I Really Don't Know What You're Going to Do

One of the many, many principals that we had (mostly bad), Principal Five was one of the special ones. She wasn't outright racist like Principle Four, but she was completely usless. This is what I wrote about Principal Five a few years ago:

Principal Five: After the disastrous P4, we thought that maybe the district would get a clue. They picked someone who was not bad in any of the same ways as P4, but was still bad. Example: My classroom wasn't cleaned and it was the last day that we had before school started, as P5 lived almost two hours away and wasn't coming in on the weekend. I told her that my classroom was still messy and dirty and there was no way it would be ready for kids on the first day of school. She looked at a space right past my head so that she wasn't looking me in the eye and said, "I really don't know what you're going to do," and walked off. She also had a limp-fish kind of handshake and a tendency to walk away when she knew you were trying to talk to her. She'd do that with kids, parents, and staff - just walk away like you weren't even there. She had completely ineffective discipline. I don't think I ever saw her smile.

I recently heard another story about a teacher who came from across the country to teach at our school. She was allowed in her classroom the day before school as well. She, naturally asked the principal to show her the classroom. The principal's response? "I'm busy." Wow. Way to build staff community.

Five years ago: Roving Classrooms (Or: New Teacher Hazing)
Kids Say the Weirdest Things

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