90s45 Facing New Challenges

As a teacher and as an administrator I have always tried to maintain a calm controlled environment in the places I have worked. I have tried to never be angry with students but only angry about inappropriate behavior. I have tried to deal with disagreement about or among students, staff and the school community in general in a dignified respectful way. I always felt that a lot of eyes were watching me and it was my duty to face challenges in the most mature way possible. If I as an educational leader couldn’t do it, who could?

Early on this fall we faced challenges of all kinds! We opened the year unable to use 3 classrooms until the middle of September. We had three and a half sections at third/fourth grade and that was unpopular with parents especially when the half time teacher went full time in another building and we had to hire another person. Several parents went to school board about it and the use of half time teachers were referred to for a long time after as the “Longfellow problem.” Half sections eventually became common in the district. It didn’t hurt that the new half-time person I hired turned out to be incredibly popular.

One afternoon we had a group of Japanese visitors in our school. We have had several here before from many different countries and it is always a rewarding experience. On more than one occasion I have asked the foreign visitors why they are visiting our schools since theirs are supposed to be so good. Without exception, they have all said they would like to have their schools be more like ours. A strange comment since so often we hear how our schools should be more like theirs.

A parent went to the superintendent to complain about me. I expected it but was still somewhat surprised by this behavior. This person is a tough one to figure and so very unpredictable. This person has alienated most of the school community and I have received an number of complaints. Many other parents and teachers are afraid of this person. I hope to talk with the superintendent about this person sometime next week.

Another parent threatened us today by saying she would file child endangerment charges against us for not supervising her kindergartner during indoor recess. The truth is the child was supervised. This parent second-guesses us on everything and it is getting very tiresome. I don’t know why she continues to enroll her kids here if she is so unhappy with us? This is going to make an old man out of me!

At this point I began to wonder what would happen next. All the distractions from parents kept the school on edge and you could feel the tension in the building. For one reason or another some people get some sort of satisfaction out of the turmoil they create. Unfortunately it disrupts the learning environment for a lot of kids. The behavior is unforgivable in a lot of respects and makes me angry when I think about it. There must surely be a special place in hell for people like this.