I was an elementary school principal for eighteen years. I have shared some of my experiences as a student and even a few incidents from my teaching career. Yet I have written virtually nothing about my years in the office.
Do not infer that I had no noteworthy experiences. Do not conclude that I did not enjoy my work. Do not expect that this article is a precursor to my memoirs as an administrator.
One of the teachers on my staff was a brilliant young woman, an excellent teacher and quite outspoken. Janet, some might say, had a strong personality. Dismissal time was 3:05. To ensure safe and orderly egress from the building and safe boarding of the waiting buses by some four hundred, five hundred children, I deemed it essential to establish some simple procedures.
My solution required each teacher to escort his or her charges from the classroom to the bus lot. Two teachers on a rotating assignment basis were to remain on the bus lot until the vehicles moved out. The size of the staff was such that this meant each teacher would have two nonconsecutive weeks on bus duty during the course of the year.
I typically held faculty meetings on Monday afternoon immediately after school, said meeting, not to last more that twenty minutes. Or so I planned. And this was not every Monday, but once a month, or as deemed necessary. Toward the end of such a meeting, I would note the twinkle in Janet’s eye, and I knew exactly what was coming, and she knew I knew. I knew I would not do anything about her grievance, and she knew that I would not do anything about it. A game, you see.
But Janet was serious about the issue, and she had some support amongst her peers, perhaps even widespread support, who knows? They let her take the lead. Janet was quite content to be penned up with a classroom full of children for most of her working day. Nay, she was excited that she had such an opportunity. But for some reason, weather perhaps, contrariness maybe, Janet resented having to spend ten minutes a day, ten days a year on the bus lot after school. Thus, the issue was to place in my lap the problem of solving the dismissal supervision problem. A problem which I had already solved, and hence to my way of thinking, did not exist.
And sometimes this caused the faculty meeting to go past the twenty minutes I had allotted.
Janet was engaged in what I call riding a hobby horse. You know you are not going anywhere, but you just have to rock it anyway.
Janet was engaged in what I call riding a hobby horse. You know you are not going anywhere, but you just have to rock it anyway.
After several years with us, Janet moved on to other pastures, her choice because she was an excellent teacher. I lost contact with her, but through the grapevines that entangle the educational world, I was able to “follow” her career. She later became a principal and a school superintendent.
I have often wondered how Janet solved the problem of “bus duty” in the venues where she served as an administrator.
