Friday started like any other, unfortunately it ended with a group of hard working professionals questioning their vocation. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I could not find a happy parent in the entire valley!
Due to the large size of our student body, we can no longer accommodate everyone in our gym for pep rallies so instead we hold them in the football stadium so we can accommodate all 2800 students. Before we arrived at this decision, we attempted two pep rallies in the gym and later only let the “spirited” students who chose to participate attend and allow the others to roam campus and complain of their life’s misery. Last we put this to some thought and decided that we were actually promoting a lack of school spirit and opened the stadium to accommodate the crowd. We held the best rallies I had ever personally witnessed and decided to continue the tradition.
This year we celebrated Homecoming early and the Leadership students had worked diligently all week to prepare an awesome tribute to our school and rally the team to victory with a tribute to the 60’s. Everyday during the week we had snips of famous sixties music and everyone seems excited about the upcoming pep rally.
The dismissal bell sounds and we began herding our student population to the stadium. Although a few rogue paper planes flew from the stands, for the most part the students were very well behaved. I found my “special place” on the track perched looking up into the stands to discourage the launch of the next plane when suddenly I received a call that a young man was in the office and refused to come to the rally. I stated what I considered to be the obvious, either do what you are supposed to do or we will call your mother to pick you up for a suspension. The secretary replied, Ms. Castleman, this is Jonas, you spoke to him and his mother this morning. I immediately replied I would be right there and ask the secretary to contact the school nurse.
You see, yesterday and again this morning I was visited by Jonas mother who had just taken her son to the County Mental facility for testing. Jonas told his mother the prior evening that he did not have friends, he wasn’t doing well in school and he no longer wanted to live. The hospital opted not to hold him, but today he was melting down again. I noticed our lead campus supervisor in the cart who had made her way to the stadium to pick me up, so I exited the pep rally (during the National Anthem… which I never do!) and jumped in the cart. About the time, I exited the track I noticed a young man jump over the fence and run along the track in nothing but a speedo and a wrestling mask. Quickly I heard other administrator’s calling for someone to stop him. We quickly turned around the cart and headed east in the direction of the young man. I radioed to the office to keep Jonas, I would be there shortly, unfortunately the secretary called back he had left the office. I quickly radioed for a campus supervisor to stop him and Jonas agreed to go to his locker with the campus supervisor and return to the office.
We continued to look in the wash and behind the berm adjacent to the stadium, but no “masked jumper.” Suddenly the Principal radioed for me to come to the Gym, the masked jumper had injured himself in a fall over the fence and was now in need of medical attention.
I radioed the office again, Jonas was now with the School Nurse, and they were calling his mother and a CIRT team to evaluate his condition. When I arrived at the Gym the masked jumper had now changed from his speedo and wrestling mask and was bleeding a bit from where he scratched himself from the fence and fall onto the track.
At this time, I was HOT! What was this kid thinking? All I could envision was the episode at graduation and all I wanted is to make an example of this kid to avoid any future incidence. The nurse’s office patched him up and I began to question him as to “what he could possibly be thinking”?
We called his mother to pick him up for what I considered to be a reasonable suspension. After all, he had just disrupted an activity with 2800 students. No sooner did his mother pick him up than I received a call from his father, who professes to be an educator at a private school himself. I still have bite marks on my behind from a conversation with this man… How dare you, you have gone over the edge, all my son was trying to do is have some fun… you over stepped your boundary by suspending him.
It took me a moment to regain a sense of reality… was I actually hearing this, are these words coming from an adult? His son had just made a total fool of himself in front of our entire student body, disrupted the pep rally and could have considerably injured himself and he was barking at me? I replied, “Sir I can’t believe I am speaking to a parent, we have 2800 kids on this campus and if all parents had your philosophy we would have mass chaos… if your son can not abide by the rules of this school, perhaps he needs to look for another.” I typically do not speak to parents in the matter, but this man was clearly off his rocker!
About that time, I walk out of my office to find Stan. Stan is special education student who has become a frequent flyer. He was there to debate his consequences from an incident that occurred the previous year that had carried over to this year. He became mouthy with me, after he replied, "I don't care, go ahead and suspend me," and I took him up on his offer.
It didn't take long before he was once again “rescued” by a family member who felt he could not be accountable for his actions. Earlier in the week I had yet another encounter with this family member who was convinced that I was “Out to get Stan” after a nasty phone conversation, Stan’s father called and was very supportive. He stated that he as well, was exhausted dealing with this family member.
Stan and his enabler had “camped” out, beside my door and insisted on meeting with me. When I explained that I had already arranged a meeting with Stan’s father, he became enraged and ended up complaining in the principal’s office.
It seemed there wasn’t a happy soul in our city and they all wanted a piece of us. My boss walked in to check on me, and quickly found the rip in my Teflon coating… a tear began running down my face. Just how much abuse does “Joe Public” expect their school officials to take before we crack? Knowing that I have skin six inches thick, my boss asked the obvious… what is wrong; this stuff normally doesn’t faze you?
Truth is … I am tired, very tired. The lack of accountability in this generation is exhausting! I simply cannot understand why parents will not allow school officials to do their job… or better yet do their jobs as parents! I remember my parents telling me, if you get in trouble at school, you can expect double when you get home. Why is it then that my generation has turned this into “Don’t respect anyone who doesn’t respect you first regardless of their age or authority”! It’s not about what is good for our citizenship any longer, but do what ever YOU want to do, it doesn’t matter how it affects others.
This is one school administrator who is FED UP and ready for a weekend! Hopefully next week will be better.
