Day 4 - Thursday

Did you say progress reports are due tomorrow? Since when does the assistant principal have to do progress reports? Oh, that's right. I was a teacher last week and the sub doesn't even know the kids' names yet. My plan was to work on a few progress reports a day throughout the week, but it hasn't happened that way. As a matter of fact, that is one thing you learn as a school administrator: Nothing goes according to plan.

There are roughly 850 students at my school (give or take a few depending on the position of the moon). If one out of ten got sent to "The Office" on any given day that would be 85 kids. Fortunately our school is not that bad. Five percent would be just over 40 kids per day. We still have that beat. Let's cut it down to about 2.5% of the kids getting into trouble on any given day. That would be in the neighborhood of 20 kids. Today was right about at the 2.5% mark. That doesn't mean there were 20 fights, because each fight takes a minimum of two people, but it was a busy day for "The Office."

I view student discipline from two different conflicting perspectives. On one hand, I would love to work at a school where all the kids got along and solved their own conflicts; A place were teachers and other adults were treated with respect and kids were motivated to succeed. But that would make me irrelevant in my particular role as an administrator. As a person, I need to be busy in order to feel satisfied. A busy day gives me a sense of accomplishment and value. Given my position, a busy day involves kids screwing up. From that perspective, there is a twisted sense of worth that comes after a long day of disciplining kids. As with any day in the classroom, I hope that they have learned what I have taught them them.

I try to reflect on the good parts of each day, but in the world of student discipline, that can be hard. Fortunately I have great kids at home. Tonight I watched a kindergarten student during Open House who could not recite the alphabet to her parents even as she pointed to the letters on the wall. Obviously, she struggled with the sounds of the letters as well. As I watched this episode, I thought of my own kindergarten aged daughter and absolutely delighted in the fact that she not only knows the letters and sounds, but reads entire books.

Once the kids were in bed tonight, I sat down to write about my day and noticed that there were two comments on yesterday's post. I clicked the link and read what my own son had to say about my writing: "You are so funny!" His second comment was just a reiteration of the first. "I said....You are so funny!" How can you not smile knowing that your own son is your biggest fan. I am truly blessed.

Now, time for some progress reports. Anyone want to help?