90s20 Settling In

Iowa City is a big little town. It has many amenities of bigger cities like theater and athletic events and lots to do. Becky enjoyed exploring the community and finding our way around. It didn’t take long!

Becky continued her sewing business and used one of our bedrooms in our apartment as her sewing room. Word spread fast and soon she was in big demand. Even the superintendent had her do a job for her. Eventually, Becky’s business grew and she had eight stores in Iowa City for which she did alterations. That was a few years later, however.

We joined the First Presbyterian Church on Rochester. Almost immediately Becky started doing banner work for the church and I did the children’s sermon on a regular basis. It was a good way to get to know people and feel like we were part of the community.

School was time consuming for me especially that first year while I was learning the ropes of Iowa City Community School District. It was sometimes hard to sort out what I should be doing. Being a building principal here was much more focused because I didn’t have a lot of other district responsibilities. That was a relief! Still I was busy two or three nights every week.

My journaling began to taper off simply because I was often too busy or too worn out to do it. The time between entries seemed to grow each time.

By mid-winter I was into the middle of a conflict that involved one of my staff members and two former principals in the building. The two former principals disagreed on the effectiveness of the staff member. One pressed me to get rid of the person and the other one defended the person at all costs. I was in the middle.

Both administers were in the central office. They were relentless! Sometimes they called me daily demanding I do one thing or another. Finally, I was desperate and went to the superintendent and explained my dilemma. She must have done something because they stayed out of my hair from then on. Nothing worse than being in your first year in a new place and having to keep two people with vastly different viewpoints happy.

The first two years in the district new employees, including administrators, undergo a fairly intense and comprehensive evaluation. It includes surveys of parents, staff and colleagues. The surveys for parents were sent out to a random group of about 100 parents. They filled out and sent them to the superintendent’s administrative assistant. She tabulated them and shared them with the superintendent. All the teachers and staff in the building did one, too.

I wrote in February that the superintendent shared the evaluations with me and I was “thrilled with the positive results.” I also did a self-evaluation and the superintendent did one about me. It all turned out very positive and I was elated with the results.

In the spring of my first year in Iowa City I taught an evaluator training class to almost all of the administrators in the district including the superintendent. It went well and I got to know many of my colleagues.