Maybe We Need to Cut Our Administrators Some Slack

Almost enough for that 1:1 project

I often bemoan, if not openly crit­i­cize the seem­ing slow­ness with which admin­is­tra­tors are lead­ing (or not lead­ing) the charge to trans­form our schools. From my per­spec­tive as a teacher, they are an easy tar­get, hav­ing vol­un­tar­ily placed them­selves squarely in the bull’s-eye after all. But just the other day I had a con­ver­sa­tion with my super­in­ten­dent that gave me pause. My super­in­ten­dent has been hold­ing small, infor­ma­tional meet­ings out­lin­ing the sta­tus of our dis­trict within the cur­rent New York State bud­get cri­sis. He explains how New York has filled bud­get holes with fed­eral fund­ing that will expire in another year, and that when that fund­ing is gone our dis­trict will have nearly a half a mil­lion dol­lar hole of their own to fill. He con­tin­ues to out­line the choices the dis­trict (he) will have to make if the gov­er­nor fol­lows through on his threat to with­hold promised funds for the spring. These choices include whether or not we can afford to have any spring ath­let­ics at our school, and whether it would be bet­ter to cut two assis­tants back to half time posi­tions, or to cut one com­pletely. In a dis­trict of this size these are peo­ple we know, who’s kids are friends with our kids.

When the meet­ing con­cludes I hang back for a moment as I usu­ally do to chat about the sta­tus of tech­nol­ogy in the dis­trict. He asks me how things are going and about the progress of a cou­ple of projects that are going on. As I am about to leave I say half jok­ingly: “Is this a bad time to bring up my 1:1 lap­top pro­gram idea?” He grins and I fol­low up with: “What is your opin­ion about these pro­grams?” He says in my aha moment of the day: “I haven’t.” Then he points back to the pie chart pro­jected on the screen, that spells a pos­si­ble doom despite its pas­tel colors.

It was only later upon reflec­tion that I real­ized the grav­ity of that instant. How can we expect our admin­is­tra­tors to be think­ing about whether or not our stu­dents are learn­ing 21st cen­tury skills when they are try­ing to fig­ure out how to pay for heat? My Super­in­ten­dent used to be a teacher, and from the lit­tle I know a good one. I know that he would rather be talk­ing about these intel­lec­tual ideas with me but he just can’t when the futures of peo­ple we know hang so pre­car­i­ously on every deci­sion he makes. Until the day that pub­lic schools are funded in a more equi­table way sit­u­a­tions like this one will con­tinue to exist. Admin­is­tra­tors, espe­cially in small schools will be too pre­oc­cu­pied with count­ing beans to look much beyond the fol­low­ing year. So con­sider giv­ing your admin­is­tra­tors some slack. I know I’m going to.