Tuesday, 7:20am

District Admin meeting last night.  First item on the docket – Budget Cuts.  I am taking this news particularly hard.  We are looking at a $600 dollar per child reduction in state aid next year; not especially good news, as we are already well below average in funding already.  Became more depressed as the meeting wore on, discussing probable areas that would be cut. 

                Nonetheless, we must always remember that no amount of money or “things” can replace an excellent teacher.  Much research has shown that the teacher has more direct impact on a child’s education than any other school-related factor.  We must not let things we cannot control keeps the cogs of education from churning. 

          "That is the difference between good teachers and great teachers: good teachers make the best of a pupil's means; great teachers foresee a pupil's ends." ~~ Maria Callas

 

Monday, 12:50pm

12:50pm

Late for articulation meetings this afternoon.  I am supposed to sit in for 5^th graders going to 6^th.  Lunchtime exploded.  Again.  Jorge was running around trying to kiss girls, a teacher needed information on FMLA (and she needed it right then), someone wanted to talk to me about their evaluation, and I had to go and extract a 1^st graders from recess.  He refused to leave and was running from the supervisor.  I never would have run after him.  By the time I got out there, he was sitting on a pile of snow with his coat off, shirt hanging off his shoulder, nose running all over the place.  I picked his coat off the ground, helped him put it on, wiped his nose with the extra tissue I always keep in my pocket, and put my arm around him.  The supervisor, I’m sure, was angered that I was showing him affection, but I did not need to run after him.  And he came inside for me.  Lesson learned.  Oh, and then I called the truancy officer to come and take him home for the afternoon.  I thought my brief check-in with him this morning would be enough.  Not every day, I guess.

9:00am Monday

9:00A.M.  Debating to have one more cup of coffee or not.  Deciding against it in favor of making the rounds and checking in with some kids.  I started this a while back – “check-in/check-out” – with a few of my students.  They are mostly boys, for some reason.  One of them get dropped off every morning by our district’s truancy officer.  His parents don’t have a working car.  He is in first grade.  I find that if I don’t check in with him every morning, his day quickly goes from bad to worse.  For future reference in these writings, I will call him Allen. 

I am also listening to a conversation in the outer office about our paper supply (It’s the end of February and we’re out of white paper).  People are wondering why we’re out of paper and if there is more coming.  One of the office secretaries tells her the local Wal-mart has it on sale. 

Monday

Okay, so emailing to my blog works.  That is pretty cool.  I am here, sitting at the Round Table in my Office.  My tie is not yet done up, but the coffee is made.  I have butterflies in my stomach because I am looking over my calendar for the day, my list of things-to-do that I created yesterday, and realized I forgot to prioritize them.  Doug Reeves would not be happy with me.  As he points out, I need to break my tasks down into prioritized lists…  Until I do this, my butterflies will continue to flutter. 

 

I hope to post throughout the day.  Must go tie the tie.  It is always the last thing I do in the morning…

Later That Day

Okay, so later that morning, after the phone call with the parent (turned out it wasn't so bad after all), I ended up racing down the hallway to cover a duty. It was 8:00 and the teacher who was supposed to be on duty called to say she was stuck in traffic and wouldn't be in until the first bell rang. I was going to have to cover the duty. Which wouldn't have been so bad, except for the fact that on my way there one of my 6 first grade teachers stopped me to say that her ceiling was leaking and that it felt like it was about 100 degrees in there. I said, "Of course it's leaking. It wouldn't be leaking if it was 20 degrees." She gave me a blank stare and I realized I was thinking out loud, all the while still moving away from her, needing to get to my post. I pulled my radio off my hip and she nodded, knowing that I would call the custodian. Not that this would take care of anything.

I think people are used to seeing me running down the hallway, always off to the next thing. That still doesn't stop them from stopping me to ask if I have a minute. I never understood this, yet I do. I mean, who else are they going to tell? I've always wanted to ask if it looks like I have minute, but I realize there is just no way this can come out sounding even remotely professional. All I ask, however, is that they write it down in addition to telling me. I will never be able to remember the hundreds of things I need to remember unless I have it in writing. When I first started asking people to do this, they looked at me questioningly, no doubt wondering if I was capable of this job. I have since moved beyond their befuddled looks, knowing that if it is to get done, I must have a written reminder. More later, friends. Wait till you hear what happened next...

Above is a picture of the hallway down which I went running, and continue to traverse nine million times daily. I don't really run, though. Someone once told me that if the leader runs, someone will think there is a fire somewhere, thus causing them and everyone else to run as well. I haven't tested this theory out, but it could be true.

Tequila and the Mitten

And then the next day I noticed a mitten. It was hanging above the same classroom lockers. Behind it, hidden up on a shelf in the teacher's room, was a box. What was that word? Tequila?

Oh boy. I guess I'll be spending more time in the classroom than out of it...

The Shoe

Second grade shoe clipped above a locker.

A New Direction

It is Sunday. I have brought home a stack of work and arranged it on the dining room table in neat, orderly piles. It has not been touched, though I know I need to get through it. At least some of it. But there is a thought playing out over and over in my head and I sit down to read, or write this damn blog, and my mind keeps reverting back to that nagging thought. So I do some research, get up to pour more coffee, stop to let the dog out the back door, and sit back down again until I hear the scritch-scratch at the glass. He's letting me know he wants to come back in, though he's only been out long enough to stretch his long, muscular legs.

And so I come back to my resting point at the table, my son keeps asking me to come and watch his progress on our Wii - he is addicted to Super Mario Bros. I can't help but feel guilty about letting him sit in front of the video game for the next hour (or two) while I try and pound out some words. I try and rationalize it all away by convincing myself that he's doing what he wants to do, and I'm doing what I want to do, so it all must come out in the wash... right?

So here is a typical day for me last week. Enjoy, because my plan is to blog my daily experiences as an elementary school principal. Thus the title of this post: A New Direction. Because I need one.

6:00am
The alarm goes off and I really don't want to get up but Louie (my 125 lb. English Mastiff... he's not done growing. He's only 11 months old) has made his way up on my bed and the warm breath in my ear that I thought was my wife's is really his. I get up and tackle my morning ritual.

6:20am
Downstairs, the kids are having cereal and arguing over who will get the last yogurt in their lunch today. I solve this problem (I am a principal, after all) by putting it into my own lunch sack. After kissing everyone goodbye and wishing them all a wonderful day (for my 13 year old, this means hoping she has a day without tears over the next friend-break-up-or-boy-dilemna-or-the-teacher-is-ignoring-me" issue.

6:40am
I am just about to work and realize that I have forgotten my lunch on the island in the kitchen. Again.
Thus prompting a renewed fight over the yogurt...

7:00am
Unlocking the office door, I am the first one here (besides the custodian) and am able to find a few golden moments of silence in which to make the coffee and maybe even take one precious sip before the chaos begins... It is orderly chaos. Really, it is. I'm not kidding. I really do know what I am doing... Really.

7:05am
The phone rings on my cluttered desk. I take a peek at the caller i.d. display. It's the parent I forgot to call back in my haste to get to the board meeting the night before; the one that didn't go into closed session until 9:15pm, thus finding me rolling into the driveway at almost 10:00.
So here we go.
I answer the phone.

To be continued...

Don't worry, it really will be continued. I'm only at 7:05am, after all. But I need more coffee. And Louie needs to go out again.

November 27

The day after Thanksgiving and so far I have done a mile on the treadmill, walked another mile with Louie (our English Mastiff... we really don't walk with him; usually, its behind him) outside, read parts of two books, fiddled around on the computer, and played Wii with Ty for about 45 minutes. Not much of anything, really, but sometimes that feels good, and it’s okay. Too often, I tend to get bamboozled into thinking that I have to be accomplishing something 100% of the time (I'm sure you do too... tell the truth now). I’m afraid that’s what happens to too many parents - mine included -and what they’re left with are feelings of regret for not having done the stuff in life that truly matters when you look back on it.

So excuse me for awhile. I think I'm going to go channel surf. I'll be back later, and hopefully will have found some inspiration, some mind-shattering piece of wisdom that will transform our lives - both yours and mine. I hear the couch calling...

Thanks For Giving

While I can't believe the length of time that has passed between this post and the last, here it is nonetheless, and it has nothing to do with Thanksgiving (although I am extremely thankful for many things, at the top of my list being family, health, and employment in a career that I am passionate about). And so, to get to the point, I want to take a minute to say thanks for giving me the ammunition necessary to keep going in the direction I have been headed for the last 13 years. That was the time I got into the education field, and although I didn't realize it then, my reasons for staying in this field would change over time. I came to education because of two beautiful little girls and their mother who, through their concerted efforts and brainwashing capabilities, made me realize how much I had to give back to kids. I certainly never could have come to this conclusion on my own, nor did anyone seem to think I could give back to my community up to this point. The reasons I have stayed move beyond this simple and exceptionally pure rationale, and progress into the deeper psyche of my inner self. Deep, huh?

So let me say thank you, once again, to those who have given me the ammunition to carry forward. It is because of you, in your elementary, middle and high schools, with your rules for how kids should behave and talk and look and act and sit and walk and eat and smell and breathe, that I can walk as loudly as I like into classrooms and cafeterias and down hallways, that I can talk to kids of all creed and color and let them know that they belong, and have a place in this world, and a purpose for being here. I have learned life's rules by studying the people that I would never want to emulate. I have learned to be the teacher I am today by making sure I don't do things the way my teachers did them. I have learned to be the principal I am today by vowing never to scream at the kids who weren't walking on the correct side of the hallway, the way one principal from my past did to me and a group of kids at our elementary school. We were nine.

Thanks for giving, and for teaching me how to be the leader and mentor I am today. I still have a lot to learn, and I am still looking for a mentor myself, because I realize how cynical this all sounds. I really do understand that the way I look at things is, perhaps, not the healthiest way to look at things, but it is what I know how to do. Thank you for giving me the greatest gift I possess - that which I can give back tenfold to those who deserve it the most.

Forward Thinking

Sunday, April 26. It has been raining non-stop since the middle of the night, my son's first baseball game of the year has been cancelled, I am pondering the bad play of the Cubs over their last four games, and also contemplating how to balance the duties of my life. I know I must finish my homework, for example, before class Tuesday night; I also have work to complete for the four committees and task forces I am on in the district; there are several home improvement projects we have started that need finishing (why do I start plumbing jobs that I know will end with pieces everywhere and a phone call to the plumber to come and bail me out?); and then there are the hobbies and things I like to do for enjoyment... okay, never mind all of that stuff. There will not be time until, perhaps, the end of June.

There is a book, for instance, that one of my teachers recommended - Three Cups of Tea. I started this book and can hardly put it down. If you have it, please finish it for me and tell me about it, because if I don't get to my studies and concentrate on work, I will fail my classes and lose my job. And then I won't get to hear the stories of the students I love so dearly, which was really to be the central purpose of this posting. Ramblings, however, are perfectly acceptable on blog sites. In fact, we were made for rambling, we humans. And this is the perfect space for that. So read on, if you will, and I will continue rambling, only on a more defined level.

At our monthly Spirit Day Assembly on Friday, which featured 1st Grade and was, perhaps, the cutest and most entertaining performance we have had thus far this year (although the 5th Grade Variety Show is coming up yet, and this always promises to offer wonderful fresh talent), a teacher pulled me aside to tell me of the disappointment of one of her 3rd grade students. As it turns out, he was upset because we have 1/2 days on Spirit Days, which are also School Improvement days for staff. He didn't know what he was going to do with the rest of his day (which happened to be close to 85 degrees), and told me he would rather be in school.

Gotta love this kid. He would rather be in school. He would rather be in the place that offers him the only consistency he receives during the day. Only he makes me sorrowful to think that the end of the year is coming up. Which makes me think of all of the students who, for close to 3 months, will be at home with not much to do, minimal adult supervision, and with little interest in reading a book for pleasure. He makes me think forward to August and kids are complaining that they have to be back at school when it is still nice outside. Only I know what they are really thinking. They are thinking how nice it is to be back, thankful for some consistency.