Speakout Columns
This principal learned the ABCs
Dec 8, 2005 3:38 PM
I’m a recently retired Queens elementary school principal who thinks it’s time for everybody to get back to basics. I’m not talking about curriculum; I mean the ABCs of human relations. “C” is for civility even more than for curriculum.
It’s time for a return to shared decision-making between school management and the classroom professionals who breathe life into the best ideas. Power struggles and school politics will never be wiped out, but men and women of good will, regardless of which union they belong to, can make them taboo. We need a new age of enlightenment, in which nobody pulls rank, hides behind authority or loses face or dignity because they are subject to being overruled. Winning a turf war spells defeat for both sides.
I never gave a teacher a U rating, because self-improvement was always a joint project for both teachers and supervisors, and we were able to work around and through weaknesses and avoid that option. I would not deliver rolled heads to regional offices, or without cause satisfy disciplinary quotas, although I am not alleging here that they exist on the books.
I’ve made some tough decisions. Occasionally I’ve been reminded that if you try to please everybody you end up pleasing nobody. But still, in all cases I want to be defined by my positive actions and not by acts of retribution. I don’t care where the chips fall as long as they fall fairly.
Principals, like everybody else in all walks of life, have to learn to strengthen their egos by divorcing themselves from them. We need to grapple with problems that hurt kids, not tussle with teachers and their union.
Colleagues have occasionally tried to distance me from the UFT, regarding that union as a wedge against student learning and progress in educational policy. In some cases, I think their real concern was to consolidate and expand their own power. Sometimes they may be putting a mask on their own insecurities in a system that they distrust but are forced to serve.
I have to admit that some teachers put principals in an awkward position by seeking special favors and testing the flexibility of principals whose trusting nature should not make them extra vulnerable to exploitation. Opportunistic staff members should never provide a pretext for a principal to view administration/staff relations as a cat-and-mouse operation.
Although I worked closely and cordially with the UFT at the school where I was principal, neither of us wanted to appear to be, or actually be, so cozy that members might feel uneasy. I never wanted the chapter leader to be “in my pocket” and she never would have tolerated that either. We both knew that it was perfectly natural for us at times to be opposed to each other. But even when we were adversaries, we were never antagonists.
My school was no fluke but still may have been somewhat exceptional in that there were no sweetheart deals and no informants to work for favors. Everybody was a “favorite” until they did something wrong — and UFT members had no monopoly on making mistakes. The Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA) was proportionally represented also. And when subordinates made errors I always gave them the benefit of the doubt. I never assumed noncompliance or incompetence and hardly ever ended the matter with hard feelings.
Principals must strike a balance between monitoring teachers and having a laissez-faire policy of letting them use their own working formulas for inspiring children and getting the job done.
As a principal who is still part of the DOE, I can’t take any chances. Identifying myself might amount to the same as being a whistle-blower. I don’t know personally of any scandals, anyway, except the one that is epitomized in the failure of all of us, regardless of title, to respect one another for our expertise and our common cause.
The writer, who still works for the Department of Education, has requested not to be identified.
