During my time in education I have been directly involve in a lot of troubling things. But nothing quite as horrifying as what happened at Columbine High School in the spring of 1999. Every educator was shocked by this event and things have never been quite the same since. I am very sad to say that we are probably just as vulnerable to this kind of thing as we were then.
Monday, April 26, 1999 – Last week there was a terrible tragedy in Littleton, Colorado. Some students entered the building with guns and bombs and killed several people and wounded several others. It sent a shock through the nation and especially the schools. There have been some copycat incidents but nothing nearly as serious. I am hopeful that something will be done to protect the children from this happening but educators have pleaded for help for years and nothing has happened so we will just have to wait and see.
I have an ICN meeting after school today to talk about an evaluation for one of our students at a state institute. I don’t know what they will be able to tell us? This has been a very stressful situation for some time and we can’t really trust the parent. This is the person who didn’t like the associate that works with the child. I have spent many long hours with this person and am convinced that he will never be happy with us.
Wednesday, May 5, 1999 – I participated in the Penn Elementary Principal interviews yesterday. It was very interesting. A teacher from Longfellow was one of the candidates. She did a very good job! The job is being offered to another person. She teaches at Penn and has been assistant principal there. She will do a good job. I think the Longfellow teacher would have been good, too, but she needs some more experience. While I was there a student here used a stick as a weapon so I had to come back and deal with that. I suspended him for three days—two in school and an out-of-school day.
We had our last administrative council meeting of the year this morning. It included a luncheon for Barb and Tim. It was a nice event. This afternoon is the Silver Salute to recognize retirees and staff that have 25 years in the district.
I have a few teacher evaluation things to finish up and I’m done with that for the year. I haven’t met with Tim about my evaluation yet, but I think it will go well.
We had a meeting last night with the elementary principals about salary negotiations for next year. We are not very satisfied with our settlements in the last few years. There is not much money available this year so I don’t think it will be much better. Several of the principals are seriously considering returning to the classroom because the pay per-diem is not that much different and the stress is much less.
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