Good Morning to You, Too

[Screw anonymity for the local readers among us, I'm angry and anxious and I cannot stand it anymore.]

Calder called me to his computer this morning.  Did I know that our principal had announced her move to a magnet school in Urban District?  Did I see that Urban District issued the press release last night at 9:30pm?  Didn't I think that was fantastic timing, two hours after the Meet-the-Teacher Event?

What a lovely little bit of news for our daughters' two new teachers, shoved into substandard classrooms with no supplies and no idea how the school works: hey, the woman who hired you three days ago has just left herself!

I'm not going to shed any tears over a woman so unprofessional, she didn't even notify her own superintendent about her decision until this morning.  Web readers of the local paper knew before the district office did.

It's not enough to be marginally incompetent, apparently.  A lack of professional courtesy should also be part of the package deal.

I am not at all reassured, however, that our baby-faced frat-boy assistant principal is on the job.  Don't feed me that line of crap when I express my concern for transitions, and don't tell me "this is a surprise, and we have other items to handle on our agenda" as an excuse for there being no announcement on the district website about the sudden departure.

Especially don't feed me this baloney when, not two weeks ago, you made such a big deal out of the eight-week transition the principal across town is managing, before she leaves to begin organizing the new school scheduled to open next year.

Seriously.  Could this year have a more stressful opening?  All we need is a fire or a flood and the moment will be complete.

Comments

[Naomi]

Oh, holy crap.

Yeah, a fire/flood/hurricane/plague of locusts would just about be the icing on the cake, at this point...

[Phantom Scribbler]

Oh, god, Jody! I am so sorry.

[Madeleine]

Well, that just takes the cake. Anti-anxiety meds in the town water supply may be in order.

On a bright note, the new school you'll be going to next year will have plenty of advance planning.

[Elizabeth]

Fireplacing f-wits.

That stinks.

But the kids will probably be fine. You know that, right?

[Suz]

OH MY! That's just not right. It's SO unprofessional.

[Leggy]

What a mess! I'm sorry you and the kids are going through this.

[maggie]

Damn - that is not nice. I'm sorry and I hope the green teachers rise to the occasion.

[Lilian]

No words. This is just unbelievable!!

[K]

How crazy!

I hope it gets better, soon. I would imagine that a school with no real management would be a very difficult place, in all aspects.

[MicheleS]

I just read your last two posts and I have to say that I don't think you are overreacting even REMOTELY. I would be absolutely LIVID if I were in the same situation. Seriously. I would be insanely distraught. That is so unacceptable that I can't even believe you are in AMERICA!!!!! I don't even want to think about OUR school district. I sure hope things improve immediately. Like right NOW! Get on them Jody. I would be a tick on frat boy's ass if I were you. T

[Susan]

What a mess! I am so sorry.

[liz]

I would be furious. Holy guacamole.

Go and kick ye some principal ass!

[ccw]

That's downright crazy!

It's inexcusable for the principal to have left at the start of school and even worse that the parents found out via the newspaper.

I hope your children love their teachers and have a great beginning.

[Andrea]

Had a similar situation here last year. The good news is, the kids and the classroom experience will be mostly fine. The parents will go nuts, though, and everyone suffers.

[Genevieve]

Totally unprofessional.

[bj]

It's a mess, but I think increasingly common. One of the reasons that we went to a private school was to get more "customer service." But, the director of admissions left last year a few weeks before the admissions process (fortunately the school is heavily in demand and they had others who could step in temporarily without short term consequences, so this did not result in poor recruitment for the next years class). At the end of the school year, the head of the middle school left suddenly, after the time when recruitment for a replacement could be found. Finally, a job-share arrangement evaporated, resulting in a new teacher being announced a few weeks before school started. None of these things affected our own child directly (and clearly we have more stability than your district, and much more districts that are in trouble).

But, I think there's a more global problem with staffing in schools and how it is arranged. Part of the problem is management of work/family balance issues. It's common for 25+% of the workforce to be out on maternity leave (if you employ men and women of child-bearing age and offer them leave). Part of it seems to be a break down of trust between (people used to do their best to arrange transitions). Part of it is the desperation of some doing the hiring (so they're not worrying about whether they'll be left in the lurch the way they're encouraging for some other school). Part of it is that we simply don't pay teachers enough for them to stick through it.

I wish I was hearing solutions to these problems -- if it's an issue at an expensive and elite private school, my guess is that it's really a problem with school staffing that transcends local management issues.

bj

[bj]

Oh, and our replacement teacher (replaced because the teacher decided over the summer to stay home with her children) was hired from another school in the area, which must then be scrambling to replace its teachers. Does anyone else know why this kind of thing is increasingly more common?

Here we're talking about the principal's departure being unprofessional, but that's not true anymore if it becomes common. If it's common, then it's a cost of doing business (kind of like CEO's, who will leave happily if it's in their interest.

bj

[Elizabeth]

How are things going after a week, Jody?