Should I Stay or Should I Go?

The first transfer period opens tomorrow (Monday, April 27th) and runs for two weeks.

It is always a smart thing to check out the landscape. This posting is to encourage questions about principals and their administration.

Please keep the posting, questions, answers, and comments civil, informative and specific. However you should feel free to name names, positions and schools.

If you feel too much info will identify you and cause you retribution, then be discreet but let us know so we can afford you flexibility when weighing your information.

Believe me: No one needs to get "goadered".

Do You Remember - Your Classroom Christmas?

We had a tree, a play, wise-men, baby Jesus, carols, cookies, cards, and wished everyone a Merry Christmas. Our insensitivity knew no bounds: we included everyone in our Christmas wishes.

We were a 1-12 school - talk about seeing the future!

Every year our principal made a feeble attempt at "being" Santa during our Christmas assembly - much to the delight of the upper class men.

Every year the seniors would "intimidate" those 6th graders who would "threaten" to tell the little kids about Santa.

Every year we visited classrooms to sing carols.

Every year we looked forward to the next.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE ! - no matter how you translate the spirit.

-Suzie's going "home for the holidays" -

JENNY? TAKE A RIDE!

Board member Jennifer Faliero tries to control blogs by suggesting that blogs "govern" unregistered posters. In other words: "Your papers please."

Check it out here and at the University of Miami Education Students Blog!

So much for P.R.

I wonder why she doesn't start a blog (ala April) and join us. Could it be, as Lee contends, that her writing/tech skills aren't up to the task and would reveal she had used the schools PR department to answer newspaper criticism?

The good thing is that her comments, efforts and behavior will reside on the web for a very long time. (File Under: Swingin' Time)

Stay tuned - ESPECIALLY during the election season.

Don't worry either, you may comment without reservation or registration on TheWALL.

D.R.O.P. - IN THE BUCKET ?

If you were to read the Sunday Trib article you may have concluded that the district was eliminating the Deferred Retirement Option Program.

It's not. It is however halting the practice of extending the program from 5 years to 7 years.

You'll have to "go out" in 5 years.

Considering the current state of the economy this strategy will allow the district to recruit new blood sooner. Is this a good move for our students?

Will administrators and deputy superintendents be included?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING:

To all who "visit" TheWALL.

A DISTURBING TREND

The longer you're in HCPS the more obvious it is that any kind of questioning can cost you.

Suddenly you can end up floating, teaching an extra prep class (maybe even out of field), having some obnoxious duty, losing your preferred conference, having your lesson plans evaluated weekly, being evaluated early, observed often, sent to mind-numbing inservices, or termination.

The frequency of these incidents disturb me.

Maybe it's the way the district promotes from within. Golden boys and girls given a fast track into administration before they learn the people skills necessary to manage a faculty. Then when godfather or godmother call in favors their tenuous hold on their position makes them weak and compliant. Not the best qualities in a leader.

Doug Erwin was my clarion call. Bart Birdsall was a reminder. Now "goader" and "Tom".

This is why I will always remain Suzie.

Please follow both cases. It could, after all, be you.

CHRISTIAN THROW AWAYS

But Jean Clements, president of the local teachers union, noted that shopping malls, not churches, were filled on Good Friday last spring. "That was a skip day for the entire county," she said.

I'll bet Jean ( C.T.A. Prez) did no research at all - what churches did she even drive by? Not mine. Talk about a snide remark from someone who purportedly encourages diversity. I wonder if she counted how many kids were at the Fair or Strawberry Festival?

Jean? Do I count?

Is it any wonder that the district must call in a crisis team to help our kids deal with tragic deaths? I guess I'm getting to be one of those religious zealots who remembers her religion getting her through the bad times in school. Guidance counselors and psychologists were good for interest surveys and college screenings but everyone at my school knew to go to a higher authority for the really big things.

"Others felt Christian values were getting short shrift.

"If we're going to talk about all the religions, then where are the Christians and the Catholics?" asked Luis Perez, president of the union representing Hillsborough's bus drivers and other blue-collar workers. "Have they been invited into these meetings?"

Bingo! Luis Perez should teach a thing or two to Jean.

I'm ready to start reclaiming my culture's position - while recognizing my neighbor's. What the hell is so hard about that? Even Carol Kurdell should be able to draw a conclusion from the number of Good Friday '08 absences.

Figure out a 180 calendar, that's all the state will fund anyway. Parents should prepare for Good Friday.