Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Our High School is Messed Up

Recently our school board decided to follow the "Two Principal" model, so hired two men to be co-principals at our school. I have to say that this is the dumbest idea I've heard in a long time. Evidently other school districts throughout the U.S. have had success with this method, but I see a lot of flaws.

First of all, I have worked in church positions where I was the "president" of an auxillary. I had two "counselors" who acted much like vice-presidents to counsel with me and help share the responsibility load. This is a tested method that the church has worked with for over a hundred years and found to be effective. Our own government has a President and Vice-president model. Here is the flaw that I see in the "two principal" model. What duties are the vice principals assuming? If there are two principals, what do the vice principals do? According to acquaintances of mine that work at the high school, the two principals lock themselves away together in the same office for many hours, and do all of the planning and organizing there by themselves. The teachers aren't even asked their opinion, and the vice principals aren't included in that decision making.

The next problem with our school is that the Principals decided to take the vice principals out of the midst of the school activities and tuck them away in the head office. Now, instead of having vice principals within easy access, the teachers have no support with behavioral problems. If a student in the crowd is found to be acting against the rules, the teacher who sees them may call security, but will have to wait for them to come. In the mean time, the student can simply rush away in the crowd. The same goes for the classroom situation. There is no one really close by to help with discipline problems, so in the event of a "situation", the teacher must wait for security to come from their office, which is also conveniently tucked out of the way. In the past, the vice principals were roaming the school grounds and were always available on a moment's notice. This poses a dangerous risk for teachers.

The next gripe I have is the decision by the co-principals to have students begin using lanyard I.D. tags. This might sound like a good idea on the surface, but in practice, it's useless. My oldest son went his entire senior year with a picture of a World of Warcraft character taped over the top of his own on his I.D. No teachers ever even noticed. My second son often borrows other student's I.D.s, or lends his if a friend has forgotten their's. The co-principals insist that each morning the teachers check to see if their students are wearing one. If they aren't, they send them to the security office to get a new one, for which the students are then charged $5. Meanwhile, class continues, and the student misses out on the lesson for the day. Repeat this day after day, and you will see why our school test scores are so low.

We just had an election to vote in new school board members. The residents of this city voted for the same old people, who always make the same stupid decisions, so we are stuck with these dumb school changes. One of the principals is black, so that seals our fate also. If they fire him, they will be charged with discrimination. Neither principal is worth his salary in my opinion. It's times like this that I seriously consider home schooling.

4 comments:

Nene said...

Co-principals? That is really scary! One principal who is a little "power-mad" can be brought back to earth by good vice-principals, but if both principals are locking themselves away in the office and planning everything, then they ARE power-mad!

Dee Ice Hole said...

AND---who did you vote for?????

Delirious said...

I voted for the people who DIDN"T get in. They also are LDS...just a bonus.

Looney said...

I just checked out the Antioch High School position in the California rankings: 43 out of 100. Scary.

Just one more month and you will be home schooling whether you like it or not!