Entry #7: "Situations were demanding that
I be
the manager, not the leader. I don't like that."
The last two days, my vice principal attended the annual law conference
held for administrators in our region, and I have been responsible for the
discipline that had to be taken care of -- the major stuff that couldn't
wait until Monday.
During this time, I suspended five kids. We've had one drug case all year,
but on Thursday morning, we realized that a student had been bringing some
kind of pill to school all week and giving it to some other students on
the bus because he wanted them to like him. After three hours of deliberation,
and the students lying to the Student Assistance Officer and me, we finally
got to the point where we knew that board policy required us to suspend
them.
A drug situation is a lengthy process because the parents have to come in
immediately to pick up their child, and each parent conference takes 30
to 45 minutes. If there are several involved, plan on staying awhile! We
have very few cases a year; but the cases we do have still bother me when
I think about the students. Don't get me wrong; I'm not a Pollyanna, but
I do wonder why a middle schooler has to resort to passing out pills to
feel like he belongs. Has he seen an older sibling do this? What about another
significant person in their lives? Did we miss this one? Does he not have
his niche at BCMS?
We also have a zero tolerance for "threatening statements," thanks
to Columbine. If a student says, "I'm going to kill you,"
out of anger, but probably not meaning pre-meditated murder, it is an automatic
five-day suspension and a hearing at the board office. Sometimes, I feel
stupid dealing with these cases, but the parents are always understanding,
due to our nation's recent history with school killings.
Anyway, I dealt with one of those cases. The final suspension case involved
a girl "holding" a Swiss Army knife for another student so he
wouldn't get in trouble. She received an automatic three-day suspension
for that. Again, districtwide policy, and again, I hate it when students
put their record on the line to cover for someone else's. With all this
zero tolerance stuff, it is refreshing to note that our suspension rate
is still very low. Maybe it's because I don't do the discipline anymore!
Thursday, around noon, I jokingly said to our counselor, "This brings
back old memories!" (I was vice principal at BCMS for two years prior
to becoming principal). By 3:00, I said, "Now I know why Barry stays
in a bad mood all the time!" By the end of Friday, I was in the worst
mood. I yelled at the copier representative twice because the copier feeder
wasn't working, and I began to realize that I needed to stay in my office,
away from our staff, for a while. Otherwise, I might say something I didn't
need to say.
Suddenly, I knew why I was in a bad mood. Situations were demanding that
I be the manager, not the leader. I don't like that. I don't like to worry
about the details anymore. I like to watch the vision and police the dream
while others around me take care of the details. Our school improvement
momentum demands that I spend time on instructional leadership, not copiers
and purchase orders.
The former principal of our school, who is my mentor and under whom I worked
for two years, says, "If you let the management of it all get in the
way of creating the vision and making things happen, you'll never get anywhere."
This week's work helped me realize that if I was in a district where they
gave principals little support through support staff, I would continually
have to manage the discipline and worry about the coffee.
On the other hand, if I hadn't been taught how to delegate by that same
principal, it wouldn't matter how much support I had -- I would still think
it was my duty to do the management sort of things. Many principals get
tripped up here, and it is hard to get past the day-to-day operations of
the school.
On Monday morning, Barry will be back and the copier will be fixed. Thank
goodness! Then I can continue my thoughts about our needs assessment for
next year and our long-range planning process. On the other hand, I'll also
be thinking about those five suspended students, wondering if they are watching
television or doing chores because their parents are making them, wondering
why they could make such stupid decisions, and wondering how we can help
them at BCMS.
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