Long Catch Up

I've been under the impression that things here were calming down a bit. We had a decent looking library thanks to our part-time librarian, and we had Thin Clients coming in to be installed into computer labs and teacher's classrooms.

But this was the calm before the shit storm. Here's the latest.

• The superintendant's contract was not renewed. About a year ago, he was banned from the reservation by the tribe, but since he came to work via state roads and worked at a public school run by the state, he was untouchable at work. Well, the school board and tribe finally got on the same page, announced that his contract would not be renewed, but he is being paid until February, which includes a trip to Thailand in January. Poor guy.
• Our principal agreed to coach high-school girls' basketball, so he's not going to be around after school or at Friday staff meetings until the end of the season, sometime in February probably.
• The kids are taking over the school due to inconsistencies in discipline, especially from our principal but also from the assistant principal, who downgrade fighting to "horse play," overlook dress-code infringements including drug references on clothing, and do not punish kids who have been caught smoking, lighting lighters, swearing, or threatening teachers.
• Our staff does not feel safe. We feel as though something is going to happen; someone is going to get hurt.
• I learned that we do not have a full-time librarian because our administrators did not fire the last librarian. Instead, they eliminated the position, which means that in order to have a full-time librarian, they have to offer the job back to the previous and totally inept librarian first. Nice one to whoever bungled that.
• The wise and esteemed assistant superintendant John Livingston decided that since we're short on cash (why?), the stipends for assistant tech. coordinators would be cut in half. So now, instead of making $1 an hour, they're making 50 cents. Or something ridiculous.
• Our district decided to have an a la carte menu in the caffeteria (despite AZ's superintendent Tom Horne's Wellness Program that basically makes serving sugary and fatty foods on reservations illegal) that consists of Gatorade bottles, cookies, pickles, nachoes, and other junk. As if this weren't bad enough, these items were being sold after the bell to return to class rang, resulting in every teacher having to demand that almost every student throw away or put away the contraband items. Not to mention how this increases the amount of trash and litter in and around our school.
• The state's coming in on Tuesday to walk through, observe, and ask questions to figure out why we are an under-performing school and district.

So, there's just a few of the latest and greatest. Yesterday, our administrators were absent from the Friday staff meeting, so we took the chance as a staff to agree to the following:

1. We started to write our own mission, values, and vision statement in an attempt to unify as a staff and take control of our school.

2. We agreed that we needed to ask our administration to attend the next staff meeting, and we as a staff would present a list of concerns and expectations that we have of them. Because we can't do all of the discipline and monitoring ourselves. We need to focus on our teaching.