Lessons of ineffective administrators #1

(concept stolen from The Math Crumudgeon, who is more than welcome to come steal my administratos in retaliation)

Hey, Les!

You tell us in meetings that we are to get the kids out of the hall, into class on time and in their seats eager to learn.

So I wrote Little Johnny up for excessive tardies (after I called his parents), disrupting other classes of mine by walking in (when he was supposed to be elsewhere, which I also verified), and having his cell phone out all the time. I mentioned that Little Johnny was disrupting other students' learning. I did five (count them. Five) write ups.

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for finally calling him into your office to talk to him. Yes, sending an 18 year old to ISS to contemplate the error of his ways would damage his psyche, so I understand the need to talk with him.

I want you to know how much I appreciated his coming into another of my classes to apologize to me. With a smirk. Yes, I can tell that problems has gone away.

How to sabotage your teachers

This is advice to Highly Ineffective Principals, to make sure they don't miss any tricks.

* Make sure to give teachers as many preps as possible. Rather than give 3 teachers each 2 preps, if you juggle it correctly, you can give them each 3 or 4. This keeps them too busy trying to do an adequate job to question you about yours.

* If they question this, tell them they cannot count. A yearlong class and a block class of the same subject, you say, should not count as 2 preps as you cover the same material eventually.

* Make sure your APs belittle the teachers when a student has a behavior write up. Tearing up the write up in front of the student and saying you hate to hear from the teacher will keep that teacher busier with classroom management and take the focus off of you. For example, a student is written up for classroom disruption. Make sure the AP disrupts another class to talk to the student, then marks the write up as Time Out rather than any sort of punishment.

* Deflect any discussion about the effectiveness of the APs as bias on the part of the complainer.

* Schedule off campus meetings on the day before district walk throughs. Make sure you add additional requirements for waht you expect to see in the room the day before the off campus meeting.

* Make sure any complement you give has an underlying bite.

* Try not to give complements at all. Telling someone they are a disappointment and the worst teacher in the department and need to rethink their career choice is a great motivator.

* Bypass any structure in the school when dispensing information. In other words, don't tell the department chair what he needs to know when you can tell some other flunky and have them disperse the news.

* Try to abuse someone so thoroughly that they take extended sick time at a most inconvenient time - and make it someone else's problem to raise that teacher's students' grades to passing.

* make sure you hold up as a paragon of teaching someone who has a bizarre grading plan - and fails 1/2 of his classes (and 75% of his special ed students). Do not listen when other teachers try to tell you this is not the route they want to take.

* Tell some other teacher that SHE is the worst in the school. Again - a great motivator.

Which Principal is yours?

Which one is yours?

I think Mr. Hulk is #3.

Limbo

Curmudgeon has done a whole series on Highly Ineffective Management. We have our own examples.

Mr. Hulk fired the football coach last week. No one knows whether he will be allowed to teach after this school year at our school (well, maybe he knows). But nothing has been said to the other football coaches (do you KNOW how many there are?) or the other teachers. Instead it festers.

Does Mr. Hulk think it will go away? In this day of blogs, it hit the community blog the day after it happened.