This School Leader Knows How to Grab Your Attention

School Administrator, Jan, 1999

Pitfalls of the P.A.

As always at dismissal time during his days as principal of Triton Junior-Senior High School in Burbon, Ind., Keith Spurgeon was on the public address system with some final announcements.

He intended to wish good luck to the boys' basketball team in its first sectional tournament game, but what he said was: "I hope everyone comes out tonight to help cheer our team on to a sexual victory." He made no attempt to correct himself and hoped no one would catch the slip-up. He shut off the P.A. system and rang the final bell.

As students scrambled for their buses, no one spoke a word to him. Spurgeon figured he had escaped embarrassment until a young man approached and said, "Mr. Spurgeon, I wasn't planning to go to the game tonight, but after that announcement, I'll be there."

Where's the Doc?

When Tracy Miller was the principal of Stockton Elementary School in Cherry Hill, N.J., his office was located adjacent to the nurse's work station.

One day, a 1" grader was brought in from the playground, where he'd fallen and scratched his knee. As he arrived, the boy shouted: "I don't want to see the nurse. I want to see the doctor."

The principal, known to all as "Dr. Miller" after earning his Ed.D., used the occasion to deliver a lesson about the various types of doctoral degrees.

Dress With the Rest

Principal William C. Brannon says his own life has been made much simpler each morning by the new voluntary dress code in place at the George J. Peters School in Cranston, R.I., where khaki and navy blue are the recommended colors this year.

"It's nice not having to figure out which shirt to wear," he says.

Modern Music

Following a student field trip to hear the symphony, Jim Mayse, then principal at Clive Elementary School in West Des Moines, Iowa, asked the music teacher how everything had gone.

"He said one of the students had really enjoyed that piece, Rap City in Blue."'

Rooted From School

During a mid-summer enrollment day at L'Ouverture Computer Magnet School in Wichita, Kan., Principal Howard Pitler asked parents to review and sign a statement describing the school district s zero tolerance for bringing weapons onto school property.

The mother of a new 1st-grade student tried to explain the strictness of the policy to her daughter: "This means that even if you bring a toy gun or a squirt gun to school for show and tell, Dr. Pitler will have to kick you out of school."

The little girl stood silently for a moment, considering the consequences. Then she asked: "Will Dr. Pitler really kick me out or will he just push me real hard?"

Quotes to Note

* "Today people ask their public schools to do what they used to ask their divine creator to do. That's a tall order ...

-- Jacqueline " Price, former director ot public information, Capistrano, Calif., Unified Schools

* "The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts."

-- C.S. Lewis, in The Abolition of Man, 1943

BOARD WATCH

(An occasional collection of unintentionally amusing and offbeat actions of state and local school boards and their members.)

Board Literacy

Should school board members be able to read and write?

In Louisiana, there's enough worry about this to warrant a legislative bill to require at least a high school diploma for board service.

A Republican legislator, concerned about the credibility of illiterate board members, managed to get his proposal through the state Senate's education committee last year before the bill was withdrawn.

A Stinky Policy

Add offensive odors to the list of policy matters demanding school board attention.

In Newport, Maine, earlier this year, board members adopted a proposal to "curb the freedom to be fragrant." The new policy means administrators must keep their noses attuned to odiferous perfumes and after-shaves on their campuses.

The measure applies now only to students, but the board may extend the fragrance ban to staff later.