Admissions Admission

I love admissions conferences with prospective families. I seem to find myself either impressed with parents' thoughtfulness and honesty or completely shocked by their absolute absence of tact and grace.

At today's conference we hosted a lovely family. They asked all the right questions, were able to clearly and succinctly tell me what they wanted, and established an excellent rapport with myself and our faculty. Although we currently don't have space for a new child in the fifth grade, I'll probably go completely out of my way to try to figure out how we can make a space for them here at our school.

I look forward to the next admissions conference. It may be a completely different experience, and if I'm lucky, it will be someone who shows up late, asks ridiculous questions, shares outright judgments, and makes outrageous demands. That's my favorite kind of meeting; and no, I'm not joking.

If I know anything about myself, it's that I revel in being able to pass judgment on ludicrous behavior. Sure, it's the kid who suffers in the end, but the drama surrounding a visit by unfit parents is downright intoxicating at times.

Pretty sick of me, don't you think?

The Depths of Denial

Today a young girl came to the office to get some ice for her head. She claimed one of the third grade boys hit her with a rock, and he didn't even say he was sorry. So I put my arm around her, marched her over to the third grade where we stood silently just inside the door frame. Slowly each member of the class took note of her standing there upset with her baggie full of ice dripping down her arm and forehead. Before too long the accused boy approached.

"What happened?" he incredulously asked.

His performance was so convincing I almost spun the little girl around to ask her if she was telling the truth. Luckily, the teacher approached to intervene. She began firmly lecturing the young boy and maintained that uncomfortable kind of eye contact only a seasoned teacher can deliver. Before I knew it, the boy started squirming in his spot and an apology came spilling forth.

I tell you Hollywood is missing out. Movies should cast mischievous eight year old boys like crazy, for they are some of the best actors I know.

Spring Fever

Spring fever is settling in, and I don't like it. Motivation drops to an annual low for everyone here at school. I know this sounds crazy, but I'm looking forward to working this summer while everyone else is on break. It's the only time of the year when I have the luxury of thinking outside of the box, on my own schedule. It's when my creativity shines. Too bad it comes at a time when there's no one else around to notice.

Email Woes

Although this situation occurred nearly two weeks ago, it is nevertheless too good not to document for posterity's sake.

As Headmaster, it is my esteemed duty to manage complaints. Fortunately, I don't have many, but when they arise, they almost always seem to come from the same three or four families.

I usually pride myself on being able to manage naysayers with respect, patience and diplomacy, but two weeks ago I damaged my record a bit. You see, I had spent the latter part of the day talking with a student who had a history of poor behavior, but who had in recent months improved dramatically. He experienced a small setback on this day, and I, along with his teacher, spoke with him about not backsliding any further. Case closed, or so I thought.

The next day I received a short, terse email from the boy's parents telling me they had learned he was sent to my office without their knowledge and based on the story they heard, we had no business chastising him.

I promptly composed an email to the boy's teacher to share the parents' dissatisfaction. I kept the entire email as professional as I could, but added that I would not tolerate this kind of accusatory tone from this family anymore. I clicked the "Send" button and as I waited for it to shoot away toward its intended target I noticed that the boy's parents' email address was hanging in the "To:" field! Before I could do anything, the email window vanished and it was delivered directly to the wrong address.

I freaked out. After a few minutes of pacing up and down the halls, I decided to call the family immediately, confess my mistake, read the email directly to them, and try to turn the whole matter into an opportunity to discuss what had become a lingering sense of animosity between this family and the school. Luckily, the conversation become just that, but I anguished over my idiotic mistake for days and days.

I love computers and could never imagine going back to life without email, but one thing this event taught me was to never hit "Send" before triple checking the recipients.

How's that for some nonsense?

My Treadmill Desk Fixation

I sit at my desk for 4 to 6 hours almost every day, and have done this ever since I began my job at school nearly two years ago. I love my office, but not my desk. It's low to the ground, small and generally an uncomfortable place to work. Needless to say with all this additional inactivity I've found myself gaining more and more weight and feeling more and more out of shape.

I've tried alot of different things to counteract the negative effects of sitting at my doggone desk, but thus far, none have succeeded. Surely something has to be better than dieting or adding a regimen of aerobic activity at the crack of dawn. So I began researching alternatives and have recently become fixated on a new idea inspired by the guy at www.treadmill-desk.com.

Being the type of person who regularly commits wholeheartedly to crazy ideas, I decided to jump in with both feet; in other words, I should be up and running by the end of next week. This should finally convince everyone at school that I am indeed absolutely crazy.

I'll keep you posted as to how it's going after it arrives and I get it installed.

Hopefully, walking 4 to 6 miles a day while working will do the trick and I'll be buff again just like when I was 20. Now if I could do something about my silvering hair and this darned receding hairline...

The Beginning

I've been a reader of blogs for quite some time, but it's not until now that I've finally gotten the guts to publish one myself. Perhaps it will prove to be a worthwhile effort.

Now, a little bit about myself:

• I am the principal of a lovely, small private elementary & middle school.
• I am married to a wonderful lady and have two sons, ages 5 and 7.
  
• I am an avid college football fan and pull for the South Carolina Gamecocks no matter how stinking bad they prove themselves to be.
• I am a Macintosh enthusiast, and have been using Macs either at home, school or at work since 1984.
• I like to fix stuff, especially things for which I have little knowledge and could easily bungle. Fortunately, most of the time I do a pretty darn good job if I do say so myself, but when I don't I'm usually very good at hiding the evidence.
  

So, is this information revealing enough? I hope so. Use these tidbits of information to freely psychoanalyze me as I reveal more about my random thoughts and behaviors over the course of the next few days, weeks and (hopefully) years as I continue posting away.