Day 14 - Thursday

Today was all about flying solo. The principal was subpoenaed to testify in a custody hearing regarding one of our students, so that left me to keep things running. It would have gone swimmingly if not for the 28 parent meetings that were on my schedule in 15 minute increments all day long.

You see, one of my duties as fake assistant principal is to help manage attendance issues. When kids accumulate an excessive number of absences or tardies we call mom and dad in to the office and give them a good talking to. If that doesn't work, we do it again, but talk louder because that's about all we can do. Today was round one of the the good talking to's, so I didn't have to do it too loudly. The theory behind the crazy schedule is that any parent who can't get their kid to school probably won't show up for the meeting. Fortunately, that proved to be true today, but it still tied me to within a stone's throw of the office most of the day.

Whenever one of those gaps occurred, I dove in to the stack of bus tickets that had been issued over the last two days. What struck me was that I talked to several kids who had gotten into fights on the bus. In one case a mom immediately went on the defensive when I told her that her son had planted his knee in another child's face on the way home. She blasted me for allowing her son to be bullied all year long by these kids and wanted me to believe that her son was the victim. This brought two issues to my mind.

Issue #1: Let's find out if this kid is a bully or a victim. The plan: Wait until after school and ask the bus driver what she had seen. The result: Little Johnny is indeed the bully and has been tossing around profanity and harassing and fighting with other kids on the bus on a regular basis. The verdict: Johnny gets to walk to school for a whole week. Maybe the exercise will help.

Issue #2: If I knew that my child was being bullied on the bus on a daily basis, there is no way in the world that I would send him into that environment over and over again. Would you put your terrier into a cage with vicious pit bulls every morning so that he could be educated? I think not. You would find a new way to solve the problem.

The real issue here is uninvolved parents who want to complain about a free education so that they don't have to deal with the hassle of raising their own kids. The solution is the opposite.