It resulted in
the county and us paying about $1,000 each. So we adhered
to that legal decision. In fact, I'm not sure it ever went
to the courts, actually; I think it was just mediated
between the county and us. So I don't really think of --
oh, asbestos. We had a problem with the asbestos
regulations. Any time that regulations that come down
through the federal government, it's pervasive in terms of
health reasons, you know, it's pervasive throughout our
society, we obviously have to adhere to those things.
Fortunately we really didn't have any asbestos on this
campus. I think there was only one place and it was removed
and we didn't have to go through some huge deal. We had
people come in and test. We have to adhere to, of course,
general health standards that exist in Pima County and the
state. We test our water on a regular basis, you know, we
adhere to fire regulations, we have our fire drills once a
month, you know, all those things; I look at that question
that you asked as those things that go beyond the norm for
just being a business, everybody has certain standards that
you have to reach. I don't see anything beyond those.
Q. Can you tell me about an incident in which your work life
was influenced or shaped by the parents?
A. Yeah, I mean, we are in service to our clients; our clients
are our parents. Therefore, we keep our ears open and if we
have a lot of complaints about an issue, then we are going
to be responsive to that and open for suggestions. Many
people have suggestions about things; let me give you a
couple of examples. One was there was a number of parents
that wanted kind of a closing ceremony at the end of the
eighth grade. My philosophy has always been, and this is
part of the marketing strategy, where Greenfield is an
institution that goes 4-12, you don't graduate from eighth
grade because we didn't want to do anything that would
encourage kids to think that they had completed a level and
off they go to South Point or public school or whatever.
However, the idea came up, and I believe this was from
parents, and it wasn't so much graduation but what we would
define as a moving-up ceremony. So once I was able to make
that mental jump, I thought it was a great idea, and then we
designed it so that our seniors were on the stage. They
welcomed the eighth graders into the high school and the
eighth graders came from the audience and sat in the
senior's seat and the senior went down to the audience. Now
that allowed a continuity between our divisions without the
sense of you're completing the eighth grade so you can take
off someplace else. That happened a couple of times. There
was parent interest in having an after-school bus. I felt
it wasn't really realistic but at the time that there were
some parents that were really pressing for that, we found it
economically made some sense because there were enough of
them to do it. So we dropped kids off, we developed a plan,
we hired a driver, the parents shared the cost and we did
it. It fell by the wayside after while because there wasn't
enough interest in doing it. So we serviced those parents
at that particular time and responded to them. There will
be at times complaints about a teacher. For example, this
year I've had some complaints about an elementary school
teacher and it was a new teacher that had taken over for a
very popular teacher, and I had to deal with those
complaints. It was not that I let the teacher go nor did
anybody ever get to that point, and I resist those kinds of
pressures, you know, because you don't know what all -- you
have a ____ mentality on the part of some kids and they will
influence others, but I will respond to the parents to show
that I'm on top of it and that I'm interested in their
concerns and I try specifically to what their complaints
are. Now it happens that that person, at the time I was
going to make a contract decision about her, mentioned to me
that she was going to go back to Colorado so it never got to
an issue with her. I was going to let her go. But parent
voice is something I listen carefully to. Obviously, I
observe teachers and I try to be as fair as possible, but
I'm not in there all the time, so as part of my collection
data, I collect information from kids and the parents, and I
don't do it behind the teacher's back, I let them know what
is being said and how they are able to respond to it, and
give them an opportunity to respond as well. And I had
another teacher that was like that as well this year in
social studies. So I'm open to their comments there. The
parents wanted to do a rummage sale in the parent's
association. That's something that -- well, they did it,
that was more their concern, it wasn't so much that I
responded to change. There was discussion about having
______________________ in the lower school and that was an
interest on the part of some parents and we did institute
that. It wasn't that we were ever against it but we have to
have like a critical mass because it's an additional
expenditure, and we have to be very careful as to where our
priorities are. Some parents wanted the wind nets for our
tennis courts and that was through parent initiatives that
we got that. From a policy point of view, we have parents
that are on the board and they at times will, you know, as
parents, they talk to their kids and they have an interest
in one thing or another, but you see it's not
administrative, it's more from a policy point of view. And
it's usually -- it usually comes from the executive
committee, and there are a couple of parents on that as
well. But it hasn't been -- I can't think of anything that
I feel, from a board perspective, as a totality that is
imposing upon me.
Q. Okay. Tell me about an incident in which your work life was
influenced or shaped by a professional organization with
which you identify.
A. Well, you know, when you bring up all these variety of
groups as probably a composite they have an effect on you in
a variety of different, subtle ways that you may not
necessarily give them credit for. You know, you don't know
what's impacting you at any point in time when you are as
busy as I am. I read a lot, I'm involved with different
associations, and sometimes I don't know where an idea comes
from. As though suddenly I want to do it, you know. So to
say that -- I don't necessarily know -- I can't help but
think that these various groups have an impact on me perhaps
more than I think, but it's not a clear, you know, a board
pounding my head to fire this teacher, I mean, that's
something I'll remember, it's more subtle and obviously more
acceptable to me whatever is happening. We have -- there's
an organization called the Independent School Management and
they directly write and advise independent schools. Now
they were hired by the board to help develop our long-range
plan. The consultant there was good, he provided
appropriate direction to get this done, and in that plan,
which is actually developed by more than 125 people that
represented all our constituencies, including students,
teachers, alums, former parents, parents, board members,
former board members, and administration, but it was ISM, I-
S-M, that helped coordinate that endeavor. Structurally, of
course, the content is our content. So in that sense they
have influenced us. They also put out a, basically about
once every six weeks, they put out a publication and this
publication is influential because they're very
knowledgeable about what's going on in the independent
schools. For example, they wrote one recently on parent
associations and how you really are making a mistake if you
allow parent associations to become their own entity,
controlling their own money, making decisions, they become
almost policy deciders, you know, and how the board must be
in control of those situations. It's delicate because you
want to give parents a sense of freedom and a sense of
responsibility, a sense of drive, and they can become too
imposing, you know, they don't have the same motivation, so
it's delicate, but they're very clear on how those things
should be managed. So they write these little two-page
articles that will have influence about how you should run
your school. And it's just helpful hints. You gather
things to try to be as effective as you can and you can pick
from this and you pick from that. We also have the national
associations, called the National Association of Independent
Schools. I was a trustee for four years for this national
group and as a trustee, I was aware of what was going on in
the country about a variety of different issues, and during
my period of time, there was a real interest on the part of
independent schools related to marketing. Now that's also
an interest to Greenfield. there were certain things that
came from my exposure as a director, as a trustee, that I
was able to bring back to various studies for the whole
independent school movement that I thought would be useful
to Greenfield's Country Day School. Those two organizations
for the independent school are probably the most impactful.
I think that -- we just recently joined North Central, which
we didn't have to do, our accrediting agency has really been
the Independent School Association, but we did it just
because I think that getting insight from our public school
colleagues, it will help us grow, so they have publications,
so they haven't been dominant on us at all at this point. I
think they could be as time goes on, you know. People go to
different conferences and pick up different kinds of
information. So I guess that would be -- you know, the
other professional organizations that the teachers belong
to, the National Council of Teachers of English, social
studies, mathematics, all these different things, but I
leave it up to them to become informed about what it is.
The University of Arizona at times can be impactful. This
hasn't happened in a long time but there was one point where
I invited the deans of various -- or particularly good
professors out to Greenfield and they would meet with the
other dean of science up here, and he met with the science
and math people, and we have good cross-fertilization as to
what his expectations are for kids coming to college and
that was good for our teachers to hear. That's a different
kind of organization, professional organization, than you
might be referring to. I think that's about it.
Q. Can you tell me about an incident in which your work life
was influenced or shaped by the students?
A. Well, the right of the parents, you know, (couldn't
understand) and I know that we are in service to our
students and our parents and we simply keep our eyes and
ears open as to what their needs are. A lot of things are
more subtle, you know, they're kind of nuances of change.
It's not massive kinds of things; it's not like, you know,
it could be a subtle change in rule or they want to have an
extra dance, it's those kinds of things, it's nothing of
major import, it really doesn't change things around. When
I first came here, we had the senior prom and then it was
the students that initiated the concept of a winter prom, so
we did that. A lot of it relates to social things that they
want to do and these change from year to year, I mean, as to
-- they do change from year to year. I can't recount
various things that have happened but I know there was one
year where they wanted to serve the homeless more than we
were doing and they developed a whole program during
Christmas time where everybody brought in food and then it
was distributed during the Christmas time. There was the
making of over 1000 sandwiches by various classrooms to pass
out, again, to the homeless and this was purely student
initiated. There will be times when, just like with the
parents about teachers, I placed myself, I'm looked upon, I
make it clear to the teachers and to the kids that I'm an
advocate of neither. I am a facilitator and that when there
is difficulty, I want them both to feel, as well as parents,
that I'm going to be a fair listener, and based on the
information I gather, then I'll try to help a decision to be
reached. But I don't want the kids to think that I'm
automatically going to descend the teacher; I will listen, I
will posit some ideas that I think the teacher may be coming
from, but I also listen to the kids, so the kids look at me
as a person that they can come to without the thought that
I'm just going to defend the teacher and they're going to
have to beat me over the head to get their point of view
across. But I challenge the kids in terms of being sure
that they've got the kind of information they need. Kids
come here for a change -- for example, I'll give you an
example. We have a situation where the seniors can leave
campus and the junior class feels because they can drive
that they should also. So there'll be a group of kids that
will come and talk to me about that. And my response will
be then for them to develop their ideas. We have a problem
in the parking lot about cars coming in and out and about
kids speeding back in order to make the bell, and that's a
senior privilege, etc., etc. I said if you can come up with
a good rationale, why don't you present it before the
faculty, which was done. It happened to be voted down but
at least the kids thought that they had an opportunity and
that people at least listened and considered what their
opinions were and then they accepted it. Each junior class
at various times will raise these issues. It's not
automatic for us. We came close to it the last time because
they had some fairly decent arguments about why they should
be able to go and how they would monitor it so it would be
safe and sane. I guess then the influence comes if I get
the sufficient number of complaints on the teacher, I would
at times get groups of kids with the teacher, you know,
saying now we have evaluations, I think that probably is the
area of largest influence if they really are upset about
something. Kids wanted -- here's an example -- kids
wanted -- some kids came to me about wanting a high school
boys volleyball team. Well, we did it, because they had
ideas how they were going to raise the money and the coaches
they wanted, it seemed to fit in terms of time, so we did
it. I can't think of courses per se that they have ever
strongly argued for; that's come from parents on occasion,
going back to parents, having some parents worried that
their kids are not getting -- like if they saw when they
first came in here that the last class we did was college
algebra and they wanted some calculus, by the time the kids
got there and we had sufficient number, we offered calculus.
We're responsive to both parents and students based on what
we feel their needs are. If there are enough of them that
make it feasible and that's maybe only three students, you
know, like this next year we're going beyond calculus, we're
going into the second year of calculus because we've got so
many good math students. We're not talking about a lot;
we're talking about five, but that's sufficient for us to
provide that additional course that we're spending the money
to do that course and that comes by looking at the needs of
the kids and -- the needs of the kids primarily. They
sometimes argue rules and we -- before I got here, for
example, this was a long time ago, there was an honor system
which the students felt was not as effective as they would
like, so they helped create with the faculty the new
disciplinary system. We have just gone through a series of
town halls where we have home rooms, and then we have the
middle school and the upper school meet separately, and
discuss various rule changes that they would like to see.
During the summer there is going to be a group of faculty
who are now going to consider all of those things and make
some changes based on those suggestions. So the bottom line
is that we're very open to the kids. I mean, we
administratively like them to feel that it's an open door,
that they shouldn't have hesitancy about seeing us about
things, that we try to be balanced and fair, that our
expectation of them is that they will have ideas,
constructive ideas, it's simply not to come in to criticize,
and if they're going to come in to criticize, we usually
tell them to go back and figure out how they're going to
help resolve the problem. We're very big on trying to teach
responsibility here. So that's what we do. Now teachers
are next, I suppose.
Q. Tell me about them.
A. (Laughter)
Q. How do teachers influence?
A. Right. Teachers are probably the most influential group. I
don't know if it's necessarily my style as head of the
school, but there are many decisions that I'll just leave up
to the faculty. The bottom line is that if you're going to
have
anything happen, you have to have the people who are
responsible for enforcing it. Have to believe in it and
feel that they're a part of the decision-making process.
It's rare that I simply impose, you know, it's -- everybody,
I think, recognizes across the board that I'm the ultimate
decision maker and can do something differently. It's my
responsibility to be able to explain it and convince and
persuade, if they came up with a decision and I had another,
it's my responsibility simply not in an authoritarian way
impose a decision but state my argument strong enough that I
convince enough people to change it. I don't think I've
ever been put in a position where people just don't see my
point of view and I've had to impose it because I know I'm
right. It has never got to that. But there will be many
decisions that relate to discipline, that relate to kids
being placed on probation or being not asked back to the
school, that are fully faculty decisions. Now there are
times when a faculty will say a kid may not come back, then
I'll decide that I'll put them on probationary status
because they're not dealing with the parents in the same way
that I am, they don't have as much knowledge, and I try to
explain to them, or I feel that the faculty may not have
been as clear to the parents as to the direction as to what
will happen as I think they should. For example, they said
well, we told the parents this and that, but I find nothing
in the file about any correspondence related to homework or
poor tests or that if the kid has gotten a D or an F in
something and they didn't send the note out, you know, well,
then they have failed in terms of their administrative
aspects. Now that doesn't happen often, but I'm giving that
as an example that if something were to occur like that, I
could override the decision for a kid not coming back and
maybe place them in an intermediate step about a compromise
where someone is placed on probation. I get their input on
a lot of things. You know, I seek their approval in hopes
that they will be full participants in any kind of major
decisions or changes that we do. The middle school a couple
of years ago felt that it needed improvement in a variety of
different ways. The middle school teachers got together
under some leadership administratively, not necessarily by
myself, I think Suzanne was involved in that, I was involved
and brought some people in, there was a parent who was the
head of counseling at the university, he was instrumental, we
brought him in for some workshops, and from that we decided
to make some significant changes in the middle school as to
how we were administering our discipline system which we --
we had a point system for the high school which was also in
the middle school and we changed that around to a different
kind of system in the middle school. But that was, I would
say, more than anything else, it was a couple of people
picking up from the middle school that really followed
through on that and then sought approval and they were
approved without any problem because they had done a good
job in terms of their work. That was probably the most
significant change that we've had here in some time in
reorganizing the middle school which was more than anything
else a teacher-directed effort. Teachers obviously have a
big say in terms of their coursework. They are given the
freedom, we don't have any district, you know, Greenfield-
imposed curriculum, we try to find teachers that have a
wealth of knowledge and they know what kinds of support
materials and texts that will allow them to be the most
effective with the kids. They have to discuss it with me,
they have to come up with a balanced scope and sequence,
they have to explain what they're doing, but it's rare that
we'll change things. I mean, Suzanne has some questions at
times about the English teacher in the ninth and tenth
grade, about some of the coursework, she's asked that a
certain text be (end of side one of tape) --Okay. Let me
give you an example. If I wanted to, there was a teacher
here that had a background in Soviet studies, it wasn't part
of the initial program, but I felt that would be a good
thing to do, and we did it. It's as simple as that. I
mean, I didn't go to the board and say I would like to do
this Soviet studies program. I simply have to say that
there was, you know, I wanted another $4,000 to have this
course, there's so much on their budgets, about seven
million, so $4000 is not something that would necessarily
have to be asked about.
The board could, I guess -- see,
we don't have an education committee on the board -- I view
an education committee on the board as potentially dangerous
because, in fact, there was one when I came and I let it
die, because that is an area where they can easily lose
sight of their responsibility. It becomes more of an
advocacy group or something that maybe some parents may
want. Now again, in being responsive to parents, that isn't
necessarily bad, but when you have a formalized structure,
it can get dangerous, as opposed to an informal structure
where just some parents are saying that would be great if we
had this or that, you know, once you formalize it, it can
become a problem. On the other hand, if you structure it
carefully enough, they can be an advocacy group of what you
want, in other words, you go before the parent group, I mean
you go before a board group and you say, listen, we really
feel that we now need a computer program in our fourth,
fifth and sixth grade level, and you justify before this
group and then they become advocates for you with the board.
Now that can take time but if you've got people -- your
finance committee trying to cut your expenses -- your
buildings and grounds are trying to spend money related to
the buildings, you see -- so sometimes it is important to
have an education group, my experience has been that you
really have to spend a lot of time with it to be sure they
don't get out of hand. That was kind of straying from the
point. I think that's pretty much it. It was teachers that
we were last on, right?
Q. How much influence you have on establishing curriculum.
A. Yeah, curriculum. So, I think the answer is that I have a
lot of influence if I want to exert it. But I have to be
justified in what I want to do. But I would say more
frequently it will be a teacher that will say, "I would like
to teach this course this year as an elective" or "I would
like to approach the world history course I've been teaching
the last three years in a different manner." But my
influence then is having that discussion and working with
the teacher in allowing two or three adults, whatever it is,
to brainstorm how we can take the ideas that the teacher
came with and make those ideas more effective. Suzanne as
the assistant head has had, I have tried to have her in the
situation where she has been more involved with the direct
curriculum over the last couple of years. So she shall
continue to look at that and she is good at that type of
thing. My Masters from Harvard happens to be in curriculum
development and supervision so I know a lot about it, but
I'm so busy it's not -- it's more people getting reactions
to me within a half hour and giving them certain directions
or reactions that they may be able to take and consider
this.
Q. How would your influence on determining instructional
methods in the classroom?
A. Well, that comes obviously with teacher evaluation, through
teacher evaluations suggesting to them how things might be
able to be done more effectively. So, again, I would say
that my role there is a great deal but, again, it's
primarily the teachers. My hands are not tied in any way.
I could tell the teacher to go ahead and do it, I could tell
them, and my, power is not the word, but it is such that
they would have to do it but I've never got into that
situation. There are some teachers that -- I encourage a
lot of teachers to move into overheads at one point when it
became clear that when their back was against -- was to the
kids a lot, and in this case it was a middle school, and I
said, "You know, you're probably going to have better
classroom management if you use an overhead when you face
the kids," and some teachers did that and they found it was
effective and that was a particular instructional technique.
We talked about more group work with another teacher and
that teacher followed up on those ideas and that became more
effective. Again, I'm a person that just simply tries to
facilitate so that we move towards improvement in a variety
of different areas. And my experience is long -- I've been
in education since 1964 and I've been in a lot of different
experiences, so, you know, I think I have the respect on the
part of various people that I work with that they'll at
least try some of the suggestions that I make.
Q. What is the influence you have on allocating funds?
A. Well, pretty maximum. I'm the one that sets the budget. I
work with department heads and they determine their budgets
and we discuss back and forth what seems to make sense, so
I'm constantly trying to balance against all the different
needs that exist, and again the facilitator/moderators are
there. I will press them to be sure that they justify
clearly how they want to spend the money so I'm the final
approver of all those things. Final from this point of
view, and then there's a finance committee of the board and
if they raise questions, then I have to justify why we need
to spend money in this or that area. Different people --
like there's a different person for recruitment and
admissions in terms of what their budget is, development,
you know, the various athletic programs, those are all
different people but I'm the person that they're dealing
with in trying to set what those things are. So I'm very
influential in the area of funding.
Q. How would you describe the influence you have on hiring new,
full-time teachers?
A. I'm it. There's no one else. I mean, I will solicit advice
from people, I mean, for example, it is kind of interesting
in reverse here. Typically in a school, a department head
will get a bunch of candidates, interview them, narrow it
down to three, and then it goes to the headmaster. Because
our people are so busy, it's usually reversed.
I'm the one
that will usually go through all the applications, bring it
down to about ten, call them in, interview these different
people, then I make the final three selections, then I'll
bring in at that point the department head or a couple of
other teachers, have the person teach on campus, and then
with, you know, with the faculty or the people that are
directly involved, make that decision. You know, it's
generally my decision almost alone. S... has been
involved more recently. Typically she is not very much
involved at all.
Q. My research is directed at a current debate in education,
and I think I talked to you about it the first time, about
the researchers Chubb and Moe who did their work on holistic
markets in American schools. It's their claim that private
school teachers have greater autonomy to innovate, adapt
curriculum in teaching to meet the needs of the students,
and that in doing so, they're primarily influenced by the
students and the parents, not by school bureaucracy.
Whereas public school teachers are subjected to a variety of
influences and pressures that restrict their autonomy in
meeting students' needs. Among the influences on public
school teachers are state and federal regulations, teachers'
unions, court orders or the threat of litigation, and
organizational rules called "bureaucracy." Given that a
public school might have a similar student population that
you have and if it were a similar size to Greenfields, not a
huge number of kids, what do you think the difference with
the teacher autonomy might be, if any at all?
A. Well, no matter what the size, all of those things that you
mentioned in terms of regulations, federal and state,
various kinds of orders, litigation, they still would exist.
When I was the public system, the biggest problem was just
simply getting -- sometimes the basic minimum things. I
worked in the inner-city of XXX and in those
situations, just getting the supplies you needed, getting
things on time, there are many times that will beat you down
in the system and they may be as an individual incident,
minor, but they come in all the time, you know, it may be
minor that you don't get your pencils, so you go out and buy
your pencils. It might be minor that your textbooks came
three weeks late -- well, that's not minor -- it might be
minor that the paper that you need comes late, it might be
minor that you suddenly an incident with the administration,
but all of those things in composite build up and they
become burdensome and they can take away the incentive of
people and their drive. But I think the public schools
would be way ahead of the game if they moved really to site
base management where the principal had a lot of influence
and have the freedom to work carefully with the teachers.
I'm against teacher unions, I'm against tenure, it sets up a
we/they situation and you need -- you've got to be a fair
administrator because teacher unions come because people
feel they are being taken advantage of. So a system like
mine is somewhat paternalistic, which can have its
advantages and disadvantages. But it seems to me if you're
really fair, then you can be a "we" institution. But things
like teacher unions and tenured groups have a way of making
things we/they, and I sometimes feel it's not necessarily in
the best interest of the kids. Teachers unions would argue
against that but they are doing things, if the teachers are
happy, then the kids will be happy. I've not always seen
that to be the case. I think a contentious atmosphere is
going to have an effect on a learning environment. However,
I think if schools are smaller, where there's less
bureaucracy, I think decentralization is important.
Assuming you hire good people that are going to run the
school, then I think that public schools would be way ahead
if they tended to be smaller and they tended to be, you
know, once they allow teachers to make decisions along with
administrators.
Q. Do you think that can happen despite the federal
regulations?
A. I think there can be clear improvements. See, the issue is
the expense of it. The whole concept of decentralization
was an economic decision, you know, that you could just run
things more efficiently, like it's based on big business,
you know. So there's a lot of consolidation with the
concept that you wouldn't be building five gyms, you would
have one central gym, you know, those kinds of expenses, and
there's a certain legitimacy to that. Even if you have
large schools, there's nothing to say that you can't have
more independence in each school from central authority. I
don't know enough about it, take textbooks, for example,
it's all words or central, and everybody in the system is
going to be using this book in U.S. History. And if you
have all these little sub-business managers in each high
school and they're the ones that order the books for their
high school because their high school wants different
curriculum from -- XXX High wants something different
from YYY and YYY wants something -- so you've got to
have the administration within each high school to order all
those different things, it's simply not going to be as
efficient and cost-effective as if the entire system orders
the same textbook and you're having one person do it at the
central office. So that's where you get into cost issues,
you know. So it's not an easy question, the answer, you
know. And I don't have enough experience from the central
administration point of view to try to figure out how the
system could become better. I do feel, though, that if
people are given more opportunity to be a part of the
decision-making process, you're going to have better
schools. Motivation and enthusiasm are very important on
the part of the adults, and my question is "How can you do
that?" So there's no easy answers on that. I think schools
will have an advantage if they're smaller, fewer kids per
teachers, teachers have more say in how things are done, but
I don't know if they can escape, for example, the suits, you
know, you have the situation you send this kid to this or
that, you've got this whole number -- you go through layers
and layers of trying to be -- you turn over backwards of
being fair because you're the public system and kids are
allowed to go to school. Here they don't. I can dismiss a
kid and that's it, you know, the contract is finished, the
contract is for one year and they leave. Public schools
don't have that luxury, you know. So it's just like
administrators, principals letting teachers go, I mean, you
know, if I had a big problem with a teacher, obviously I
have to justify it, but I don't go through the same
rigmarole that you have to go through in relation to public
schools. I mean, they have to do triple flips, you know, to
justify that someone is really a lousy teacher, and that's
hard to do, by the way, it's not easy to figure out who's
ineffective, you know, it can just become -- as an
administrator you are so busy with so many things, you can
have one bad teacher and the amount of time that bad teacher
will take is mind boggling, you know, to get all the stuff
down on the paper and really record it so you've got really
a strong case, and given the demands of the administrators
in many of these places, they just don't have the time and
therefore they don't have the energy unless they work every
weekend, you know, to be able to face it. And you may have
two or three bad teachers in a given school and this is the
bitch, you know, so you've got to let it go, and say, well,
we'll just suffer along with this person, you know, or
transfer them, the big thing where principals get together
and say, "Okay, I'll take your worst and you take my worst
and we'll just switch them around and hopefully maybe the
different environment will make them to be a little bit
better." You know, you try to pressure them in some ways to
make it unpleasant for them, try to get them out of the
system. But it's almost better to work a psychological game
on them rather than trying to get the potential litigation
and proof in order to get them freed from the system, just
make it tough enough for them that they're just going to say
that life is not worth it and take off, you know, leave.
But those type of things take a tremendous amount of time.
And people don't understand that generally. So the answer
is a tough one. I think you have a better chance if you're
smaller and you're site based when it comes to management.
But you're still going to have problems.