Teacher Powered School
Who Makes the Decisions?
Scrambling for Voice, Choice, and Agency
If you missed a couple of episodes, the best way to binge-read Scrambling for Voice, Choice, and Agency is to use the Table of Contents links to previous posts.
Episode #17
From: Kerry
Happy New Year
To: Chance sent - Gmail 6:26 AM
Hi Chance—
It was great seeing you over the winter holidays. I hope you are feeling refreshed and that images of trucks that look like toasters and Birkin bags are no longer dancing in your head.
Yesterday, I told the superintendent that I would accept the role of interim principal for the rest of the year. I am worried about all of the changes that will mean for me, but the staff is totally on board.
We have already started doing something that every single school in the country should do….We are making a huge spread sheet and naming every decision that needs to be made in a school.
After each decision is named, we are making three notes…..who has responsibility for the decision….who has input…..which decisions are always collaborative and made by consensus.
I thought it would be an impossible task to create the list, but once we got going it has been so informative that we are eager to finish the work. I imagine that we will miss some things along the way, but if we keep adding to the list for at least a year, decision-making will be very clear and understood by everyone in the school….and if we don’t like what we see, we can always change it.
Every school parking lot in the district has parking places reserved for the principal. The first thing I am going to do is ask the corp. yard come over and remove the reserved signs and paint it out of the driveway. If I am dedicated to changing the top-down nature of the institution of public schools, I am going to start by dismantling things that scream at me like parking privileges.
The argument for a special designated spot is that sometimes the principal needs to come and go during the day and should not have to search for a parking place when they return. I say: Why not?? A little extra walking to the office never hurt anyone.…and maybe I can be turn it into an opportunity to walk through the classrooms.
What is up with Stan?
Kerry
__
From: Chance
re: Happy New Year
To: Kerry sent - Gmail at 8:02 PM
Hi Kerry—
Congratulations on your new role….You will be perfect for it.
Do you remember when Ernie’s mom complained about me to Stan? She has found two other parents to join her.
One of them is a dad who might as well be Stan. He thinks I am spending way too much time giving kids opportunities to learn about history through role playing. He does not believe in learning by doing. He thinks project-based learning is ridiculous. He does not like group work. He thinks that more assignments and more homework is the path to Harvard……and I am not assigning enough of either as far as he is concerned. Of course, Stan agrees with him on all counts.
Can we get together soon? I need some help navigating the little army that is forming to support Stan and his ridiculous ideas about teaching and standardized testing. Do you think I should go to the union to see if they can help me?
Chance