy than the mindset of our students, parents, and staff members. And we're not exactly a service industry, either, since we don't exactly pipe electricity into your home or pick up your trash. So when we visit the bookstore, we tend to stop at the shelf and a half of educational theory books that Barnes & Noble graces us with.

For some, however, that doesn't seem to be enough. Each school year our district management encourages us all to read a specific book, and it's usually one aimed at business leaders, not educators. Several principals in our district--as well as those in other districts, I'm sure--read business manual after business manual in an attempt to bring the next "new thing" to their schools. It never occurred to me to find the answers to Education's problems in business rhetoric (since our worlds are so very far apart), but the teetering stack of such books in their offices suggest that the business-flavored Kool-Aid tastes pretty good.

A lot of the language--the jargon, specifically, more and more of which seems to be invented with each new book--spills over into meetings and conversations as well. District Leadership Team meetings in the summer will begin with a "Grounding Activity." A school site's plan for some change or other must become a "Living Document." Everyone must have a stake in the "Mindshare" of the district. Sheesh. If someone asks me what I've got going on at work, I usually have to include brief definitions and descriptions of the educationally-related terms I'm using and tasks I'm describing--and that's without any of the business lingo.

So is there really not enough edu-speak out there that we need to co-op the crap they're spewing in the business world as well? Or is the self-esteem so low in Educational Administration that we must behave like Fortune 500 wanna-bes just to feel good about or productive in what we're doing? I know one thing for certain: I wouldn't get to complain about this if there were more books published for educators about education and educational administration.

And that's where the REAL problem is: EDUCATION IS NOT SOCIETY'S FOCUS. It's not even a priority. The business and computer sections of bookstores take up almost a third of each store; most education manuals have to be ordered. I would think that even the dimmest of business bulbs would be able to apply their own basic theories to society: if you sell a certain amount of product, you must re-stock your shelves; similarly, if you see any number of business, government, or societal eggheads retire or pass away, you must re-stock society.

DO THEY REALLY THINK WE CAN PRODUCE THE NEXT GENERATION OF OUR COUNTRY'S BRAINTRUST ON HALF A BUDGET?!? The school system we have now is the same school system that produced millions of people who thought sub-prime mortgages were a good idea. Clearly our educational institutions have issues.

Without well educated people, problems don't get solved. Education is probably the best preventative maintenance program for society's ills; if spend some money now, if we spend some effort now, if we focus our attention on young people now we may not have as many of these problems later on. If we turn the first ten or twelve or sixteen years of life into a maelstrom of growth and development maybe we don't have as much of a crime issue, or a poverty problem, or an environmental dilemma, or a health problem. Maybe--just maybe--we can produce a generation of people which is not only equipped to solve such complex problems, but can prevent them as well.

We need to do something. As a school administrator I can't keep reading books about "profit maximization" and expect to get anything out of it.

Budgets, Snafus, & The Future

2009-02-23T05:40:00.000-08:00

That's right, folks. If you work in education anywhere--in California, specifically--you know that the budget problems meant certain doom for us no matter how it ended. Sure enough, after a month of procrastination and a week of elementary-school-level bickering, we have a budget. Whoop-dee-doo. They thought THEY had to cut spending? Watch the school districts continue their slashing and burning trying to get ready for next year. I'm sure that districts all over California are stocking up on pink printer paper, too--the RIFs are coming.

(And while I'm talking about state budget issues, I'd personally like to thank our Governor for working so hard to completely negate the Federal tax break I'm going to see starting April 1. That's damn nice of you, sir; I'm starting to wonder why I labored so hard over the decision not to vote for you. Gray Davis was no prize, but would we be here now if he'd kept his job?)

I know my district has been planning for this--we have an amazing guy in charge of our money--and that while we're going to be OK for 09-10, we're worrying right now about cutting up to $8 million to make 10-11 work. To that end, they have announced the consolidation of two campuses (which will eliminate a position or two, I'm sure), cuts in a couple of departments, and the elimination of two secondary assistant principals (which was expected and NOT a shock).

I'm positive I'm not one of the APs who will be eliminated, but I'm 95% sure that I'll be changing school sites yet again. They're taking their time making those decisions, and I'm in no hurry. Stay tuned . . . and in these hard-for-education economic times, take care of yourselves.

There is No "Team" in "Me, Bitch!"

2009-01-29T05:08:00.000-08:00

I'm noticing yet another disturbing trend among the young people with which I work: they feel they deserve high praise and accolades for ordinary, mundane things. I watched a student last week on the basketball court at lunch; he dribbled, he stopped, he took the shot, and then he beat his chest, looked at his teammates, and yelled, "Me, bitch!" like he just sank the winning basket in the NBA Finals. He didn't even make the basket. He barely hit the backboard with the ball. Still, he wants to be carried off the court on the shoulders of his peers.

Someone recently suggested to my wife (a high school teacher) that it's "now politically correct to praise failure; how could they understand [achievement] in a time where even the losing teams get prizes?" She's been dealing with Honors & AP kids who want to eek their Bs into As because they tried really hard. Me, I watched a student not too long ago kick a ball during PE. He kicked it against the outside wall of the gymnasium then spun to face his friends, throwing his arms up in triumph and expecting applause and congratulations. He wants praise for literally hitting the side of a barn.

I guess what bothers me most about the whole thing is that this is the sense of entitlement people seem to use later in life as an excuse not to work, not to parent, or not to care for property. I'm worried that their focus won't change, and that they'll eventually atrophy into those that we have to take care of because they can't take care of themselves. (A close second on my worry meter is that self-esteem-motivated praise ends up devaluing ALL praise, and praise can be a powerful tool when used properly.)

Of course, today I was reminded of why we started praising ordinary things in the first place. One of our students has been getting to school hours late on a regular basis, and today not even the principal and the police officer could get her out of bed to come to school; on the other hand, she lives in a one-room motel room with two parents who drink and party until 2 in the morning, so it's little wonder she's not functional until noon. Another of our students was worried about taking one of his finals this morning, and suggested to his father that he didn't want to go to school today; he arrived at school not long after receiving the beating his father gave him.

We motivate some kids to get to college; we motivate others just to get to tomorrow. Some of these kids get praised for little things because it's all they get a chance to do. Not all of them, and certainly not some of them . . . but a few--a very specific few--deserve the pat on the back for trying.

A Bit of CLARITY in My Life . . . .

2009-01-28T12:34:00.001-08:00

Check out my new ride!

What you see is the 2008 Honda FCX Clarity, a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. This isn't the econo-box that was Honda's first generation; this is a full luxury version . . . this thing has ALL the bells and whistles of any luxury car on the market, but runs on ZERO gasoline. And the only thing that comes out of the tailpipe is water (I have the first car in the world designed to pee). The car of the future is here, my friends, and it's wrapped around me whenever I drive.

I'm sure that, over time, I'll be posting a lot about the new car, including photos (to be honest, I have to make sure I don't post anything proprietary, per Honda's wishes). For now, I'm going to post the answers to the four most frequent questions I've had in the last week:

1) How did you get one of these? (Usually asked, "How did YOU get one of these?") Honda's trying to put 200 of these on the road over the next three years (mine, I'm told, is one of the first ten--Jaime Lee Curtis has one, so I'm in a pretty nifty club), and their website asks interested people who live near one of the fueling stations to sign up. I did. Frankly, it's one of those things that you fill out and you know they're never gonna call--but they did. I've been speaking with them since November, and we got everything worked out. Despite what certain reviewers are saying, they're not just handing these things over to celebrities; they are, however, screening the potential lessees pretty carefully. Anyway, my answer to this question is, "I raised my hand, and they called on me."

2) Is it hard to drive? Is it hard to refuel? In both cases, no. I've never had a luxury car before, so I'm going from a stripped-down 2000 Hyundai hatchback to this. Driving a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle--basically, an electric car--means becoming accustomed to the acceleration, the gauges, and the mechanics of starting the car, but it's not all that different. I think that's the point, actually: to make the cars cleaner without changing the way we drive them. As far as refueling the car is concerned, it's actually easier to fuel with hydrogen than it is with gasoline. Once you know what you're doing (a simple 30 minutes of training), and once you've done it a few times, it becomes . . . well, kinda boring, actually. But that's better than needing a 50-page manual each time.

3) Is it expensive? Um . . . yes. Yes it is. Here's the thing, though: with the $600 per month lease, I'm getting all maintenance AND the comprehensive and collision insurance included (I just need to pay for the liability insurance and the hydrogen). That being the case, it's not really all that different from leasing any other big-ticket luxury car. On top of that, I get to drive around in a "limited edition" kind of car, and I'm not polluting anything while I do it. As far as the hydrogen itself is concerned, you have to learn the math of driving all over again (what with the new fuel type, the conversion of numbers isn't always easy--or possible). Let's put it this way: it costs me the same to fill this car's tank as it did to fill my last car's tank. So again, there's not a whole lot of change here.

4) Are you going to let your son drive it? Look, my almost-17-year-old son doesn't even have his license yet, and doesn't take the test until next week. I love my son, I trust my son, and I'm glad I sent my son to an expensive driving school--but unless there's a federal bailout package specifically for my liability policy, I don't see him driving it anytime soon (one of the guys from Honda--I'm looking at you, Tim--suggested that I let him take the test in my Clarity, for crying out loud). Actually, my son doesn't have his eye so much on my new car as he does my OLD car. He has dreams of co-opting that one. We'll see.

If I get questions, I'll answer them (if I'm allowed to, of course). In the meantime, if you need me, I'll be in my car.

Maybe They Didn't Notice That I Left . . .

2009-01-06T18:06:00.000-08:00

I got a letter yesterday from the County Department of Education. It seems I've been nominated for (and will receive) an award for "Outstanding Contributions to Education." It's nice to be honored. It's nice to be recognized.

The thing is, I was nominated for this award by parents at the school I left seven months ago. The transition was not easy for me OR them (as those who read this blog regularly well know), but I got through it. I'm not as adjusted to the new school site as I'd like, but I feel that I've made the transition. I find going to the old school's events a little bit painful, so I go to very few of them. There's just too much history that makes me endure the change all over again.

Again, it's nice to be honored. It's really gratifying to be appreciated so much that the parents feel compelled to nominate me even after I'm gone. The award thing is at the Board meeting on the 23rd. My former principal will be there, my wife (who still teaches at the old school) will come, and God only knows who else is going to show. It's nice to be honored, but I know there's going to be some of that reopening-the-old-wound emotion, too.

I'll get through it, though. It's nice to be honored.

75% Of The Problem Figured Out

2008-12-07T05:02:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about my professional status and the . . . "situation" I find myself in. I guess I've been deconstructing myself professionally, trying to figure out why I feel so out of place and dissatisfied with my current assignment. I believe I've got about three quarters of the whole thing figured out.*

Here are some of the things I've come up with:

--This school site is smaller in just about every way: activities, students, teachers, . . . there's not a whole lot to be done here. And since this school has more administrators than it needs (a political move for this program improvement school), there are fewer opportunities for me to demonstrate my abilities. At my last school site, there was a lot to be done and I had lots of chances to prove myself. I either have to create opportunities or identify more problems to solve.

--This school doesn't have the demographic participation I'm used to (or comfortable with, frankly). The parents are involved very little or at all, and in some cases the parents are out of the picture completely. The students aren't motivated to succeed OR to perform; they're just going through the motions and trying (not very hard at all) to avoid problems. By this reckoning, this isn't as much of a "school" as I would like. It's overblown day care. I feel like I'm trying to sculpt a masterpiece without the benefit of, y'know, clay. Someone once suggested that different cultures value different things. It was very generalized for the sake of a small article, but it essentially suggested this: whites value money, asians value education, africans value stature (or social status) and hispanics value family. I'd certainly argue against some of these points, but one of the things I would agree with is that education is NOT in the top five for hispanics, our main demographic. We're really trying to get them to swim against the tide, with little or no success. Even some of the parents think that while we're trying very hard, we're wasting our time trying to educate future warehouse workers and such.

--This school I'm at has been getting a bad rap for years about its problems, most of which disappeared with the new principal over a year ago. It's a great team, a great teaching staff, and a great program. I just wish we had students who wanted to take advantage of it.

I've decided to pitch a discipline procedure change to the faculty; I want them to throw me some of the work they've been doing for a while. It'll give me more to do, and it'll give me a chance to prove my worth.

There's still something I haven't quite figured out about my lack of comfort, though. Hopefully, it will come to me and I'll be able to finish this professional jigsaw puzzle.

*Of course, if I think about it some more I'll come up with several other things, and the percentages will change. It'll have all the mathematical sense of a Monty Python "Spanish Inquisition" sketch.

Classroom Chairs of the 21st Century

2008-11-11T05:22:00.000-08:00

Man, I thought the Wii controllers were weird. Then I saw this.

Those of you with SMARTBoard technology in your classrooms know that technology is raising the bar when it comes to classroom presentation methodology. At some point, everyone's wondered what their teaching would be like if they had holographic technology (I'm not talking about CNN-Election-Night holography, I'm talking about Star-Trek-TNG-Holodeck stuff, here).

Behold: the Immersive Cocoon.

This is quite possibly the coolest AND scariest thing I've seen yet, technology-wise. 3-D display, interactive (using motion-capture camera technology and 360 degree projection), and designed by someone with a large SciFi DVD library. (The pod itself reminds me of those in 2001, The Fly, and The Matrix. Let's remember that in each of those films things didn't go so well for the good guys.)

Can you imagine a computer lab full of these? How about a classroom? Field trips become easier, distance learning gets another shot in the arm, homeschooling advocates develop drooling problems, and teenagers never see the light of day again. (Think I'm kidding about that last one? Can you imagine playing HALO in one of these things?)

You can read more about it here. Like any other developing technology, this is still very much a concept piece . . . but the group putting this together has a lot of other innovative ideas, which can be seen here.

The future is coming, everyone. Get ready.

Friends Don't Let Friends Drink and Spell . . .

2008-11-09T15:34:00.000-08:00

There's a weird movement that's been slowly and quietly raising its head over the last few months. Thankfully, it hasn't received much attention (nothing mainstream, anyway)--which is good, because if this idea caught on, I'm convinced it would end civilization as we know it.

Somebody out there thinks we ought to relax the strict adherence to rules of spelling.

Call me crazy or old-fashioned, but how hard is it, really, to spell properly? I know that the conventions of the English Language aren't easy for everyone, but on the surface spelling is something that we should all be able to agree on. Under the surface, we all know that when we see a form letter with misspelled words we're not dealing with someone interested in their own quality control. We're already making the world better accessible for the disabled, for foreigners, and for other groups that may need acclimation assistance. At SOME point, the line must be drawn. We work in an industry that has made specific, concerted efforts to raise the bar waaaaaaay too high in some places (I'm talking to you, NCLB) and to lower it to subterranean levels in others. C'mon--are we seriously considering lowering our standards when it comes to spelling?!?

Maybe it's all the political talk that's been going around for the last two years. Maybe it's the effects we're seeing of NCLB on high-performing schools (the best of which, in our district, will be in program improvement by 2014). Maybe it's all the training seminars I'm now able to attend because I have nothing else to do professionally. One thing has become clear to me, though: when we stopped addressing the needs of students at their specific levels--meaning when we decided to do away with tracking--things steadily got worse. Some schools are still tracking students off-the-books, others refuse to go back to it; what we're doing isn't working, though, and I don't think that relaxing or eliminating something as simple as the spelling of the words we use to communicate with one another is the answer.

This is the same lunacy that gave birth to the idea that we should lower the drinking age. I'm not an expert in Sociology or anything, but even I know a bad idea when I hear it.

An Update on the New Assignment

2008-10-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

For the last month or so, I've been running into people with whom I used to work last year, and I keep getting the same question: "How's the new job?" My answers vary depending on who's asking, and the more negative the answer the more I feel I have to justify myself. Here on my blog, however, anonymity allows me to express my true feelings about my new assignment.

It sucks.

We're about two months into the school year, and already it feels like an eternity. In fact, I mentioned to my principal yesterday that I was bored--I'm used to a much more hectic schedule, a more populated student body, and the type of issues you can only find in a high school. Since he's from the same background as I, he knew exactly what I was talking about and shared that this time last year (his first year here) he felt the exact same way.

My wife still teaches at my former site, so I still get the gossip and updates. I even visited the site two weeks ago for a teacher's birthday party, and saw a lot of my former colleagues. I have to stop doing that, though, for two reasons: one, it's difficult to respond over and over to "we miss you" from everyone, and two, it's emotionally very painful for me to be away from that campus. I've got to learn to let go and move on, and I'm finding that harder and harder to do.

I've also got this other problem: my "high school" muscles are starting to atrophy to the point that if I were to be moved back up to the high school level, I fear I'd be out of shape. Then I go off on these mental rants: "Should I get back to the high school level even if it means starting over in a new district?" "Is it all middle school level schools that bother me, or just this one site?" "Should I get out of education altogether?"

In the end, the answer to the initial question is: "I'm uncomfortable." I don't know if it's because I became so familiar with my previous school site, or if I'm a snob (more on that in an upcoming blog post), or if I'm just very unsuited to change. Whatever the reason, I'm very uncomfortable in my professional skin right now.

The Potential Nightmare of Technology

2008-10-03T14:55:00.000-07:00

Over the summer I spoke at a national teacher conference about the dangers of technology. It was more of a how-to-keep-your-students-safe kind of thing, and it went over pretty well (it was the second time I'd spoken on this topic, and they called after hearing about my first presentation, which was more local). The local folks want me back again this year, but this time they want me to speak about the use of technology in the learning process.

There are two books I read recently that relate to this topic--but not in a good way. In fact, I think I made a big mistake in reading them one right after the other. Add to that this new speaking engagement I'm booked for, and on the inside of my head I'm playing out the end of the world . . . or the beginning of The Matrix.

The first book is The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerline, which is the first look at ten years of statistiocal data about how technology and the Internet are affecting living and learning methods. The bad news, it seems, is that we're reading less, studying less, and retaining less. The Internet (and how we use it) is having a serious effect on how we use our brains, and that's having a severe impact on learning--meaning that our approach to education in the technological age may be too antiquated or out of sync.

The second book is Feed by M. T. Anderson, a fiction novel set in a future where kids have neural implants installed at birth and are on the Internet 24/7. As the characters walk around, they get pop-up ads. If they get hungry, they get food ads from local restaurants. They can look anything up any time they want. These kids educations are enhanced by something called School™, which seems as useless as the word looks.

Like I said, reading both in rapid succession was probably a bad idea, as I'm now scared to death of the future. The whole thing does beg the question, though: How do educators teach effectively in a world where technology is taking over? Is it even possible to keep reading rates up when the soon-to-be-dominant form of communication doesn't require it? Should we be throwing out current skill sets in favor of future ones? Has education, in its current form, become archaic and outdated? And what's to be done to solve that?

If you've got ideas, I'm all ears . . . .

Avast, Mateys!

2008-09-19T05:15:00.000-07:00

'Tis "Talk Like a Pirate" Day! This be a day many of me shipmates celebrate, and a tradition among those of ye who would call yerselves "pirate" and not "lubber" but this one day of the year.

Be ye not knowin' the tale of this here day? Best be knowin' yer pirate lore . . .

'Cause it be known across the seven seas that on this day pirates be just about everywhere.

Shiver me timbers, are ye not yet feelin' the spirits of Davy Jones and Blackbeard among ye? Perhaps ye be needin' a closer look . . .

Marriage, "Patriot Day," and the Person in Front of You

2008-09-11T11:30:00.000-07:00

Being married is really cool.* My wife and I used to work at the same school site, so quite a few people--teachers AND students--got to see us grow together as a couple. Many teachers were invited to the wedding; students were not, as there would have been too many of them. And since the wedding was held on a boat traveling back and forth through the local harbor, we didn't have to worry about students crashing the wedding.

Or so we thought. As it turns out, some of these kids have boats.

So during the reception, five kids--recently graduated seniors, all of whom took my wife's class--in formal wear pull along side the boat with big signs (our names, "4EVA," etc.). Neither the boat charter people nor the photographer had ever seen anything like it. My wife, of course, rightfully flattered, stands on the bow of the boat and shouts, "Do you want cake?"

And, of course, they were allowed to pull alongside. It's one of the many reasons I love her, that she gets such joy from her students (on or off campus). It's a testament to her also; the students didn't have to do this, but they really wanted to. (I found out a few days ago that another student boat slipped past us that morning, but didn't make their presence known.) There are a lot of people she and I work with (teachers and students) that have become meaningful parts of our lives. It's days like that wedding day that remind me of that.

The anniversary of 9/11 is becoming known as "Patriot Day." I understand the rationale, since the WTC attacks were committed as an act against the nation itself. If you look at photos from the memorials going on across the country today, however, we don't seem to be celebrating a whole lot of patriotism--we seem to be celebrating the lives of the people who died in the attack (which, for the record, is NOT a bad thing).

So I have an idea.

If 9/11 taught us anything, it's that the people you work with every day can be taken from you suddenly, en masse, and without warning. Appreciate the "everyday people" in your lives. Don't say "hello" to them as if this is the last day you'll ever see them again--that's just scary and weird--but internally, find the warm fuzzies inside yourselves and realize that these people you see every day (at work, at home, at the gym, at Starbucks--wherever) have come to mean something to you . . . even if that "something" is familiarity and routine. If the banners, tributes, and tears I'm seeing on the news today are any indication, it's easy to take people for granted.

Moving to a different school site after seven years is not at all like losing someone in a terrorist attack; but I gotta admit--I think I understand the sense of loss a bit better now.

*This is my third marriage, but this is the first marriage in which I feel I did everything correctly and appropriately from the beginning--pre-marital counseling, discussions about our relationship, actually telling people I was getting married, and not rushing things. I would not go back and re-do the past, though, since each decision I've made and action I've taken has led me to this point in my life. This marriage, however, may be one of the highest quality things I've done with my life.

Oh, HERE'S Where I Left My Blog . . . .

2008-09-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

When last I blogged, major changes were afoot: I was changing school sites (and not at all looking forward to it), I was about to get married (and was very MUCH looking forward to it), and summer vacation was about to end. A "Season of Change," to be sure.

Added to that are other topics to discuss: the State of California is still budgetless; a couple of people have proposed changes to things (like the drinking age and spelling) that make no sense; and, apparently, there's an election coming up. There are other things, of course--some of them will be blogged here, and others are better suited for my personal blog. In any event, I think I may now have found the time to get back to full-time blogging. My friends have managed to get back into the swing of it, and even my wife has made her way back to the blogosphere. It's my turn.

And it's good to be back.

So Much to Blog About, So Little Time

2008-09-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

I really want to blog, and I really have a lot to blog about, but I haven't found my groove yet in this new position, and I'm still looking for the time. (I know, I know--I said I'd be bored at this new job, and would have time. I'll explain later, but the short version is this: It's not that I'm not busy, it's that I'm not productive.)

Anyway, don't take me off your "Favorites" list quite yet--I'm coming back!

Please Do Not Adjust Your Set . . .

2008-08-03T06:05:00.000-07:00

This blog is off-line for the next week or so. I'm getting married today, and although the honeymoon will last FOREVER, the trip will last a week or so. More blogs when I return!

In Which I Prepare to Dance for "The Man"

2008-07-28T05:05:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official: I will remain in my current school district for 2008-2009. I had one interview a couple of months ago, and their rejection letter motivated me to fill out seven other applications over three districts. I know "people" in two of those districts, and had some pretty high hopes about having the inside track. Nonetheless, I didn't score an interview for ANY of the seven positions I applied for. Not ONE. Needless to say, I'm having some thoughts about my marketability these days. I've been at this a while, and although I need to keep some mitigating factors in mind (like my experience makes me a little expensive, and that this is no economy--particularly in education--to go moving around) I am somewhat bummed about the result of my job search.

There's another thing: I've been moved from my former school site for a number of reasons, and one of the lesser-known of them is that I'm not really liked at all by several members of the district administration (my new principal was almost told this verbatim not long ago). I'm very pro-school-site, and that [apparently] makes me come off as very anti-school-district. Moreover, this new assignment of mine comes with two caveats (the why of this is a long, boring story, and I'll spare you that): there's a strong chance that this assignment won't exist in a year, and I may go when it goes; and if I do get to stay I will have to endure a $12K-a-year pay cut. (Knowing these two things, I went job hunting. Alas, no success.)

So it seems that the only way to a happy ending is to determine exactly how I can use this job to (a) benefit the school site and (b) get back into the good graces of the school district. On the plus side, the dynamics of this new assignment will give me oodles of time to achieve the latter. With all the other changes going on in my life right now (wedding, teenager becoming even older, finances finally in some sort of order, house projects coming along nicely), which are the positives that will outweigh the negative, I should find myself fairly busy.

In any event, it is finally time to embrace the horror and make some sort of attempt to turn this situation to my advantage (unless, of course, any of you out there are still looking for a secondary assistant principal in Southern California.) We'll see how it goes.

Centralization: Tradition & Identity vs. Resources & Continuity?

2008-07-20T05:42:00.000-07:00

I haven't done any real research on this issue, but this seems to be rising to the surface in my district. I'm interested in not only pouring out some of my thoughts, but I'm also interested in hearing what those of you in different districts--some of whom may be going through this type of thing--have to say.

I was recently . . . chastised, shall we say, for claiming that my school site was the best in the district. (I don't know why they, the district leadership, had a problem with this; would they rather I said my school was mediocre? Would they have me claim that all the schools are identical when the statistics suggest otherwise? Do they not realize that I will find the positives of ANY school I'm at at sing its praises?) The district would like me, as a site level assistant principal, to represent the whole school district and not just the one site. I suspect this is part of the reason I was recently transfered to a different assignment in the district after seven years in one location. This isn't uncommon at the assistant principal level--in our area, we're usually moved around every five years or so. The idea, of course, is to give us a range of experiences in different locations to prepare us for principalships. (I don't see this as a stepping-stone profession, so I don't care much about being ready for the next rung of the ladder.) Could this not also be seen as a method of professional detachment? Work at enough of the schools in the district and, theoretically, you'd see yourself less as a school-site employee and more as an agent of the district.

When I was a teenager I worked at a video rental chain. The store location at which I worked had its own manager and assistant managers, but there was a district manager who covered all the stores in that area. At each store location he had his own office, even though each office got used, like, once a week. I would think that this parallels the assistant superintendent, who oversees all the secondary schools; that person, theoretically, wouldn't be assigned to any one school site, but all of them. This may be what they're looking for in me at this point. (Of course, if I'm to believe that all schools are equal and my move from 7-12 school-in-the-best-part-of-town to 7-8 school-in-its-fourth-year-of-program-improvement is a lateral move, as they claim, it shouldn't come with a pay cut. Of course, that's my opinion.)

I suppose that the articulation efforts between the middle school (my new site) and the high school we feed into has helped me to better understand this. Coming from a 7-12 environment, articulation was built-in and assumed. Could we not form a relationship that is so close that the lines between schools sites get blurred, creating a 7-12 school in everything but physical placement? Is this one way to detach myself from a school and look more at a district (or zone) allegiance? Or is that the assistant superintendent's role?

So here's the question: What are the benefits and detriments of school loyalty, especially in cases where the administrator is likely to leave within a five year time frame? How should the teachers approach such a management situation? How should the assistant principal approach it?

Ironically, This Book Can Be Purchased Online

2008-07-17T20:52:00.000-07:00

I'm reading The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein, and it's scaring me to death. For those who haven't seen this yet: all the technology we've been pouring into classrooms for the last ten years? The studies are starting to come in, and the news ain't good. It seems that while we have a generation of young people who are tech savvy, they're not really doing anything productive with it (in fact, they're reading less and achieving less). High schools and colleges who once decided to "go digital" with laptops for every student are now dumping the technology and scrapping the programs, citing no academic progress. Today's college seniors are testing at the same level as high school seniors of 1955. I'm only halfway through the book, but Bauerlein keeps asking the same question: where are all the academic improvements we were supposed to get with the infusion of technology?

Professionally, I'm worried. We've put all this emphasis on technology, but it apparently isn't getting us anywhere. I like it as a communication tool, but that seems to be all it's good for. Could it be possible that because students are using a totally different skill set to learn, we should be testing on those skills instead of the "antiquated" ones we're teaching now? What if concentration falls to the wayside and multi-tasking becomes the norm? The testing methods will have to change dramatically as well. What happens if, God forbid, reading and writing are no longer measurable skills? What school system could possibly accept that?

Personally, I'm frustrated. I have a sixteen-year-old who fits a lot of this modern technology criteria, and his performance levels are, shall we say, consistent with the research. Lots of "screen time," and even if his critical-thinking skills are stimulated by his X-Box games, the school-related output isn't what it could be--or used to be.

The whole thing is worrisome, and I'm hoping that the outlook isn't as dismal as Bauerlein makes it sound. (Maybe I should finish the book. Maybe there's a happy ending after all.)

There is, however, one really funny aspect to this book.

Coming Soon!

2008-07-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

I've been quiet lately. It's summer, after all, and I'm enjoying the professional break; I'm in a wedding in August, so there are some items to attend to (I'm the . . . what's it called? Ah, yes: the groom).

Coming soon will be posts about:

My change of assignment, and why the professional recoil alone may kill me;
An update of progress on my job search, which will be a very short post;
A discourse on district centralization, on which I will want feedback;
A summary of a speaking engagement I have coming up (for which I am totally unprepared) on the dangers of technology

Stay tuned.

Not With a Bang, Nor a Whimper

2008-06-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

By force, not by choice--as is often the case in public education--I am being moved to a different school site. A VASTLY different school site. I'll save the bitter ranting for later, since there's a lot of it to do (my next few blog posts will be reports about my actual transition--none of it, so far, very good). What's important at the moment, however, is that the day I've been loathing for about four months now has finally arrived:

I turned in my keys today. I'm done at this school.

The office staff threw a little "going away" party of sorts, complete with cool food from Panera and gag gifts for the two outgoing assistant principals. It was all in good fun, but there was an elephant in the room: after today, things would not be the same. (For this and the next several blog posts, I'm gonna sound pretty full of myself. It's not intentional, nor is it comfortable; but to illustrate my points, it's necessary to convey the opinions of others regarding how awesome I am.)

Seven years is a long time to grow roots, but it didn't take as long as I thought it would to clear out of my office. I started last week, thinking it would take quite some time; it took three days, and I was packed by graduation day, a full week before I would actually leave.

What didn't surprise me were the constant reminders of how much I would be missed, the nice compliments everyone threw my way, and the frequent question: "What are we gonna do without you?" What DID surprise me were the constant comments about my sense of humor--apparently it made quite an impact. The last day or two I haven't stayed too long (having nothing to do but write my exit packet, which I kept brief--if they think I'm that interchangable, then the new guy shouldn't need detailed instructions, right?), and people are already beginning to feel the hole I'm leaving; especially, it seems, from what has been perceived as an eight hour a day stand up routine I do as I talk to people. Me, I'm just being myself; them, they seem to think I'm hilarious.

As I've said before, I don't want to leave. I know this place like the back of my hand, and it's gotten to know me pretty well. My hope is that the new guy won't let atrophy the seven years I've spent getting certain programs working well. This school requires a lot of maintenance, and everyone's convinced that the new guy isn't up to the job. Time will tell.

Ethereally and spiritually, I'm leaving behind a legacy of hard work and positive results. Emotionally, I'm leaving behind some close friendships and a lot of trust.

Physically, however, I'm not leaving behind much.

*SIGH*

I'd Like To Finally Get This Off My Chest

2008-06-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

I really don't want to go work at this new school.

I'm leaving a school that has 2200 students over six grade levels (7th through 12th). They take AP tests and SAT tests and ACT tests. They drive to school. They leave campus for lunch. They're involved in and endless list of athletics. More than 95% of the homes use technology. I've been there for seven years and, in many cases, I'm the only one parents, students, and teachers will turn to for help (largely because I've seen all the other administrative positions change hands at least once). My fiancee works there, and more than the pleasant idea of carpooling to work, I find comfort in the fact that she's only a few classrooms away if I need to see her pretty face.

I'm going to a school that has 600 students over two grade levels (7th and 8th only). No APs, SATs, or ACTs. They all stay on campus for lunch, and none of them drive. There are maybe four sports in the athletic program. Only an estimated 20% of the homes are on the web.

I'm gonna be bored out of my mind. I'll be asleep all the time. What's more, I got into this gig to work in a high school, and an isolated intermediate school just isn't my thing. (The principal over there, whom I know but not all that well, is a really great guy. Other than that, everything about this school reflects where I don't want to be.)

I've interviewed in another district already, but with no success. Another district has yet to schedule interviews for the two high school assistant principal positions it has open. Yet a third district has an opening I'll apply for by July first. All of these, of course, aren't sure things.

I really don't want to work at this new school, and I really fear that I'm not going to have any choice.

"You Can't Just Tap Them On The Shoulder; You Need To Hit Them With A Sledgehammer"*

2008-06-18T07:24:00.000-07:00

Last week there was a news item about a school in the San Diego area about a "scared straight" tactic they used. Lots of backlash, lots of complaints, . . . and lots of making sense, if you ask me. (If you didn't click the link, the school kept several students from going to classes, then announced that they died in drinking-related accidents. The students showed up later in the afternoon, and the school announced that the scare tactic was to prove a point. People were pissed, but students got the message.)

We do a thing here every other year (that many, many schools do) in partnership with the local police department called "Every 15 Minutes." Students are taken from classes by the Grim Reaper every 15 minutes all morning to indicate how often someone dies from drinking-related accidents, and then there's a big to-do out back of campus with a simulated accident scene, simulated blood, and real emergency response--including the medivac helicopter--to demonstrate just how ugly it gets.

Our program makes a point. Theirs, I feel, does it much better.

What impressed me is that several of the students interviewed really felt like they learned something. In the 21st century, there's a certain amount of desensitization in kids that I don't think enough of us recognize. In order to get the message across that violence is bad, we're competing with violent video games played by the hour each day. When stressing the dangers of sex, we're competing with cable television (my assistant pointed out to me that she needs to have "the talk" with her youngest son, who's just finishing the second grade, for the love of God). To counter all of this, we need to take a page from a district-level friend of mine who coordinates emergency drills: the best drills, he says, aren't announced until they're over.

"Scared straight" needs to go to the next level to be effective. Fine by me.

*In "Seven," Kevin Spacey's character is creepy as hell. He's got a valid point, though.

WARNING: Depressing Signage Ahead

2008-06-17T21:32:00.000-07:00

I told my fiancee (via an e-mail to her classroom across campus) that if one more person came into my office and said, "Whoa, it's really bare in here!" I was gonna punch him or her right in the nose. She suggested that I post a sign outside, and even wrote one up as an example. Knowing I couldn't come up with anything better, here's what it says:

Come see the

AMAZING EMPTY OFFICE!

THRILL to the sight of a CLEAN DESK!

EXPOSTULATE over BARE SHELVES!

WONDER where it all went!

50 cents a peek.

You don't want to miss it!

I've collected two quarters so far, and no one else has said anything to my face.

What Sweet Music They Make

2008-06-13T21:11:00.000-07:00

As my final year at this high school comes rapidly to a close, I'm trying to attend as many events as possible; partly out of a sense of administrative responsibility, partly because I want to savor what little time I have left. The other night I had the privilege of attending the final vocal concert of the year. Our music director has become a very good friend of mine, so I try to do as much as I can to support his progam. (His students are also some of my favorites; I've always had greater rapport with the arts kids than the athletes.)

His concert Tuesday night was nothing short of superb. I always enjoy getting the CDs made from these performances, because you sit there thinking to yourself "Wow, (s)he's really talented" and then you listen later thinking "Wow, that's a student?!?" The Concert Choir, which is made up of many grade levels, includes several students who routinely visit my office; so it's encouraging to see them involved in something productive. What I think I enjoy most about the Concert Choir is Maestro's selections--they're complicated. It's one thing to sit and enjoy the music, but quite another to watch different parts of the choir do different parts and play off each other. It's not just a whole group of people singing at the same time . . . there's some timing and arragement that goes into this--and it pays off.

The solos are always my favorite part, because those students really shine. Some, of course, you know will do well. They've been doing well for years. Others surprise you: there was a duet ("Phantom of the Opera") that blew me away because although I knew those two students were in the music program, I had no idea how talented they were (and they were, believe me). There was another student--we'll call him Double-A--who has done the alma mater for my daily announcements before, but he did half of a duet ("Lilly's Eyes") that made me sit back and take notice. I had no idea he had that kind of talent. (Maestro tells me that if he can keep his ego in check, he'll be dynamite next year.) There was a solo that made me uncomfortable, which is rare: we have this senior whose arrogance brings new definition to the term, and although he's got some talent in the music and drama departments, it's hard to see it with his ego in the way (I mean, at two different points, he seemed to question the accompanist's playing, which is altogether uncool). Anyway, he did this German piece ("An Die Musik"); and when you combine heightened arrogance and the German language, it just makes my Jewish sensibilities want to get up and run from the room. My favorite solo by far, however, came from my fiancee's TA (and after hearing her I'm sorry I missed her in this year's production of "How to Succeed in Business"), who is an outgoing senior. She did "The Stars and the Moon," which was perfect for her--she has this 1940's-singing-screen-star thing going on not only with her voice, but with her presentation (and, quite frankly, her look) and it all comes together as though an entire production team has been working on it for years (and she's had it ever since playing a unicorn in the middle school "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" production). I've never had much contact with her during her time here, only what I see in productions and occasionally in conversations in my fiancee's classroom; but over the years I've had maybe ten or fifteen "favorite" students--she's two of them.

Madrigals were impressive, not just because it's a concentration of vocal talent, but Maestro's selections really bring it out. He chose two Haydn pieces that included several solos each. Again, complicated in that different people are doing different things throughout each piece. For several of the seniors, this was the swan song. They'll certainly be missed (but I have CDs!).

As I prepare to finish my final year here, I gotta tip my hat to the Maestro. If I ever work at a school with a music director half as motivated and skilled, I'll be a lucky man. If you read his blog at all, you know that he struggles sometimes with the "administrative vision" working against him; they want to see a music program that appeals to a lower common denominator, and he wants to run an on-campus conservatory. Given that so many of our students are high-performing academics destined for the Ivy League, his approach makes a lot more sense, and still he must fight off the spectre of a marching band with a crucifix and cloves of garlic. When it comes to his educational approach to music (instrumental and vocal) his heart is true, his cause is just, and his victories are sweet. He and I also fly our geek flags pretty high, so it's little wonder we get along as well as we do.

I will miss a great many things after I leave this school. I will miss the music program more than a lot of the others.

Bravo, Maestro. Bravo.

Here's Something I Should Have Done Sooner

2008-06-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

I bought a new bike. Wanting to try it out, I rode it to school last Saturday to help the new Test Center Supervisor work her first SAT Test. Five miles there, five miles back--not an easy start back into cycling, but I was in no hurry, so . . .

It was sweet. It only took about 25 minutes each way, and it wasn't a difficult ride at all (well, there's this one hill, but if I shift into a really low gear and pace myself, it's not bad at all). And I thought to myself, If I pack some clothes to keep in the office this week, and I don't pack a whole lot of crap I don't need, why couldn't I ride my bike to work every day? So I have. Since Monday.

As it turns out, I've got a lot of crap in my briefcase I don't need. My clothes don't stay in the backpack too long, so they don't get too wrinkled (and some items will stay at work all week--pants, shoes, a belt). There's plenty of room in my office for it, and it makes a nice conversation piece. Quite a few people have complimented me on my decision to bike to work, especially with gas prices being what they are. Of course, if I'm ever asked to make an impromptu trip to the district office, I'll have to borrow my fiancee's car or something; thing is, there's very little of the school year left, and my "new job" is too far away to do this, so I'm taking advantage of the opportunity while I can.

Naturally, I'll have to take my car when I finally need to move the boxes out of my office . . .

Gimme an "A"! Gimme a "P"! What Does that Spell?Three Weeks of HELL!

2008-05-26T22:15:00.000-07:00

If you remember last year's blog post about the AP exams, you know that things could have gone better. I'm happy to report that we didn't have as many problems this year (although it makes for a less humorous blog post); this was my third time running this particular show, and I tried to avoid the pitfalls of years past. One thousand, one hundred, and thirty-two tests later, we're done.

That doesn't mean we didn't have our moments, however. So here's the wrap-up:

AP Note-From-My-Mom
Between athletics and test conflicts, I had the highest number yet of make-up examinees. Twenty-seven may not sound like a lot, but that was over ten tests--with most of those being one-to-three kids in a room. (I think we actually gave two of these tests in a broom closet somewhere.) What added to the number were the students--FIVE of them--who called at the last minute to let me know about emergency surgery. Yes, you read right: surgery. There is, I'm convinced, no limit to what these kids will do for extra study time.

AP Temporal Studies
The AP tests have started at either 8am or noon since the beginning of friggin' time, yet there was always a handful of students who walked in late. In some cases, I had kids asking what day the test was being given (regardless of the schedule on my website, the constant reminders from teachers, and the PA announcements). I thought the AP tests were supposed to be a big deal; how seriously are these kids taking these tests if they don't even know what day it's taking place? It's worth noting that one of these kids thought his test was on Wednesday, not Monday--he ended up as one of the 27 make-ups.

AP Tech Support
There are several tests--the Music Theory and Foreign Language tests--that require the examinees to record something spoken or sung. We use the foreign language lab, which used to be equipped with 39 individual tape recording stations. Each kid recorded through the headphones, no problems. This year, however, I had to order CDs instead of tapes; our language lab got major upgrades, with new computers and kick-ass software that allows you to do almost anything . . . except record stuff, apparently. This new lab was installed last summer, and my repeatedly-expressed-concerns didn't seem to penetrate the skulls of the IT people--I needed the students to be able to record individually and burn to disk. It took two IT techs, two foreign language teachers, and a student teacher to finally ge tthe lab up to speed . . . and they finished the day before the first of these tests. (I even had to arrange for a sub for one of the teachers so she could be there to help on test days.) So my question is this: who the hell spends a hundred thousand dollars on a digital language lab that can't record a student's verbal work?!? My laptop can pull that off straight out of the box!

AP Potty Training
Wanna make high achieving students have to pee? Say the words "ten minutes remaining." Gets 'em every time.

My Personal AP Awards for 2008:

Dumbest Question: "Do I put today's date in this box?" (You mean the one that says, "Date of Birth?" Actually, that's not a bad idea.)

Most Masochistic Question: "If I think I did poorly, can I take this again during the make-ups?" My response: No, AP doesn't allow it, and I think it violates the Eighth Amendment. She didn't know which one that was. (It's the "cruel and unusual punishment" one.)

Worst Question: (continued from above) "Which amendment is that?" I'm not kidding: this was the AP Government test.

Best (and Most Honest) Question: "Yes, I still had my iPod with me, but do you really think I was cheating with it? Do I really seem like I care enough about this test to cheat on it?" (He had me there. I dropped the whole matter; I didn't even write it up.)

Best AP Anecdote: Since the AP World History test was moved to the morning hours, and since there was NO way I could find five empty classrooms to house those 157 students, I rented tables and chairs and put them all in the small gym. (What the heck--it's big enough, it's away from the campus noise, and they were already used to the setting from the CAHSEE test.) With 30 minutes to go, one of the proctors--a really good sub and cool guy named Vince--came up to me and said "I feel like I'm inside the hull of an old ship; when they shift in their chairs, the creaking sound . . . I'm almost getting seasick." Twenty minutes later, I said to him, "You think it's bad now? Watch this . . ." And then I told the students they had ten minutes remaining. Like I said--gets 'em every time.

Cruelest AP Prank: The AP World History test is made up mostly of tenth graders, and this is their first AP test. After three and a half hours of testing (the end of the test), I said "pencils down" and then followed it up with, using the straightest of faces and with my eyes on the testing instructions, "You are now halfway done with the AP World History Exam." The looks on their faces were priceless.

Since I'm leaving this school at the end of the year, I won't be doing this AP stuff anymore. I'm glad I finally got it right--as right as possible, since there weren't any real calamities. It feels good to get something that big done, and done right.

Now all I have to do is sign the $89,000 check, and I can put the whole thing to bed.

Selling My #2 Pencil Stock

2008-05-18T19:48:00.000-07:00

For 10 years, and over administrative terms in two schools, I have been the Test Center Supervisor for the SAT and ACT tests. It's a job that requires me to be at school before 5am on a Saturday getting things set up, to leave after 2pm, and to get very little rest in between. It's a job that involves paperwork and test materials for 300 to 500 students at a time.

And it's a job that is no longer mine.

In preparation for my departure, I've handed this duty over to one of our teachers, a very capable and process-oriented individual. For so long, I've been treating this particular duty with a sense of personal pride. The folks at the testing firms--the SAT, specifically--are sorry to see me pass it on (but they know any successor I train will be up to the job). I've created protocols, spreadsheets, computer files, and procedures to make a test administration go as smoothly as possible. This may be the closest I come to letting go of a child before I actually have to let my son move on to adulthood.

Truth be told, even if I wasn't transferring (sorry--being transferred) from my current school, I was going to give this duty up anyway. Not only do I want my Saturdays back (my fiancee refers to it as "reclaiming my quality of life"), the money I was making--almost $6000 a year--required me to claim it as a Schedule C business, and that's been playing hell with my taxes. And the stress was something that I was becoming very used to--so it's good that I'm letting it go.

Bit by bit, I'm letting this job go. I'm still trying to decide how I feel about it.

I Have To Wear Facepaint and Not Talk?Oh, Wait--That's MIME . . .

2008-05-08T07:20:00.000-07:00

Oh, for the love of God--I've been MEMEd. OK, here goes:

The rules of the game:
1) The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2) Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3) At the end of the post, the player tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
4) Let the person who tagged you know when you've posted your answer.

1) What were you doing ten years ago?

I had just moved into this house with my first wife and my two kids (then four and six years old), I was finishing up my conversion to Judaism, I was teaching at a high school--my alma mater--thirty miles away, I was driving a beat-up (but very cool) pickup truck, and I was just starting my Masters degree and administrative credential at CSU Long Beach. And it all seems like forty years ago, thank you very much.

2) What are five things on your to-do list today (not in any particular order)?

Get through another day of AP testing; complete the teacher evaluations that will soon be late; check in my son and my daughter for their flights on Friday; go for a nice, realxing walk with my fiancee; and get to bed early. (I never seem to get that last one done.)

3) Snacks I enjoy

Cheetos, Milk Duds, Dr. Pepper, Granny Smith apples, bananas, beef jerky, really sour lemonade, and Sweet Tarts. And I still weigh the same as I did in high school. (If I could bottle and market my metabolism, I'd be a billionaire.)

4) What I would do if I were a billionaire

Star in the commercials for my metabolism elixir; Set my mother up for life (getting her out of work and into a nice house); send one, possibly two, kids to college; get someone else to fix up my house instead of trying to do it myself; get a natural gas/electric hybrid automobile; donate quite a bit of it to the arts; go traveling with my lovely bride to all kinds of places we talk about; and write my books.

5) Three of my bad habits

I don't call my mother or my brother nearly as much as I should; I don't remember anybody's birthday; I finish about 40% of what I start.

6) Five places I have lived

Redondo Beach, CA
Gardena, CA
Long Beach, CA
Irvine, CA
and, occasionally, in La-La-Land.

7) Five jobs I have had

Food Preparer at Burger King; Gardena, CA (and it's no longer there)
Racetrack Announcer at Ascot Raceway; Gardena, CA (and it's no longer there)
Video Rental Manager at The WhereHouse; Torrance, CA (and it's no longer there)
Accounts Payable clerk at HQ Office Supplies; Long Beach, CA (and it's no longer there)
Office Manager at a real estate office; Long Beach, CA (and it's no longer there)

I'll have to get to it later, but since OKP has more or less tagged my entire blogroll, I'll hit up The Alcatraz Kid, Q6girl (who will have to do this on her MySpace page), and Mark . . .

If I Seem A Little Distant or Edgy . . .

2008-05-05T22:18:00.000-07:00

Our AP Tests began today. This isn't much of a big deal to most, but I've spent the last two weeks preparing for it. We're a big AP school--over 1100 tests this year--and so you might imagine that finding proctors and available space for this kind of testing isn't easy. (And since I had a mild problem with the test last year, which resulted in a personal loss of $1900 AND getting formally written up by the district, it was really important to me to get this one right.) Among the new things I'm doing this year: not proctoring most of the tests (I'm doing three), using the new digital language lab for world language tests, and using the small gym for the World History test (all 157 students in one room). It's the last time I'll be doing this particular duty, which is a good thing. I mean, it's rewarding to accomplish such a monumental task and all, but it can be stressful. I'm handling it pretty well, though.

So far, I've only puked once.

Prelude to Transition: Flattery and Fear

2008-05-02T20:56:00.000-07:00

Since the news of my transfer at the end of this year broke to the parent body, there's been a lot of communication from the parents. That communication has been directed to me, to the principals of my site, to the district leadership, and to the Board member from our school's area. All of this communication has been very positive about me, and some of it has been mildly hostile toward the decision-makers. (How this has stayed out of the local paper, when so very much of what happens at this school ends up there, I have no idea.) When I say mildly hostile, I mean two things: people are questioning the district leadership on their decisions, and people are not satisfied with the answers--or non-answers--they're getting. Although one of my principals has asked that I make some sort of response to these e-mails and phone calls, she doesn't seem to realize what I grasped very early on: this matter is no longer about me.

My school has endured quite a lot of administrative change in the last several years, as has the district. No principal at this school has lasted more than three years in the last ten or so, and I'm the administrator who has been there the longest. I've been the only constant, and now they're losing me (and neither the parents or teachers is particularly wild about the people who will be sticking around, so that adds to it). The communication has been extremely flattering about me, my abilities, my honesty, and my speed in getting things done. If nothing else, this entire ordeal has done wonders for my ego. The parents even put together a petition--four pages long--asking that I be left in my current assignment. There seemed to be little said at the Board meeting last month, but quite a lot has been said behind the scenes. At our next PTA meetng next week, the guest speakers will be the Superintendent, the Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Instruction, and the Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources. Gee, I wonder what they'll be asked to speak about?

While all of this flattery makes me feel good, there's still an undercurrent of dread. This has become something of a headache for the district higher-ups, and although I have had no part in creating the controversy, it's got my name and face all over it. These district administrators can't really do much to the parents who are complaining, but they can keep me down, or in assignments I don't like or want, or eliminate my position and leave me twisting in the wind (more on that another time). My hope is that the conversation at the PTA meeting will be focused not on me, but on the decision. I didn't ask for the transfer, I wasn't involved in the decision to transfer me, I haven't complained or fought the transfer, and I haven't spoken out against the transfer . . . so I'm hoping that everyone will realize that this is about the decision, and those who made it, and why, and how they're justifying it (it turns out that the guy I'm swapping places with is well-liked at his school as well, and THOSE parents are complaining, too). A couple of people have told me that they're dissatisfied with the "party line" they're getting in response, and that's not going to be easy to deal with . . . in the end, I know that an easy way out would be for them to ask me to calm everyone down. I've kinda tried that through back channels, and it hasn't done any good. I don't want anyone to ask me to do it openly, though . . .

. . . I mean, if a restaurant decides to take a dish off the menu, and the patrons don't like that decision, you don't ask the rack of lamb to make a statement.

Prelude to Transition (Part One in a Series)

2008-04-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

(Some background, for those who haven't read this blog for three years: I work at a 7-12 school in Southern California and have been at this site for seven years come June--which is unusual, since most APs get changed out at five years. In those seven years I've seen a lot of transition in the administration: four years in I was the only one of four administrators not changed out, and I've seen another principal change out since then. All in all, the admin team now in place has been in place for three years. My fiancee is a teacher at the same site--which is all legal and fine as long as I don't do her evaluation, which I don't. The other thing you need to know to read on is that over those seven years I've become the only administrator that teachers and parents come to with anything, which is both endearing and exhausting. They have some honesty and competence issues with the other administrators, I'm told.)

The decision to transfer me to another site, I'm finding out, began back in December (though my site principals weren't made aware of this until well into February). A month ago I was told; since I learned the news during a closed-door meeting with the Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Instruction, the rumors of my transfer began to fly the moment he walked out my door. I had been told to keep this matter confidential until it was official, which meant getting used to saying "nothing like that has been announced" for WAAAAY too long. Parents have been asking my principals, my fiancee, and me if the rumors were true, and they've been sending letters and e-mails to the district office trying to prevent such a move, rumor or not. I almost feel I should send the district leadership a case of Tylenol or something.

Among the questions I'd been getting from teachers, parents, and (as of this week) students: (1) Why are they doing this? (2) Are you happy with this? (3) What can we do? And all I wanted to tell these people is This isn't my decision; this wasn't my idea; your fight is not with me. But I wasn't able to say anything, since no official statement had been made.

Until yesterday. Yesterday, this whole thing became very, very real for me. I thought I had been privately working through the five stages of grief and making progress--I was wrong. I know this because yesterday we told the teachers (in one big, called-at-the-last-minute staff meeting during break), and I almost lost it completely in front of everyone. And I learned that I've barely started to mourn my career at this school. (I don't know why I feel some need to make this news, which the staff is taking harder than I expected, easier for the teachers. This is harder on me than it is on them, yet I feel compelled to comfort them. I tried to start my little speech with some signature humor--using lines fed to me by my fiancee--and lighten the mood a little: "We're getting divorced, and Daddy's moving out; but we still love you . . . " I ended up finishing just in time--five more seconds and I would have broken down into tears.)

The parents have started a letter-writing campaign organized on a Yahoo user group,and occasionally I get blind-copied on the stuff they send. A lot of it is very flattering, and while I knew that the parents liked me I had NO idea that they felt that strongly about my presence there. (Of course, it's scary to read things like "Mr. Q6 is the only administrator there who doesn't lie to us." I have to remember that since this transfer is not my idea, I shouldn't feel guilty about the fallout.)

For the record, I've been given several reasons for this move, three I can make sense of if we use the phrase "make sense" loosely:

(1) I've been at this school too long. The district leadership wants its Assistant Principals to have a wide range of experience in different demographics and be better prepared for principalship (which is why teachers can stay in the same classroom for thirty years but APs get moved around every five). What seems to be missing from this thinking is that I don't see this as a stepping-stone profession. I was, briefly, a principal elsewhere and I have no real interest in doing it again. The district leadership acknowledges this, but they believe that every AP is a potential Principal, regardless of his personal career goals. (A side note here is that I'm trading places with the AP over there, and he DOES have an interest in climbing the district ladder, so he needs experience on this side of town.)

(2) The new school needs my technology expertise. The goal here, apparently, is to put me to work creating an electronic communication system for the parents similar to what I have set up at this site. Where this gets weird is the demographic: the new school is in a "less affluent" (read impoverished) side of town. While the district office believes the parent Internet access is actually higher than the estimated 45%, the new school's current leadership puts it at around 20%. Either I'm expected to put broadband in every home or someone has serious delusions of my grandeur.

(3) Being in one place for too long isn't good. Yeah, I don't get it either.

There are two other items here that are worth mentioning. It seems that there have been more complaints and concerns expressed to the district and the Board than I thought. The Assistant Superintendent mentioned that while he's seen this kind of reaction about Principal transfers, he's never seen this kind of thing with Assistant Principals. (It's flattering, really.) The other is the timing of the announcement to the staff--it comes before the Board of Education ratifies the move (which is Tuesday, and it's a meeting I won't be within ten city blocks of). Why give the teachers, parents, or anyone else a reason and an opportunity to complain at a Board meeting? Odd, I think.

There's more for me to post on this topic (including why I really dread this move), and this whole uncomfortable thing will drag on for a while, I expect. So stay tuned.

No Autographs, Please

2008-04-11T19:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes opportunities come out of nowhere. Last year I was asked to speak at a forum on Internet safety by the Bureau of Jewish Education. It ended up being a room with about six kids in it, not at all what they made it out to be. (It was a volunteer thing, anyway, and I was just happy to be seen as someone qualified to be on the program.)

Yesterday I was asked to speak again, on the same topic, but this time by the North American Association of Community Hebrew High Schools for their conference this summer at American Jewish University in Bel Air. They want me to do two breakout sessions, and they've asked about my fee.

Looks like I'm moving up in the world.

Stakeholder : District :: Constituent : Politics (??)

2008-04-11T18:46:00.000-07:00

Over the last several weeks I've been involved in a situation at work that I can't really discuss, so I've been dancing around it with some of my previous posts. I'll get to the heart of the matter in due time (I expect the public announcement on the 17th or 18th of April), but for now I'd like to delve into the world of district-level decision-making.

"Mommy, how are decisions born?" might be one way of looking at it: like a child who really doesn't understand the process at all. These decisions can take many forms, but we at the school sites usually see them in the form of program initiatives (read, "unfunded mandates"), hirings, firings, and administrator moves from site to site (the "switcheroo"). District administrators make such decisions based on the information they have, and (supposedly) for the good of the district. The questions I put to you today, friends, are (a) are they working off the best possible information, and (b) what defines "the good of the district"?

When does the district office get wind of how things are going in the trenches? Most of their information comes mainly from two places: field operatives (meaning principals, in most cases), and angry customers (parents). It goes without saying, therefore, that said information has a slant to it, one way or the other. When something goes right, however, who hears about it? I think the same is true of any service industry; how often, really, do we ask to see the manager and tell them what a great job the staff is doing? We don't, and that's information that goes unconsidered in many cases. There's also the "buffer" angle to examine: if parents are pleased with something at a school site, do they tell the principal? In most cases, yes, and still the information doesn't get up to the decision-making level. My point is this: the district administration is trusted to make decisions based on the best possible information . . . so how good are those decisions if said information is incomplete?

Is a school district (the whole) as good as the schools is contains (the sum of its parts)? Many people believe in leaving a good thing to work properly. Factories set up their equipment and, as long as it's performing at or above par, they simply maintain it without making changes. People invest money in various programs, and many leave it as is unless a change is required or a problem comes up. So why move an administrator from a school when all is going well? (Again, this is completely hypothetical.) Some of the answer comes from seeing the view from the district office; they're looking at ALL schools, not just one. They move their chess pieces as they see fit, in order to win the game, and they look at the WHOLE board--and, arguably, they may need to weaken the queen's position in order to fortify the king. Or, maybe, they make such changes just to shake things up and make them fresh (Dr. McCoy said something similar in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" . . . "I know engineers, they LOVE to change things.")

Here's the real problem: these changes are kept very quiet until after they're considered, made, and put into motion. THEN, such changes are announced and the debate begins. Why not hold the debate during the decision-making process? Would that not be the better way to get the best information, work for the good of the district AND the schools, and make the very best possible decisions? Stakeholders, indeed. And if we keep the whole thing quiet until it's over, how do we tell the teachers, students, and staff about these decisions?

That the stork brings them?

The Internet as Costume and Mask

2008-03-30T19:05:00.000-07:00

We had an incident at school last week that taught us more than everyone realizes, but it'll be some time before some get it, if they ever do. The whole matter seems, on the surface, to be about the Internet--but it really has more to do with people, with the way they see each other, and with the way they see themselves.

Students post things about teachers and administrators on Facebook and MySpace and other social networking sites. And in the same way we know that child predators post identities and statements that may not be true, we know that students do the same. While the predators do so in order to confuse and deceive, many students post statements in order to be popular. In any event, we have learned this much: what is posted by people on the Internet--even if they're posting it about themselves--may not always represent reality.

So why teachers become all flustered and panicked when they see hateful messages about them posted by students on the Internet, I don't know. Twenty kids may post something hateful, or even threatening; the fact remains, however, that as many as nineteen of that twenty may be posting in order to remain in the good graces of the "popular crowd." This is what I believe happened last week, but there will never, ever, be any way I can prove it.

One thing, above all others, is certain, however: whether true or false, whether meant to curry favor with popular students, whether done to jump on the bandwagon and not offend their peers, the statements posted will have an impact. My fiancee, who teaches at our school, has some of the same students as the targeted teacher, and she saw some of the Facebook posts. "I had no idea that so-and-so would write something like that, " she remarked. "Although she has never said anything like this to me or in my class," (and believe me, teachers get to know what a kid is like despite what they keep to themselves) "I will never look at her the same again."

And that, my friends, is what we as educators must take away from this experience: our students are not who we think they are. They are more concerned with the perceptions of others, because their self esteem depends so much on what others think. They are willing to say and do things that may not be true, that may be hateful, and that may even be offensive to themselves in order to be accepted.

Then again, this really isn't limited to students, is it?

All the World's a Classroom . . .

2008-03-29T12:07:00.000-07:00

Being an educator, I have a high respect for social workers. Where we at the secondary level (high school) deal with the best, the worst, and everything in between, social workers get to deal with a lot of the worst, be they troublemakers or victims (or both). Their jobs, I've also noticed, don't usually end when they clock out for the day.

NPR recently reported on New York social worker Julio Diaz who, when mugged on a subway platform by a knife-wielding teenager, not only surrendered his wallet but also volunteered his coat and a meal. The two went to a diner and ate, and talked, and at the end of the meal Diaz told the youth that he'd have to pay the bill, as he no longer had his wallet. In the end, Diaz walked away with his wallet, his coat, and the boy's knife; the teen walked away with twenty bucks and another chance (perhaps with a better perspective). Said Diaz, "I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It's as simple as it gets in this complicated world."

These are the things we can't do in the classroom, but these ARE the things that anyone can do. Kudos, Mr. Diaz.

Longevity in the Workplace

2008-03-16T19:01:00.001-07:00

Today I offer a topic for discussion and debate: the question of workplace longevity for administrators. In many districts (I've only worked for two districts in my 15 years in education, but I've heard about others), the district big shots see fit to move administrators from school site to school site every 5 years or so. The justification varies: strong administrators are needed at various sites at various times, the individual administrators need varied experience if they are to move up the ladder at some point, "things aren't working out," and so on. Recently I've been considering the alternative (and, it seems, unpopular) concept of leaving an assistant principal at a certain school site for a prolonged period of time--perhaps indefinitely. Here are the two viewpoints, as I see them, on this matter:

POSITION A: No one really goes into school administration to be an assistant principal forever, and certainly not at the same school site. As a district, we must consider what is best for the district as a whole, not just for one school site. When we discover those A.P.s with the potential to make great principals or district brass, we must make sure they get every opportunity for well-rounded experience and then move them (let's face it--this is a "stepping stone" job, anyway). Moreover, we should put those strong A.P.s at the sites where they'll do the most good while we still have them there. Where schools are in trouble, we move our greatest resources there. Finally, we must consider that where a certain A.P. is not strong, perhaps that person will fare better at another site.

POSITION B: If an Assistant Principal is strong at a certain school site, all efforts should be made to keep that person at that post--especially if that A.P. is well received by the staff, students, and parents. That person becomes a valuable cog in the machine, and changing that person brings an unnecessary risk to the function of the school. Over time, that A.P. develops perhaps not so much varied experience (especially if that school site has a unique demographic or other other factors that may not apply to other sites), but comes to possess a detailed knowledge of that particular site and, if that A.P. enjoys working there, develops a loyalty to keeping that school site running smoothly. Perhaps we should more carefully consider the idea of a "career Assistant Principal," if for no other reason than to retain the resources that work so well; it is unfair to assume that the A.P. position is a "stepping stone" if the person in that job is content to remain at that level.

Some of those in education have had administrators they couldn't wait to get rid of, and some have had administrators they couldn't stand to see leave. (My presentation here is specific to the position of Assistant Principal. I can't tell you why that is--not yet--but it is done intentionally.) One or more of the ideas listed above--or perhaps some I haven't even thought of--contribute to these arguments.

I'm curious to hear your feedback: let the debate begin.

Strike Two!

2008-03-06T22:33:00.001-08:00

High School Baseball season is once again upon us, and so I return once more to the baseball field. No, I'm not a coach or anything--I'm on the microphone and I call the games. It's not the full Vin Scully routine (though I'm capable of that), since I can't actually talk during the plays. For the most part, it's who's at bat, what's the score, and two minutes of schtick in between innings. The crowd gets a kick out of it, though, so that's cool. (Every so often I can get the home plate umpire to chuckle, too.) About 137 years ago, when I was in high school, I had a job as an announcer at a local racetrack. It was a kick-ass gig, and doing this reminds me of that. Back then I stood next to the gal who ran the scoring computer and I just riffed. Today, I sit next to the the gal running the scoreboard and do the same thing.

Except lately.

Two days ago, she didn't show until well into the third inning (we play seven of them in high school), claiming that she didn't know there was a game. I spent the first half of the game running the microphone AND the scoreboard, which was doable but nowhere near ideal. Today, she didn't show at all.

With all the education budget cuts coming at us, all I really seem to care about is people holding up their end of the stick. Is it too much to ask for a little professional follow through? This baseball thing, though strictly a volunteer thing, is the third time this year that I've had to swoop in and save the day. I had to step up and deal with schoolwide attendance because another administrator just wasn't getting his part done, and last month I was saddled with the jobs of three different technology people because the tasks weren't getting done. Look, I like that I have a strong work ethic, and I'm happy to have a reputation for being dependable and thorough--but fuck's sake, people, do I have to do EVERYTHING around here?

What Rhymes With "Calculus?"

2008-02-26T19:36:00.000-08:00

Way back when, I was always the teacher that liked to think outside the box. (No, that's not true. I didn't even acknowledge the existence of the box, really.) I loved the concept of cross-curricular lessons. Teaching English and Public Speaking was great, but it was nice to spread my wings and take on some of the other subjects--it made me feel more like a teacher. I knew one English teacher who taught Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, and crossed in the science lessons so everyone understood the DNA aspect of things. Let's face it: crossing Math and Science is easy; but cross English and Science, and you're on to something. I sometimes wondered if the elective courses tried the same thing; so when I ran across the Flicker Song Chart Pool, I was pleasantly surprised. Music, and Math.

The whole thing took me back to one of my favorite lessons; it never really worked with the results I wanted, but it might have if I had ever taught Honors-level classes. The theory was designed to make the pen-ultimate crossover: English and Math. (Yeah, yeah, meter in poems and such. This was SO much cooler.) Math uses its own vocabulary, its own language--most subjects do, which makes this accessible to a lot of teachers. To use the language of Mathematics to create a poem is meaningful to both subjects. And so, lost long ago in the pages of now out-of-print Omni magazine, there is this limerick:

A dozen, a gross, and a score,
Plus three times the square root of four,
Divided by seven,
Plus five times eleven,
Is nine squared, and not a bit more.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: man, I miss the classroom.

Overtime for the Rumor Mill

2008-02-23T21:43:00.000-08:00

For the Presidents' Day holidays, some schools take a four day weekend, others take two Mondays. Us, we take the two days off together in one week, then take the rest of the week off for kicks (some might refer to it as the "Ski Week" that private schools take, but we discourage people from calling it that--especially when skiing). And while we've been away it seems that imaginations have run wild.

Our HS principal had to leave the country suddenly to tend to her ailing mother (leaving the MS principal in charge of the whole she-bang, and losing his mind amidst the chaos); in her absence, certain staff members seem to be under the impression that she's not returning (now, she's not been well liked by some, but her reputation has improved over time; apparently, though, it's not improved enough). I don't know where this even started, since it has--to my knowledge--no basis in fact. I'm chalking this one up to "wishful thinking."

The students in our AP Language classes, on the other hand, just seem to be playing with whatever Play-Doh we put in front of them. They haven't liked their teacher since September, and over time we've slowly joined them. The teacher left under very amicable circumstances (I might blog about this more later), and we found a very competent substitute to hold the fort while we get the new teacher out of her current contract and through the district paperwork queue. The students think this is the replacement teacher. They were told this was a sub, but apparently that didn't take. The irony? They like this teacher immensely. This one is now classified as "AP Cluelessness."

Finally, a statement was made by a teacher union rep that seemed to slip under the radar and stay there, for I seem to be one of only two people worried about it: during a monthly "shop talk" meeting at lunch, a staff member voiced a concern about the relationship between me, an assistant principal, and one of the English teachers (note: we've been dating for two and a half years and are engaged to be married this summer--this isn't a breach of Ed. Code or anything, since I'm not her evaluator and have little, if any, dealings with her grade levels).* The union rep's response was "Well, they won't be working together much longer." Now I'd like to think that I'd be involved in discussions--or at least questioned--about this topic, and I'm more than blindsided by the voiced concern, especially since it's from a staff member with whom I thought I got along. I'm filing this under "union rep blows smoke"--for now, anyway.

I can't wait until school starts again so that we can deal with the usual the-sky-is-falling routine. Nothing seems to get the rumor mill going more than a week off.

* I guess it's also worth noting that several years ago a married principal here was having an affair with the English Department chair (to whom he is now married, I believe), and that went down very badly for everyone, professionally speaking. This probably has something to do with the current complaint (and I use the term "complaint" loosely).

SMACKDOWN!

2008-02-12T21:41:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned before that the students at my school are in dire need of a severe humbling experience. We have one student in particular, a junior, who needs this more than most.

This kid walks around campus day in and day out as if the whole school is under his control (it doesn't help that certain high-ranking staff members have contributed to this). He's had issues with the school's music program in the past, and the music program gets undeserved flak as a result. He's in an AP class that has endured teacher-competence problems, and has been reporting information to his classmates that has, at best, a casual relationship with the truth (including, according to reports that he denies, erroneous claims that he got the teacher fired and is helping to choose the replacement).

His folly--and it's long overdue, believe me--was relaying information about the interview process for the new football coach (including, again, exaggerated accounts of his level of involvement). After being told not to convey any information, he did so. So he's out. He met with all three administrators present and was given the "opportunity to step down." He took it, and I made damn sure he knew how upset we were with the situation. In the end, it was clear that he was getting an education in the way things work around here--and he knew it. I don't hate the kid, but I have the obvious problem with the crafted perception he's presenting to the student body.

So the humbling experience is possible in some cases. One down, two thousand to go.

Here, Let Me Show You How The Toilet Paper Works . . .

2008-02-04T22:18:00.000-08:00

I find cluelessness a fascinating trait in people. I'm not only fascinated by the degree of cluelessness one can find in an educational institution, but also by the sheer volume of it at times. The questions I've been getting lately should be easily answered by common logic, basic teacher training, existing printed material, or experience. I've been the answer-man around here for a while, but some of these things are just plain stupid. What was it that Jeff Goldblum's character said in Jurassic Park when things started going bad?

"I hate knowing everything."*

* Arrogant, I know, but if everyone around here is going to keep coming up to me and asking me the obvious . . .

The Perception of an Empty Brainpan

2008-01-28T07:03:00.000-08:00

Apparently, I'm quite the idiot. Seriously: my IQ is published somewhere as being "zero." I didn't get the memo, but I'm allegedly known among the students for being quite a stupid person.

All week long, students in both the intermediate and high school grades have been sent to my office for all kinds of things. Theft. Cheating. Ditching class (while remaining on campus). Threatening other people. And in each case, after I review the details of each offense, I asked a simple question: "Did you think we weren't going to care, or did you not think you'd get caught?" Each of them replied that they didn't think they'd get caught.

Many of our teachers have been doing this job for as long as I've been attending school. I've been doing this job for about as long as the 10th graders have been alive. Six-plus years of college training in education, over a decade of experience (some of it here in silver-spoonland, some of it in the 'hood), and I'm the one who's going to be outsmarted by underage Paris-Hilton-lookalikes and goth-wannabes? I don't think so.

There are many subjects we don't teach in the curriculum proper. These things get learned in social situations and, at times, in my office. While I will always think of myself as a teacher, I know that I'm not on the front lines. But if you'll allow me the metaphor, I do teach. My office is my classroom. The student handbook is my text. My subject is "Behavior"--and some of these kids are majoring in it.

Although it's a blog for another time, I've a theory that students in my demographic--already teenagers who feel invincible, with affluent status added on--are in need of a HUGE humbling experience. These kids need to learn not only that they are fallible, but that there is a certain nobility in embracing that fallibility. Rarely do any of them admit to a moment of stupidity. For the most part, they spew desperate justifications or try to minimize the offense (lest we forget that every bully, every crminal, and every school shooter starts somewhere, so I must maintain Mad-Eye Moody's doctrine of "constant vigilance"). And many of them, sadly, wait outside my office feeling untouchable.

Roll the dice again, kiddo. Your Cloak of Invulnerability just ain't that strong.

"Have You Seen Me?"

2008-01-26T16:50:00.000-08:00

There are social boundaries that you just don't cross. Today we have laws and rights that get in the way of this philosophy, but in the days of yore if a person was wronged in some way he was entitled to satisfaction--in the form of compensation or, in many cases, revenge (even to the point of violent beating or death, and even for what would be consider "minor" offenses today).

My iPod got ripped off today. I was at work for the SAT test, and I'd been listening to it in my office while I prepped the test. I left my office around 7:10, got the proctors briefed, got the students to their testing rooms, and went back to my office to find the dock sitting there, empty.

That's right--my 30-gig-bundle-of-80s-goodness wasn't swiped from a bag in a public place or carelessly left in a classroom or anything, it was docked on my desk in the administration building. (The building was unlocked, for the test staff needs to get in and don't have keys, but that's not my point.) What bothers me most is a toss up: (a) I'll never find the thief, and (b) there are unwritten social mores that dictate things you just don't do. It could have been any of the 250 registered examinees, but it was more likely one of the 25 students there for Saturday detention (some of whom were placed there by my hand).

My hope is that I find out who did it at some point. I've already purchased a replacement iPod, and I have all the music in iTunes, so compensation isn't really my goal. My hope is that I can, through very calm, reserved, Godfather-like behavior make the kid look over his/her shoulder in unbridled fear for the next several months. Seriously, I'd do nothing at all. No detention, no suspension, just quiet demeanor and passive looks that suggest "It's coming, just wait."

Is it proper for someone in my position to intimidate a kid? Perhaps not; but it's not like I can challenge the little shit to a duel or anything.

For Want of a Thinly Sliced Tree . . .

2008-01-24T18:53:00.000-08:00

Our latest problem is a shortage of paper--more specifically, we're going through the stuff like it grows on trees. Yuk-yuk.

Seriously, they bring us a pallet of paper every month and a half or so, and unlike previous years, we're running out before the new shipment arrives. The tech/administration has now changed the copier settings so that instead of department passwords, we're using individual ones in order to track who is using the most. It hasn't really changed anything; moreover, it really hasn't told us much.

Then IT sent out an e-mail about some new software they're testing. What bothers me is that it was sent out in an e-mail wrongly titled, "Save Toner and Paper." This software is designed to track computer printing (who's printing what, to where, how often, etc.). What's my problem with this? Simple: nothing in this software is designed to save toner or paper--it's merely there to tell us where the waste is occuring. We're supposed to use that information to put the smackdown on violators and, to be honest, we suck at that. (The whole thing reminds me of an attendance discussion I had with a teacher last Spring. I asked teachers to do more at the classroom level to reduce tardies, and one teacher gave me a five minute explanation of how she keeps a tardy book, makes the kids sign it, and knows exactly who to write up and when. "Yes," I told her, "you have a fine system for tracking tardies, but I asked what you're doing to reduce them--this system doesn't do that.")

What's my solution? Simple: find me software that allows teachers to print or copy up to a certain point, then cuts them off COMPLETELY from anything that excretes paper. Nothing inspires conservation more than desperation. The people on this campus--the ones who have so much technology and training that paper should be obsolete by now, anyway--might not appreciate the value of free paper until it's gone . . . not until it's limited, not until it's rationed, and not until it's at a price . . . until it's GONE.

Checkmate in Sixty Seconds

2008-01-15T21:01:00.000-08:00

Our campus is having one of those theme-related weeks, where emphasis is placed on a specific topic--but I'll get to that in a minute.

Today I suspended two tenth graders for being stupid (there's no Education Code section for that, so I had to call it something else). Our bell system is more of a computer-generated tone, and it's one that students have taken to recording on their cell phones. Every so often, a student will try to get a class dismissed early by playing the ringtone and hoping to dupe the teacher. Several have tried, but none have succeeded . . . until today. Some teacher fell for it, and let the class out sixty seconds early.

I could fill an airplane hangar with the problems here: they got out sixty seconds early, but not to lunch or break--they got dismissed early between back-to-back classes; the tone sounds differently coming from a floor level phone than it does from, say, the speaker ten feet up the wall on the other side of the room; when a student protests a suspension claiming that it was "only sixty seconds," they don't anticipate the response from me being, "I agree--not a long time to wait until the actual bell, is it?"; the cell phone in question wasn't supposed to be on in the first place, was it?; and if you don't want people to know it was you, why play the tone several more times outside the classroom in front of an off-duty teacher?

Alicia* gets the tone on her phone, then gives it to Arnold*, who plays it. Alicia gets caught, and doesn't want to give names, but as the word "suspension" escapes my lips she starts to recite what seems like the phone book. I suspend her anyway and her father picks her up (all the while asking me if the suspension will keep her from getting into college--I don't think he heard my answer over the rolling of my eyes). I get Arnold into my office, and he immediately cops to the whole thing. His argument is that the class really doesn't like the teacher; he's the one who got suspended, so I guess he showed her. (That also took me back to Alicia's dad: colleges, which are now looking at things like discipline records in the aftermath of Virginia Tech, might have a problem with the suspension if I labeled it as "teacher harassment.") The whole thing was really stupid, and I wondered how we might be able to prevent such problems in the future, and then it came to me:

We must teach every student to play chess.

I'm serious, and I even explained this to Arnold and his mom: if he had been trained at some point to think just a few moves into the future I wouldn't have had to suspend anyone today. If the kids today didn't ignore linear time--if they understood that there is also a future and a past, not just the here and now--they might avoid things like this. If they were trained in the strategies of chess, they might think five or ten moves into the game and stay out of trouble--or better yet, do something productive, or effective, or creative. Maybe we can eliminate this kind of behavior . . .

. . . from Honors students . . .

. . . during Integrity Week.

"Everybody's Lost But Me"*

2008-01-14T20:51:00.000-08:00

We returned from Winter Break on January 7th, and since that time one of two things has happened: either I returned refreshed, focused, and with a renewed clarity of mind, or everyone got REALLY stupid in two weeks' time.

I've become numb to being the answer-man at my campus, and although I occasionally lament this role, I don't really have a problem with it. I don't, that is, until it becomes my primary job responsibility. Every question I've been presented with lately fits three criteria: it comes from someone who has no earthly business asking me a question, it relates to an issue I have almost no connection to, and it could easily be answered by the resident of any small ant farm. Part of me wants to look at people and say, "I don't know." It's not an answer I often give, but it fits an if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them mentality that I've lately been drawn to. I feel like that last character in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," where I feel compelled to act like one of the pod people to make my day less nutty. Just one more reason I love working here . . .

. . . he said, sarcastically.

*The River-Phoenix-as-Indiana-Jones line seems fitting not only because the next movie comes out this year, but also because it's genuinely how I feel.

SIGH

2008-01-07T21:37:00.000-08:00

If you read this blog with any regularity then it's no surprise to you that I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with my job. We just came off of the best two-week Winter Break I've had in my life (largely due to my fiancee and kids), and I returned to work today with all the excitement of a child on his way to the dentist.

I'm all for efficiency and doing a good job, but there came a point about a month and a half ago where I peaked, and now everything seems to be catching up to me. I'm becoming . . . bored, I think. Today I had a hard time finding enough to do, and those things I had didn't carry with them any urgency or meaning. For a long while, we were getting this school back on focus, and that was great; now, we're more or less there, and the machine just has to run for a while before there's more for me to fix.

A lot of this is my perspective at work, so I accept full responsibility for the mood I'm in. I put myself in such a bad mood that I think I hurt someone's feelings on the phone earlier tonight, and I know I'll be kicking myself for a while about it.

I gotta find a way out of this funk . . .

Rally Around . . . What, Exactly?

2007-12-21T15:19:00.000-08:00

Every year, our school holds a "Holiday Rally." Every year, I cringe at the thought of it. Every year, there are a million things that can come off as totally inappropriate. And every year, my fears are laid to rest quietly.

Until this year. This year, our ASB managed to pull off the worst rally I've seen in my 6.5 years at this school.

Lots of things conspired to make this year a disaster: (a) a new ASB director, who has a good head on his shoulders and knows what to do, but may not always be aware of how willing the students are to ignore his decrees regardless of the consequences; (b) two full years of student backlash against the administration, which has calmed a bit but which seems to resurface whenever these kids get caught up in the spotlight; (c) a "tradition" of gag gifts for selected seniors and faculty members, many of which involve inside jokes and potentially bawdy overtones, and (d) the pure, intense narcissism that seems to come with students in the spotlights.

The Winter sports teams were introduced, and each team captain made a little speech (one of which included enough sexual allusions that the microphone had to be removed by a staff member). Santa and Mrs. Claus showed up (staff members, and not the two I would have selected) and delivered gag gifts to selected seniors--a part of the program we were told would not be highlighted this year and which excludes and alienates the other three grade levels present--and several of them made covert (and, in two cases, overt) references to sex, drinking, and drug use. Two staff members were inconvenienced by gag gifts, and another two were blatantly insulted (three of the four in question, thankfully, were not present to be humiliated).

By the end of the day, the ASB Director and some of the student leaders had heard the feedback--none of it good--and understood a bit better why there had been talk last year of moving the rallies to the lunch hour and away from their current, get-out-of-class-free schedule. I'm left to wonder what we're rallying about, exactly, if every time we hand the microphone to a student it turns into "Look what I can do!*" instead of "Yay, team!" The purpose of a school rally is to foster school spirit, and--very, very sadly--I no longer believe that our own ASB is where we should be trying to find it.

* Several years ago we killed a program altogether because of this problem. It was something of a talent contest for the male students, and even though it was held at a local synagogue it was replete with shirtless dances, inappropriate language, and elementary-school-quality behavior, all with the fathers laughing and egging them on. It looked like a cross between a bachelor party and a frat initiation. This program was killed in the name of good taste . . . wouldn't it be a shame if the school rallies suffered the same fate?

A Winter Serenade!

2007-12-19T22:23:00.000-08:00

I am always happy to attend the music concerts put on by our school. Of the most recent two seasonal events, I was only able to attend one: the vocal concert. (I hope those in the instrumental program will forgive me, but sometimes life--personal and professional--gets in the way.) I'm still the only site administrator who regularly attends these functions (and I don't say that to brag, but I do say it with a bit of pride--I could never go to another football game again and be perfectly content; but without the music or theater programs, I'd feel the loss), and in doing so I can fight for the survival of our music programs.

The vocal concert, held at a local church with standing-room-only seating and not half bad acoustics, was phenomenal. The Concert Choir several wonderful numbers, and the soloists--who did some holiday music and some non-seasonal fare--were wonderful. Some of the soloists are seniors, and I'm always left with a sense of, "Uh-oh, what happens when they leave?" (I'm sure the music director--a very dear friend, fine musician, and hard-working-and-it-shows kind of guy--feels the same thing on a larger scale.) The Madrigals were, as always, excellent, and I particularly enjoyed a Caribbean tune they did: "Mary's Little Boy Child" by Jester Hairston. (There were rumors that the students were fighting the inclusion of this song, going so far as to rebel during class and rehearsals; I don't know what the big deal was . . . with the possible exception of the finale, it was the best song they did.)

Once again, Bravo, Maestro. I look forward to the Spring Concerts.

The Accidental Hacker

2007-12-06T21:30:00.000-08:00

Ignorance is a funny thing. In small children, it can be cute; in adults, it can be downright laughable. In teenagers, however, mistakes are apparently never made out of ignorance. To hear some people tell it, every bad thing a teenager does is done out of calculated malice.

I'm here to tell you, friends, it just ain't so.

Our newest computer lab is made up of thirty or so of the newest Macs on the market. I won't bore you with the details of how our school pulled this off; suffice to say that people have been watching over them with a degree of care and paranoia that would make any mother bird blush with shame.

Five of them got fouled up recently. Going back through the server files, the tech people discovered that a student tried to hack into the administrative functions and create a user account with privileges (evidence on the latter part was sketchy, but it was clear that he did try to make his own account). At the same time, the server domain settings--whatever the hell those are*--were changed, basically cutting those units off from the main network. After a bit of research on my part, I discovered the following: the student, in an attempt to "make things easier" for himself password-wise by going into the settings window and creating his own account (I also discovered that this was something that each student has access to; naturally, no one in IT could explain that to me). He used his own first and last name, and even used the built-in camera to add his photo. The next day (at a different computer in the lab) he couldn't find the new account--and, like any teenager who doesn't know what he's doing (redundant?), he tried again. This went on for a few days, which explained why five computers had this problem. I couldn't find any access to the domain settings.

As a matter of prudence, I suspended this kid's access to the computers until further notice. When I explained to our site-level tech people that this kid wasn't hacking, he was just ignorant, they were convinced that there was something much more sinister behind it and that this kid should be taken out behind the gym and shot. When I mentioned his name to certain teachers, they refused to believe that this kid had the smarts to hack anything. I told the tech people that I was marking this as an accident, restoring the kid's privileges, and sending my notes to the district IT department for their opinion. (And, of course, I showed the kid which mistakes were the boneheaded ones and how to avoid them in the future.)

District IT came back a day later and confirmed each of my findings, including the one where I suggested the server domain changes were a separate, unrelated matter. Yay, me.

After over a decade in this business, I have yet to figure out why adults--particularly those in education--are so quick to label kids as troublemakers. Sometimes their misdeeds are out of ignorance, not malice. Sometimes the student doesn't need to be punished, he just needs to be taught and made to understand not just the how but the WHY of the way things work.

Sometimes, I think, many of us forget what it was like to be young and stupid.

*I've never been a big fan of computers. Yes, I know how to use them, and even fix them from time to time. I've even dabbled a bit in HTML. But I've never been a fan of a system that couldn't work during a power failure. Moreover, computers at school are a great way to create more work for yourself (especially in the area of security, regardless of the fact that the kids know more about this stuff than we do). I'll go with the flow, but I won't give the computers the control.

"I'll Never Let Go"

2007-12-04T21:06:00.000-08:00

Today, for about twenty minutes, I got a fix the likes of which no junkie will ever know the bliss of: I got to teach a class. My lesson, my rules. Twenty of the finest professional minutes I've enjoyed in quite some time.

One of our teachers was in an IEP meeting that was running over time (IEP meetings with laywers in them can be that way); as a result, his first period class waited outside the room with no teacher. Being the only administrator that can ever be found in such a situation, I was sent in. This was different than the usual "the sub didn't show" situation; this teacher left no lesson plans, for he had no idea he would be out. I let the kids in, and took center stage.

There's a lesson I've always had on standby in the back of my head. In a flash, I can pull it out and spread it over the class like a fine tablecloth. It's about the sinking of the Titanic*, and it was originally conceived as a critical thinking exercise with a little history thrown in. I didn't get to set things up and draw them out; the teacher could walk in in five minutes or fifty, and I had no idea how long I had. This would have to be the microwave version, at best.

[Tangent: I can actually apply this lesson to anything, and you actually have to sit through it to see why. I've found connections--strong ones--to history (American, European, and military), psychology, physiology, physics, sociology, mechanics, law, politics, economics, media, and math. I've got a killer footnote to the whole lesson--which is my link to literature, and which I always present at the very end--that leaves them all in a complete state of rake-handle-between-the-eyes awe.]

I was only a few steps into the basic setup when the teacher walked in. I already had the students silent and completely drawn in--they were eating it up, since they'd never seen the big, bad, Assistant Principal do anything but yell before--and if I stopped now, the magic would be lost. "Do you mind if I continue?" I asked. The teacher had absolutely no problem with it. "Are you sure? I don't want to mess with your plans." In the end, I have to respect the teachers on my campus and not abuse my position, but he insisted that I continue.

And so I did. I asked them questions, and they offered answers; some right, some wrong, and all handled with my dusty-but-still-effective positive feedback approach. They asked questions, and I answered with my "here's the answer, and here's how to understand it" style. At the end, I hit them with my killer footnote, and they applauded me as I left (odd, but I'll take it, these days, where I can get it).

Thanks, Mr. History Teacher. I needed that.

UPDATE: For the last two days, the students from this class have not only been saying "hi" to me in the hallways, they've been thanking me. Two have asked if I have any more cool stories, and one has asked when I'll be coming back. If this keeps up, I'm gonna be Jonesing again real soon.

*Every so often, I'll find a topic and exhaust it. I spent two and a half years studying the JFK assassination, just for fun (and yes, I have my own theory). Not long after, it was 18 months of Titanic research. I've studied other things here and there, but I'm still waiting to find another really BIG topic to play with.

All the School's a Stage . . .

2007-11-26T20:43:00.000-08:00

I don't know if it's because I was once involved in high school theater, or because I regularly attend our school productions (or because I've been watching too much "Slings and Arrows" lately), but I would LOVE to be involved in a play production. I secretly hope that one day the improv troupe at our school will invite me to participate in this year's show--I've even offered to write a sketch or two. My fiancee (for those who read this blog, remember that she works at my school) and I have toyed with the idea of a "one night only" production involving nothing but the faculty members. It would be a lot of work, and a bit of a distraction from our jobs, but it would be so incredibly cool (and, most likely, so popular that we'd have to stage it in the gym--a 250 seat theater wouldn't hold the number of people who would want to attend). I envision a comedy.

Like I don't already have enough to do. I wouldn't even know where to start.

Eight Reasons I Know I've Been Doing This Too Long

2007-11-25T21:17:00.000-08:00

This is my fifteenth year in the education business, my ninth year as an administrator, and my seventh year as an Assistant Principal at my school. Though I've often spoken about how I'd like to go back into the classroom--or into something else entirely--I sometimes forget those numbers. This job is a big part of my life, and maybe TOO big a part. Here's why:

1) I was only a few seconds away from dress-coding a college student at a local market.

2) Occasionally, I answer the phone at home using my school name and title.

3) I've posted personal stuff on my work blog, and vice-versa. (Which blog is this again?)

4) I've threatened my own kid--who doesn't even attend my school--with Saturday detention.

5) All my Internet purchases are delivered to my work address.

6) When parking at the supermarket, I complain that "those" cars don't have staff decals.

7) At Thanksgiving, people asked, "How are you?" and I immediately listed the open projects on my desk.

8) I check personal e-mail three times a day. I check work e-mail every 20 minutes.

No wonder I can't get my novel written. Or started. Or--nevermind.

Lern to Spel with ASB!

2007-11-14T21:05:00.000-08:00

As the guy in charge of PR around this campus, the stuff coming from our student leaders embarasses me. As a former English teacher, it sickens me. As a guy who blogs about the dumb stuff at work, however, I'm delighted.

Each campus has it's own version of keeping the campus clean. Some play "Adopt-A-Hallway" with the campus clubs. Others hold contests. Us? We've decided to torture animals.

That's right, it's "Starve the Seagulls" week at my school. What better way to spread a sense of community pride and cleanliness by motivating the students to create a climate filled with emaciated waterfowl. What's worse, there are signs posted all over campus reminding the students to be cruel to the birds. I didn't get pictures, but I've dramatized some examples.

The Associated Student Body wants me to believe that the seagulls that plague the quad at lunchtime were sent by MegaTron?!? Oh, I'm sorry. He's a Decepticon. Deceptigons are . . . what? Deceptive polygons? YES! That must be it. They are shapes that are so tricky that you can't even tell how many sides they actually have (much like a seagull after four cheeseburgers and half a chocolate chip cookie).

Isn't it bad enough that our student leaders can't spell? Do they have to convert measures of volume into verbs as well? While you're at it, don't meter anyone, don't gram anything, and for God's sake avoid doing anything in centigrade. (Notice I've avoided commentary on the violent directive here. Fortunately, I haven't caught anyone actually beating the seagulls to death--more of them just fly in for the funerals, anyway.)

Ok, what the hell is this? Yes, the spelling error bothers me, but the message of this poster bothers me more. What are we, at war? The damn birds wouldn't show up in the first place if the kids would quit throwing five-course meals onto the pavement.* The whole "Starve the Seagulls" thing was kind of catchy and kind of clever . . . until we felt the need to invent a motive OTHER than keeping the campus clean.

Learn to spell, children. And keep the campus clean because you want it that way, not because the wildlife army sent by an evil Transformer is trying to kill you.

*Although the "murderer" tag may not be too far off--you ever seen what seagulls do if you cut off their regular food supply? They fight for it. I saw one gull make two attempts to remove food directly from students. Be afraid, my friends.

Tales from IdiotFest 2007

2007-11-04T20:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I played host to 621 of the stupidest human beings on the planet. I am the Test Center Supervisor for the SAT Test. I'll tell you this: some people worry that the next generation won't be able to sustain employment and fund our Social Security; me, I'm worried that these kids will one day procreate. Then, my friends, we're in serious trouble.

It's bad enough that some of these kids take this test EVERY SINGLE TIME I give it (which is ten times a year). I don't know why they think they'll do well on the test; I don't know how they even found the school that morning. I don't know how they even found their pants when they got up. As my fiancee so aptly put it: our generation will be the last to wear pants.

One kid stood for half an hour in the wrong line to add the test (note: he hadn't even bothered to sign up for it) after TWO shouted directions to the correct line; then half an hour into the four-hour test, he decides to quit because he tanked the essay. Surprise, surprise.
Four kids put their test answers on the wrong page. They put the ID information on page one, then put the answers on page four. Like pages two and three had cooties or something.
After I spent five minutes telling everyone where the rooms were, over thirty kids wanted to know where the rooms were. I didn't check to see if they were wearing pants.
Nine kids showed up not having registered for the test. Seven showed up to the wrong test center. Twenty-two signed up, in advance, for the wrong test (in five of these cases, "My Mom signed me up for the wrong test"). Many of these students drive cars. Be careful out there, everyone.
More than twenty kids showed up to the 8:00 test at 8:02 or later. One kid showed up at 9:00, and I had to turn him away because all the rooms had started. He insisted that the paperwork in his hand said the test started at 9:00. "Show me," I said. His reply, as he looks at the documents: "It says right here . . . . oh. (pause) So what do I do?" I sigh. "You go home."
"I can't find room 12." Here we go again, I thought. "That's because we don't have a room 12. You're the twelfth kid on the list (see how the kid before you has an '11' and the kid after you has a '13') . . . what room does it say you're supposed to go to?" Wait for it . . . . "Oh." Moron.
One student bothered me for three days prior to the test, insisting that he was signed up at my location. "You're not on my list, and it was updated an hour ago," I explained. He showed up that morning, test ticket in hand, and proved he was signed up at my location . . . . for last month's test.
Seven kids cancelled their scores. One of them cancelled his midway through and then continued to take the test to the end. I still haven't figured that one out.
After one test ended I hear a loud, panicked banging on the window by the front door. I rush to it, assuming the building was on fire, to find the parent of a kid who put her answers on page four instead of page two (remember those kids?). She wanted to know if her daughter's test would still be scored. (This happens at every test, by the way. It's a completely boneheaded problem, but it's a simple fix.) I tell her I'll take care of it, and she grabs my arm and jumps up and down, shrieking, like I'm one of the Beatles or something.
Ordinarily I get three or four calls from the proctors with questions or problems. Last Saturday I got thirty or forty. Most of the questions I answered during the proctor briefing, so either stupidity is contagious in close quarters or we've all been inhaling too much soot these last two weeks. (In fact, the only proctor I was seriously worried about--a rookie--had no problems in the testing room at all. Her only error was on her payment form--she put down her house number. Not her street name, city, state, or zip code--just the house number.)
When I was in high school our parents didn't even get out of bed to take us to the test (much less fork out thousands of dollars in prep classes--which are apparently doing sweet-fuck-all for these kids), but today parents stalk the test center in true helicopter-parent fashion. I honestly don't know how these kids even get to high school with the umbilical cord still attached.

The SAT Test is no longer an accurate gauge for college. Originally designed as an "eduational thermometer" to determine how capable students are academically, the SAT Test has been watered down and nullified by prep classes, inappropriately accommodated students, prep classes, advanced cheating methodology, and prep classes. (Note to prep class instructors: how about spending some time teaching these kids how to navigate the answer sheet? Or how to interpret the test admission ticket? Or even, maybe, how to register for the test properly? How about teaching them how to put on their pants?)

I have seen our future, in the midst of academic combat, fighting for their future positions in society. I have seen them use all of their mental skills to demonstrate what they are truly capable of.

We're doomed, my friends. Absolutely doomed.

DST vs. PST--Do They Even Notice?!?

2007-11-04T20:24:00.000-08:00

If I've noticed anything lately, it's how the concept of TIME is abused, mishandled, or simply ignored by everyone around me at work. Students have schedules, students and teachers have deadlines, parents have meetings . . . and only a few seem to care. The students have six minutes to get from one class to another (me, I could walk from one side of the campus to the other and back backwards in under six minutes) and they still don't make it on time. Moreover, they're most often tardy to their first, third, and fifth period classes (break is right before third, and lunch is right before fifth--naturally). So you can only imagine the idoitic looks on their faces when I ask them, "So you can't get to third period in twenty minutes? Fifth period in forty minutes? So you have SEVENTEEN HOURS to get to period one on time and you can't pull it off?" It further slays me when they protest that they're late by only a fraction of a minute--"I agree," I reply, "it's such a short period of time that there's no reason you shouldn't be able to get to class twenty seconds sooner."

The teachers (some of them, anyway) aren't much better. I've got two teachers on my evaluation list who missed their initial conferences with me (one of them missed it three times). Others have been given paperwork deadlines and missed them repeatedly, one had to be reminded what time he's supposed to come in every morning, and others seem to think that the closing time of the front office is more of a suggestion than an actual policy.

What happened to the concept of punctuality? Of an honest-to-God deadline? I was once asked in a job interview, "If you're supposed to start at 7am, what time should you get to work?" I replied that I should be at my desk and ready to go at 6:55am. My mother taught me well--being on time became automatic. What I'd really love to see is one of these kids get turned away from a job interview because they showed up two minutes late. I just picture a guy at the half-closed conference room door: "Yes, well, the interview was to start at 2:00; you weren't here, and I think that tells us everything we need to know." Click.

My son and my daughter are often amazed that when we go somewhere, I'll have it timed perfectly . . . I mean, we'll pull in to the parking lot right when I said I wanted to be there (my son even checks his watch and asks, "How do you do that?" every single time). I'll leave the office for district meetings before others at my site, and I'll be the only one from my site who doesn't walk in late.

*SIGH* Maybe it's just me. I'm punctual, but I'm outnumbered.

A Quick Glance at the Greener Grass

2007-10-17T20:10:00.000-07:00

A teacher I know posted on her blog the other day, and it made me feel both happy and sad. In this post she wrote of a lunchroom conversation at her school in which teachers lamented for "something else." I felt sad, because like them I also yearn for something different; I felt happy as well, because it proved I was not alone in my thinking . . . and for a while I believed I was.

Dare I say I'm starting to get bored with my job? As an Assistant Principal of an affluent, public, high-performing 7th-12th school, how could I possibly get bored? Each day brings a new problem to solve, a new wrong to right, another person to help. I guess you have to be there to understand--riding an untamed mare gets pretty dull once you've broken her. For six years I've been streamlining various parts of this school. Where I haven't been able to prevent the problem, I've been able to reduce it; where I haven't been able to reduce it, I've created more efficient and productive ways of dealing with it. I have managed to have my fingers forced into just about every pie on this campus, and I've got procedures and instructions written (and I've even created better paperwork) for just about everything. While I still have hectic days, those days have more to do with how much I do and not what I have to deal with. If there's a plateau in this profession where nothing seems new and where I've dealt with the same things so many times that I've got them down to a simple science, then that's where I am. So I read this blog post about teachers looking over the fence, and I ask myself:

What if I were to give this up and move on to something else?

While it's not difficult to solemnly ask this question, it is pretty tough to move on to the answer. I may not be addicted to this job or even this profession; I am, however, addicted to things like food and shelter. The fact is that I'm not qualified by education or by experience to do anything else unless I were to go into business for myself in some way, and the uncertainty of paychecks from that source has always scared me off the idea. Like one of the teachers in the story, I, too, dream of writing a novel (three, actually), but until that happens I'll have to remain here to provide for my wife (to-be) and children. At one point I looked toward going back to teaching, but it seems that even the teachers are looking toward other things.

One day I DO hope to find my "Something Else," but until I can make it a reality that sustains my life and family, it will have to remain exactly that: something else.

How Did I Do All Of This Before?

2007-10-17T18:01:00.000-07:00

For the first time in my career--a career now in its fifteenth year--I have my own assistant. (I prefer "assistant" to "secretary," though she doesn't have a preference . . . just as long as I don't call her "ma'am.")

Part of me is a control freak, which means I've always done all of my own work (right down to the typing and filing). It's been that way since I was young. My mother is a bit OCD, and it's rubbed off on me in some ways, but it has more to do with what she taught me long ago: do one thing at a time, do it well, do it until it is done, and do it like it's the only thing they'll ever see you do. Seriously, how could you not become a control freak with a philosophy like that? I even gave her control of my work schedule (which was a HUGE leap for me), and I'm pretty sure she didn't even see my hands tremble when I gave it to her.

At first I thought, "Great, another mouth to feed. I'll never come up with enough for her to do." She wasn't someone I interviewed; she was originally hired for another position, and inadvertently got reassigned to me for half days. Funny thing is--and this is really strange to me, because I don't usually have this kind of luck where I work--she's exactly who I would have hired for the job. She's efficient, she's thorough, she's a quick learner, and she puts up with my quirky way of doing things (including my sense of humor, which can be taxing).

In four (or so) short weeks, I went from "What am I going to do with an assistant?" to "How have I been doing this job for six years without one?" She's doing a fantastic job, and at some point soon I'll take her to lunch to show my gratitude . . . . that's what bosses do, right? I've never been one before.

Your'e Welcome . . . . ?

2007-10-06T18:00:00.000-07:00

Does "Thank You" not mean anything anymore, or was the concept of gratitude officially shifted while I wasn't looking?

For the last four weeks, I've been dealing with students for all kinds of discipline reasons: attendance, rough play/fighting, failure to perform in class, failure to attend detention, blah, blah, blah. Some of them get the worst tongue lashing they've had in years; others are made to feel so guilty for their behavior that I worry I may have poured it on too thick; some even leave my office crying.

Each and every one of them has said the same thing to me as they've left my office: "Thank you." Are they just blithely saying it as they leave my office, as if on some sort of responsive autopilot, or do they actually mean it? I understand that respect for authority is expected, and I'm not really complaining about this, but I don't get it. This hasn't happened in prior years. Many times I've said to myself, "These little brats should be thanking me for setting them straight." I just never thought I'd see the day when it actually happened.

It's a little weird.

Whatever Happened to Clock Watchers?

2007-10-05T17:33:00.000-07:00

Sometimes there's a bold line drawn between the attitudes of teachers and their students, and sometimes there is no line at all.

My job description over the last six years has gone from a leaflet to something resembling War and Peace, and the newest addition to this tome is Attendance. All 7th-12th grade attendance issues are now routed through me, the Middle School Assistant Principal. (I suspect the impetus for this change has something to do with the fact that I get through my referrals in about a fifth the time it takes the High School AP. If it keeps up like this, I should be doing everything but school finance and master schedule by the end of 2010.)

One of our teachers, one with a conference period at the beginning of the school day, has been making a habit of coming in late. I finally had a chance to call him on it, and his main argument was that it was not affecting his job performance. "I'm still getting everything done, so what's the big deal?" I called upon the contract language for support, the fact that other teachers did not have this luxury he seemed to be abusing, the example he was setting, etc. Finally the matter was settled, and lately I've seen him each morning passing through the front office well before school starts (whether this is for legitimate reasons or just a show for me, I couldn't care less--he's here, and that's all I really want.)

Later the same day I called several students in to discuss their lacking attendance. This has become my routine, and it's too soon to tell if it's having a positive impact or not. I was struck by the response of one 12th grader, a young man who had been missing classes after lunch with some frequency. When I imparted to him the potential harms of ditching class, his response was almost frightening:

"I'm still getting all my work done, so what's the big deal?"

In my many rants about the state of the public education system (or the school I work at, anyway) I don't think I've yet touched on this item: at what point in time did we begin to move away from the basic concept of time? I'm now working in a district that is dealing with such things as Credit Recovery and Year-Round Summer School (to, supposedly, remove the stigma of an extra year of school from course failure). Online courses are everywhere. We're offering college courses to high school students. Remediation is a thing of the past at our school--students here are majoring in "Fast Forward." Now we've come to the point where time itself is irrelevant.

I miss that place I once knew as "high school." I miss it because it sure as hell isn't anywhere around my office.

"Missed It By THAT Much . . . "*

2007-10-01T17:05:00.000-07:00

There have been concerns lately that the newly-intoduced-on-our-campus AP English Language course may be having problems. It's no surprise, especially when you consider the fact that this course was supposed to be taught by our department chair--who quickly fled to another school district closer to home (good for her, by the way)--and was given to someone who hired in at the last minute and had no idea it was coming. There is now the distinct possibility that those two sections will be switched to another teacher. "Who will we get to teach this class?" my principal asked me. I didn't even skip a beat:

"Give it to me," I replied. "I'll teach it."

The several seconds of silence that followed were a clear indication that she was considering it. I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell, you understand . . .

We'd been through this last year when an administrator was poised and ready to take over a Math class. The district didn't want administrative time spent in the classroom (presumably since there is so much administrative stuff to do), and so there's no way they'd switch positions and let me back into the classroom (which is now my dream: to get myself financially stable enough to get back into the classroom, hopefully while my mother is still on this Earth). I'd like to point out two things on the subject, though:

One, the term "principal" in education has its roots in the schoolhouses of old. There may have been more than one teacher, but one was considered the top dog--or, more accurately, the principal teacher, which is where we get the term. Whatever idiot eventually decided to move this position out of the classroom altogether clearly wanted his own office, little interaction with students, and premium dental insurance.

Two, I think the only real way for administrators to truly have their fingers on the pulses of their schools is to be on the front lines and in the classrooms themselves. Anything less, and we're seriously shortchanging the students. (For the teachers' union's position on the concept of administrators in the classroom, click HERE.)

* This quote is legendary, and shame on you if you can't place it. The movie remake from this classic TV series looks good, by the way.

Pursuing Victory with Honor Profane Inebriation

2007-09-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

Not only did we screw up, we screwed up on live, national television.

I'm sure most schools have some sort of cross-town rivalry. Our school has had one since it was built, and we played the annual "Battle of the Bay" this week. Not only did we play, but we played in a small stadium (in years past we've managed to play this at the larger college stadium) with six cameras from Fox Sports Network rolling live. "Game of the Week," indeed.

The highlights? Packed stands by kickoff (any other game, it's the middle of the second quarter). Angry tirades in the parking lot. Parents tailgating before the game (alcohol and all). 7th graders throwing nachos on people over the back of the bleachers. Fights breaking out between wanna-be tough guys. People hopping over the fence. People crawling under the fence. Seniors who were not only drinking out of red SOLO cups, but smelling like they were drinking out of red SOLO cups.

And, of course, the chanting.

When the first half ended, the opposition had to walk right past our stands. Our students (and, of course, many of their parents) joined in with the sing-song chant of "F**k you, (school name withheld)" over and over again. (When I watched the replay of the game over the weekend, I could hear this chanting as the commentator interviewed the opposing school's coach.)

In the end, we lost the game. Fitting, I thought, since there was so much going on that night--the fights, the drinking, the cameras--that the game seemed to be incidental anyway. Moreover, I don't think our crowd deserved the win (although I now understand why Superbowl-winning fans burn their own communities to the ground). We didn't really bust anybody, but made sure that everyone made it out alive. At this game, each year, I have a simple philosophy--no autopsy, no problem. I can only control so much, especially when the parents control nothing at all.

Next week I'll be asked what can be done to prevent this in the years to come. I think we should play the game at an undisclosed football field in Palmdale and webcast it back here. Let this be the problem of the local sports bars.

The Illusion of Security

2007-09-09T16:14:00.001-07:00

We've adopted a new practice this year: instead of allowing the students to use their own padlocks on their lockers, we're requiring them to purchase them from us. The thinking behind this has very little to do with being an ASB fundraiser and has more to do with locker repair. When students use their own locks and they malfunction, or the kid forgets the combination, or loses the key, or something weirder*, we've had to go in with bolt cutters and snap the locks off. This treatment is actually very harsh on the lockers themselves, and we've broken several latches as a result. The locks we now require them to use--we call them "school locks"--have a key access in the back so that we can get in when we need to. The bolt cutters are now gathering dust somewhere, and the lockers no longer wince when we try to open them.

Now other schools use this "school lock" procedure, too, and and they use it very successfully. My objection had very little to do with locker damage, but liability. See, other schools who use this method usually have some way of securing the campus from people in the off hours. Our campus is open 24/7, so people could show up in the middle of the night and do what they want to; which is why some people started using the $20, 2" brass lock rather than the $3 cheeseball combination lock. My point is this: If we force the students to use an inferior lock to the one they would choose to use, and things get stolen, don't we carry some of the liability? I brought this argument up last year, and I brought it up again over the summer.

For a district that made me shut down my Q&A blog due to liability concerns, they don't seem to care much about it when it comes to this. Liability is funny like that, I guess.

* The locks that most students use when they have a choice are the black-faced dial combination locks that cost less than five bucks. The ones we use aren't any different, except for the key access. These locks can actually be broken open quite easily; I once saw a kid get one open in under ten seconds with a skateboard (by bringing it down on the lock with a rather quiet "crack") and the lock wasn't even damaged. It still worked. So some kids would show up and do this to two locks, then switch them on the lockers. The complaint "someone else's lock is on my locker" doesn't sound unusual at all to me anymore.

Creative Pranks 101

2007-09-09T15:57:00.000-07:00

Seniors, Juniors, and students of all ages, take note: Pranks CAN be creative, inventive, and non-destructive:

(There's also a tunnel between these two buildings, which allows the students to loop back through the doorway again. Genius!)

07-08, DAY ONE:

2007-09-04T15:44:00.000-07:00

The events leading up to the opening of school had their moments.

After two years of a nothing-but-test-scores approach to this place, the Principal suddenly switched gears on us and decided that we needed to access the student culture, we needed to re-connect with each other, and we needed to bring the fun back to this place. Several are cheering, several aren't buying it, and others have become so accustomed to keeping their heads down I'm sure they didn't notice. This is a great departure from her previous approach to this school's management, and I (like others) can only hope that the follow-through is as good as the pitch. (It also feels a bit like whiplash, since the district-level management changes over the last two years have resulted in greater legal protection, higher rates of documentation, and an arm-wrestling match with the teachers union worthy of Olympic-event news coverage.)

We got through teacher hiring and student registration okay, though I had some difficulty with one Special Ed position. I interviewed several people, then hired a guy; he took a job somewhere else two weeks AFTER accepting our position. I went back to the drawing board and hired another person; another school in our district stole her away. After going through every application remaining--and getting shut down for a variety of reasons (I'm more interested in elementary, I've already found a job, I've got too many offers in front of me already, I'm leaving town to become a nun)--I finally took a page out of their playbook and stole a guy from another high school in our district. Fight fire with fire, blah-blah-blah. The principal over there wanted to hire a new coach anyway, and this gave him an excuse.

Day One for students seemed to go rather well. It was like any other where-do-I-go, what-do-I-do kind of day, especially for the seventh graders. I'm sure it won't be this routine for long.

Same Blog-Time, Same Blog-Channel!

2007-07-25T22:12:00.000-07:00

According to all available data, I'll be back at my school next year. In a district that (historically) shuffles administrators around every five years, I get to come back for my seventh. Not even Harry Potter could pull that off. There will be more stories, more rants, and more funny stuff--I'm looking forward to sharing it with you. Until then . . . .

"These Are Not The Droids You're Looking For . . . "*

2007-07-23T22:08:00.000-07:00

I told them I was going on vacation. I wasn't specific about plans (I had designs to take a car trip up the coast--staying in motels in Pismo, Morro Bay or Cayucos, and end up in Monterey--but I don't think that'll happen now). I told them my daughter was in town, and I was going to spend time with her. I changed the voicemail message, set the auto-reply on my e-mail, and finished all the pending stuff on my desk. Although I've been reading some of the mail coming through, I've been vigilant about staying on vacation. I haven't responded to anything (nor have I seen anything that requires my immediate attention). It's been nice to keep a distant eye on things and learn to enjoy my time off. By the time I get fully used to it, it'll be time to go back to work.

* Not a bad quote for being in professional hiding, especially since Lucas seems to have settled the once-eternal debate.

Godspeed, Class of 2007

2007-06-25T14:39:00.000-07:00

This year's graduating class has special meaning for me. Their first year at our school was my first year at our school. They've been a pretty good group (those that are left, anyway), and it's been great knowing them. As I've mentioned before, they loosen up a bit once they're out of the 7th and 8th grades; I'm only indirectly involved in the high school, so they treat me like more of a person at that point. This is the first group that has only known our school with me in the front office, and I'm the only administrator left from their first years here.

I wish them the best. They've been great, and I've been lucky to know them.

The Illusion of Discipline

2007-06-20T21:36:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest ironies in this business centers around the importance of the graduation ceremony: it is the penultimate experience, one not to be missed, to be treated like the Holy Grail itself . . . unless, of course, you're a graduating senior. Our campus has been hit with several pranks from the senior class this year--including tree-mounted squid (WTF?), streaking, and now we have five girls who went around painting "07" on every car window they could find in two lots (although I understand they painted a few car doors as well, including a staff member's, and that stuff's not coming off easily). The last group was told that as a result of this, they would not walk in graduation. They cried. They screamed. They wanted to know why the streakers get to walk (actually, so do I). The girls even offered to wash all the cars they defaced--like anyone's gonna let them near those cars a second time.

In the end, here's what happened: they walked graduation. The three streakers walked. The five painters walked. The squid guys--whoever the hell they were--walked. I realize that we have very little left with which to punish exiting seniors, but to let them off scott-free seems wrong to me; moreover, it guarantees that there will be more of the same next year. Early in my parenting I learned an immutable truth: never make a threat you're not willing to actually carry out, for you will be tested. Either we mean business, or we don't.

Footnote: The day of graduation, 90 seconds before rehearsal ends, some moron leaps out of his seat and runs to the parking lot. He's stopped, and although he probably left for no reason other than to avoid the parking lot traffic he called enough attention to himself and his car for security to find his stash and his bong. He didn't walk. What message does this send? That we're anti-drugs, but we're cool with vandalism and indecent exposure.

. . . Or Was It Just Cold In The Quad?

2007-06-20T16:35:00.000-07:00

I'll say this for the streakers that ran through the quad today at break: they're a lot less fazed by public nudity than those of years past. One kid just stood there for, like, 15 seconds (which is an eternity when you're naked) when he saw I was blocking his exit. I managed to follow him to his getaway car, but I didn't make the plate (note to other administrators: we don't typically try all that hard to catch these guys, since they'd have to become registered sex offenders; we're not happy about streaking, but we're not cruel--besides, two hours later everyone knows who did it). Of course, the only two idiots to be late to third period AND out of breath wouldn't cop to it.

The ordeal did have its plusses, though: the younger students, the seventh graders, were sort of grossed out by it. And, I must say, those little kids have to have WONDERFUL self esteem right now . . . more than one said they expected seniors to be, um, bigger.

Calamari for Everyone!

2007-06-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

Our school site is near the beach, but not so close that the quad should smell like dead fish in the morning. I can only deduce, therefore, that the end-of-the-year pranks have begun.

Squid in the trees. I gotta be honest: it's not very inventive. Moreover, I still don't understand why the pranks have to be destructive. There are plenty of practical jokes that don't break or damage anything, they're funny, and most of all they're inventive. It seems that the same old proanks are being done year after year: let's spray paint things on the buildings; let's break things; let's streak the quad at break. All we'd have to do is keep them from walking graduation one year, and we'd be done with it. One group, one year--that's all it would take.

I'd even be willing to quietly float the idea that no one would get busted if it were non-damaging, legal, and creative.

School District, P.I.

2007-06-12T17:26:00.000-07:00

My school district hired a private investigator to check me out.

No shit.

It all has to do with the AP Testing last month (of course; because anything stupid and utterly ridiculous in my life at work is connected to those damn tests somehow). It's a long story, but the short version is this: I discovered too late that the district wouldn't pay the hire-in proctors, so on the advice of the school's business office I paid the proctors out of my own pocket and put in for reimbursement . . . which made it look to SOMEONE like I was dipping into the till. The investigator was very nice about the whole thing--he specializes in matters concerning schools--and he said that everything sounded reasonable. We'll see if this month's paycheck includes the reimbursement. Honestly, I expect the district to stiff me on this one. In the end, I followed the school's instructions and got screwed. It's a lot of money; not quite worth it to be able to tell the story, but it is one more reason I can tell people I've just about seen it all in this business.

How About "AP Blogging?" I Could Pass That.

2007-06-04T23:09:00.000-07:00

I spent four weeks in May losing my mind over the Advanced Placement (AP) tests. For the students, it's about inflated GPAs and college credit; for the parents, it's about prestige, family honor, and one-upping the family down the street; for me, it's about getting the paperwork right and giving as many tests as necessary using the fewest resources. In a word, AP tests embody education as a whole--do it well, do it better than the other guy, and do it cheap. (When I took the AP tests in high school--I took four of them--all we got was college credit. No GPA bump, no neighborhood comparisons, no expensive preparation classes. We took the classes, we took the tests, and we got what we got. One of the tests got me out of two semesters of history my first year of college.)

So here are some of the highlights (some of which include new AP test titles I've come up with; feel free to suggest your own):

AP Procrastination
I don't know how anyone else feels about deadlines for students, but here's a phrase I used quite a bit: if you can't manage to register for the test during the four month registration window, how do you expect to get a decent score on the test? These kids had from the end of October to the end of February to make three marks on a form and pay $83.00 for each test. Even if they had to spread it over payments, they still had four months to get it done. The last payment came in--no kidding--three days after the test. I can't wait for that kid to start paying taxes.

AP Tupperware
Each section of each individual AP test is sealed in shrink-wrap. When you open the test packet, the free response section is still sealed in its own shroud of shrink-wrap. (The REAL money in college testing, I think, is in the shrink-wrap business.) Of course, the little red strip of plastic you're supposed to pull to open the whole thing doesn't work, and students use their teeth, their fingernails, even their brute strength to get the thing open. If only they had something sharp . . . like . . . a pencil?

AP Apathy
(No, it's not a voting test.) Some students come prepared to take the test. Others come not so prepared, but they take the test seriously. Others still show up to the test and you wonder how they even found the room, much less why they signed up for the class in the first place. During one exam, I toured around the room making sure no one was cheating only to find that very few were taking the test at all. One of the questions provided statistics about an E. Coli outbreak and asked for a statistical analysis. One student wrote the words "I don't know" and then proceeded to draw the finest pencil sketch of a hamburger I'd ever seen in my life. Another student created a word search puzzle that filled the page, complete with a list of words to be found. Needless to say the Statistics teacher will be pissed when he sees the scores; the art teacher, on the other hand, would have been impressed. (By the way, did you know that the new-fangled graphing calculators that all these kids use nowadays have games built into them? I thought they were working really hard on the test.)

AP Cocktail Party
I'm not one to throw stereotypes around, but I will say this: many student athletes have no earthly business at an AP test administration. When the instructions say "don't talk until I have collected all the test materials from everyone," it means "shut up or I'll think you're cheating." Most of the kids who would talk, crack jokes, or actually get up like they were working the room were athletes at our school. I realize that they have a different sense of what appropriate social behavior is in an academic setting, but it's really a let-down to know that the guy working really hard to make this test happen (me) seems to be the only one who cares about it. I didn't do it, but it would have been nice to say--just once--"Congratulations, Shortstop, you just invalidated the tests of everyone in this room." It would have been nice, just to make the point, but the eggheads would have skinned him alive, and it wasn't time for the "AP Gross Anatomy" test yet.

AP Origami
Each AP test comes in two parts: the multiple choice section, and the free response section. After the multiple choice section is over, students are supposed to seal the book up using three Avery labels. They're left with a perfect 3x3-inch square of wax paper, which is perfect for folding paper airplanes, little boxes, "cootie-catchers," and paper cranes (both the static AND the pull-the-tail-and-the-wings-flap variety). I started a collection of them, and students tried to compete at one point. It got to be such a running gag that I jokingly put on the board "AP Origami test has been postponed to May 23rd." The only thing that disappointed me was that I didn't get a single frog. Not even during the AP Biology test. (NOTE: The AP Bio test does not involve dissection. I had visions of feline cadavers in shrink-wrap, but it doesn't work that way.)

My Personal AP Awards:

Best Origami: It would have to be the Samurai Hat, though two kids made little paper cups. (Since they used waxed paper, they actually drank from the cups, so I don't have either of them.)

Fun Fact: About 20% of our school's AP students snore. (The AP Program should take note: lots of kids finish these tests early.)

Worst Question: "May is the fifth month, right?" (I can't wait to see his score. It was a Calculus test, of all things.)

Dumbest Question: "Is there really an AP Origami test?" (I answered that there was; if you can fold 1,000 paper cranes in three hours you get "5." I think she believed me.)

Best Question AND Best Quote: (This was during the five question, multiple choice survey each student must fill out about how they prepared for and why they decided to take the test) "Mr. Q6, I don't know how to answer #3; it wants to know what motivated me to take this test and 'Asian Parents' isn't anywhere on the list."

"The Frog Is Stayin'!"*

2007-05-28T21:34:00.000-07:00

Though many at my school site had no idea, I've spent the last few months looking around for other venues of employment. I'd like to think that with eight years of administrative experience under my belt (six of them at a high-end, overactive high school) I'd be something of a commodity. (I can feel my head getting big.) It may actually be my downfall as well: with this many years, I may just be too expensive. I also heard that other districts have been having trouble hiring from the outside (not that the "inbreeding" route of promoting from within has been doing them any better).

Long story short, I've decided to stay here in my current district and assignment. I'll have to put up with an overburdened schedule, undisciplined children, and teachers and administrators with the Captain Kirk, "I-don't-care-if-it-violates-the-laws-of-time-and-space-just-do-it-and-do-it-now" attitude. I get to stay where parents really appreciate me, though, and my fiancee is here. So I'll stick around at least one more year.

* Not the best of the Muppet films, but one I enjoyed.

Recovering from #2 Pencil Lead Poisoning

2007-05-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a lengthy post about AP tests, now that they're over. They sucked up nearly four weeks of my life, and I have a few stories to tell. I hope to get it posted sometime before the long Memorial Day weekend ends.

In the meantime, don't just think about the Veterans of wars past--there are plenty of soldiers--some who aren't even overseas yet--that we'll be mourning before this whole thing is over. Me, I think Memorial Day would be the perfect time to decide to bring them all home. (Of course, why would the guy listen to me? I sure as hell didn't vote for him . . . )

Get Your Job Out of MY Office

2007-05-26T21:42:00.000-07:00

Our School Site Council has long been a rubber-stamp group, although its original purpose was to be the cornerstone of shared decision making on our campus. (Anyone who works at a public high school--especially one in a high-income area--knows that shared decision making is when the administration makes a decision and then shares it with everyone else.) Last week I got a personal education in just why we don't let the SSC make decisions.

I was asked to submit a revised, comprehensive attendance policy for our school. This one would use the full capabilities of the database system, it would address the rising attence problems (we've gone from 96% to 93%, God help us all), and it would reduce the bureaucratic paperwork. What it would also do is put some of the actual classroom management tasks back in the hands of the teachers where it belongs. Some teachers don't have attendance problems in their classes; other have crack systems for keeping track of absences and tardies, but very few actually take action when a student ditches class. Both preventative and reactive measures should exist in the classroom long before anyone gets sent to my office--and if the School Site Council is going to ask me for revisions to the process, I'm damn well gonna put that back in. Underlined.

So the SSC takes my recommendations and they...make some alterations. Long story short, they leave in all the administrative involvement and conveniently delete the teacher-action component. I refused to even attend the following meeting, and I told one member of the group (in private) how pissed I was that the SSC--made up primarily of teachers--saw fit to remove their burden and keep it all in my court. (In a strange twist of I-don't-see-that-very-often, the principal agreed with me wholeheartedly.)

We have students with terminal attendance problems that are still passing classes. The same teachers who pass these students maintain, in other settings, that we're not running a correspondence school. We are, however, and it makes me wonder why we even CARE about the attendance policies at our school. Attendance is a basic facet of classroom management. More and more of our classrooms should reflect that, and more and more of our teachers should get used to it.

Should We Just E-mail The Diplomas?

2007-05-13T22:17:00.000-07:00

One of the things that's sitting on my desk waiting for the AP Tests to end is the Attendance referrals: students who have been missing too much school.

"Too much" absence, I've found, is a subjective issue. The school has guidelines for attendance, with regard to tardies and both excused and unexcused absences; the District Attorney's office (which has waited a good ten years to finally get involved) believes that only unexcused absences count, and they won't deal with the 11th and 12th graders. I could go into why all of this makes sense, but the Internet isn't large enough for the explanation. Suffice to say that yes, I understand why the DA has this view, and I'm fine with that.

Here's what DOESN'T make sense: many of the students with excessive absences (excused and otherwise) are still getting perfectly decent--if not above average--grades. It would seem that the teachers themselves have their own set of criteria for attendance. In short, they have no problem having their classes treated as correspondence courses. I understand that the web is a handy tool for education, but I think there comes a point where an empty seat should mean something. I've been saying this for a while now, but few people seem to be listening. Are we trying to teach students that attendance and punctuality are important, or are we training an entire generation of future telecommuters? Has attendance stopped being a part of classroom management, or are grades now commensurate with bandwidth? It seems to me that if we really wanted to make attendance an issue, those who are too frequently absent would have report cards that suck. Otherwise, we should scrap the attendance policy altogether and install another T1 line.

Maybe we should webcast the graduation.

And I Have A Note From My Mother

2007-05-13T22:14:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been away for so long. It's AP Testing season, and this year's tests came on the heels of an 800 student SAT Test (which I'm also in charge of). The APs are a daunting task, one of many things I inherited not because of my job description, but simply because I seem to know what I'm doing. I'll have several blog posts about the APs (some of which I've already got planned, some that will undoubtedly come up in the next two weeks), and I'll try to get those up in short order.

"Just Fly The Plane"*

2007-04-22T12:56:00.000-07:00

You've got to admire gardeners, doctors, and anyone else whose jobs involve some type of waiting. Greenskeepers get everything just so, then they wait for growth. Doctors do their thing, then wait for the healing to happen. I suppose that chefs need to let things bake, that NASCAR crew chiefs need to wait for laps to pass before the next pit stop, and that parents sometimes just have to let events occur without conrolling it all. Waiting is a part of it--a very healthy part of it all.

When I look at the school's calendar, I see a series of events that have yet to occur. I look at the big picture and see a large Rube Goldberg machine that needs to be left to do it's thing. It's not for me to micro-manage, it's not for me to get in the way of. My teachers know what they're doing; the students know what is expected of them; the events are planned and waiting to be executed. At some point, I'm comfortable sitting back and watching the whole thing happen. I step in only when necessary, and as it unfolds I'm in the background, like a movie director--never on camera, but watching it unfold and stepping in to tweak it as necessary.

When the school principal sees the school calendar, she sees a big toy to play with. She throws it around, moves it this way and that, and tries to change it for maximum efficiency. It's like a prototype car that never gets into production because it's too busy being played with, changed, and modified. It's a game of Tetris, where all the little spaces need to be filled. It's never done, and keeps having to stop so that someone can do something else to it. It never gets its momentum. It never gets a chance to perform.

As we get closer to the end of the school year, this is still happening. With the STAR tests looming (followed by two weeks of AP tests), there are still things being added to the calendar. There's an assembly on dating abuse; there's another college night; now there's a barbecue to celebrate a CDS honor nobody really cared about to begin with. There's always something being added to the calendar as an "event." What seems to be missing is the realization that on a day when there are no "events," classes are being taught. With all the special events--some taking away from class time teachers and students desperately need as we come closer and closer to final exams--it's a wonder that our test scores, API, and college entrance rates are as good as they are.

I have a favorite saying these days when people ask me what's been going on at work. I list off a few of the "events," and I end it with " . . . and occasionally, when there's time, we teach some classes."

*Another movie reference. If you didn't make the mistake of seeing Executive Decision, this line is uttered twice to Kurt Russell as he frantically tries to figure out what he has forgotten to do in the cockpit, only to reminded that there is nothing left to do.