After school today, we had a faculty meeting with our superintendent of schools. Yeah, it was a big deal. Obviously he was here to talk about budget issues in these tough economic times. I came away with two observations.
1. I felt like a child amongst giants. Here was the superintendent spouting off financial figures that I couldn't even register. He might as well have been saying, "We've got eleventy bajillion dollars here, and four gogillion dollars in this account. Now if we cut point four percentage points to the lateral axis of every fiscal hydrogen bonded rotator cuff, we can alleviate the negotiable divisor betwixt the three million and the seventy-leven zillion mark." WHAT? It was really hard for me to follow everything he was saying. I guess I'm a simple man who deals in simple figures. I trust that he knows what he's doing; which leads me to my next point.
2. We often see these "higher up" figures in a negative light. "He is so out of touch with us" or "He doesn't even come into the classrooms", etc. We often think that we are the ones that do the grunt work while they sit in their leather backed chairs lighting cigars with flaming Benjamin Franklin greenbacks. I can tell you, that is not the case with this man. I really got a sense that he fights for his schools. He doesn't spend much time in the classrooms, because he CAN'T. He's up to his eyeballs in financial figures, politicians, and bar graphs trying to steer our school system successfully through this "crisis". I do my job, he DEFINITELY does his. For that I'm grateful.
5 comments:
Are those meetings mandatory? If not, I would encourage you to go to every one you can. The more you mingle with what I call "the gray hairs" the more you can empathize with them and feel more like an "equal". You'd be surprised who turns out to be the "simple ones".
Wow, Dan; a fiscally hydrogen-bonded rotator cuff is pretty serious stuff . . . .
Thanks, Dan. You really made me think. . .I am often one of those who complains about the "higher ups" not being in touch, not understanding what we do, not knowing what we do . . . you just made me realize that, frankly, I don't know or understand what THEY do! Who am I to judge? And, hey--I don't visit them EVER. Maybe I should just suck it up, shut up, and do my job. I'm just glad I have one!
Nice to know someone has your back fiscally. It may not be their bailywick, but is is their job! At the end of the day, parent involvement is not the only thing that matters. Budgets and dollars keep the machine "humming".
I felt the same way! I also thought that the 2 days he was cutting were Thanksgiving (what I heard from AHS) - oh well! He really is good!
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