A Salesman's Life, Flying Pigs and Baby Brains

School Administrator, April, 1998

Same Real Beauties in This Lot

As if superintendents don't already wear enough hats, in North Carolina they've assumed one more: used car salesman.

Since a new state law went into effect Dec. 1, any motorist arrested for driving drunk on a license revoked for a previous drunken-driving conviction immediately forfeits the car, which becomes the property of the nearest school district. If the driver is convicted, the district can sell the car and pocket the proceeds.

The idea sounded like a convenient and noble tradeoff until school district leaders realized they were responsible for the towing, which is costing up to $125 a vehicle, and for creating and maintaining the car lot. The Guilford County School District, which had collected 51 cars during the first 51 days of the law, expects to spend $30,000 this year just to tow the vehicles and has assigned a former Marine to supervise the irritated souls showing up at the lot to look for their missing cars.

Quipped Sandra Frye, Guilford County Schools spokesperson: "We're now calling them our new type of customer."

And Cats Shall Bark

Setting: the waiting room of Principal Nan Spalding's office at Macdonald Intermediate School in Fort Knox, Ky.

Dramatis Personnae: Spalding and a 4th-grade boy in the midst of a routine temper tantrum, who is lying on the floor kicking and wailing.

Acton: Spalding asks the youngster indifferently (at least she hoped it appeared that way) when he planned to stop this behavior. "When pigs fly," he responded without hesitation.

Such creativity was not lost on a clever school staff member, who undoubtedly couldn't bear to hear another howl.

When Spalding arrived for the start of school the next day, several dozen little pink pigs with wings were suspended from the ceiling of her office.

Beethoven for the Brain

Can early exposure to music lead to future academic prowess?

Georgia Governor Zell Miller is convinced enough of the causal link that he asked the state legislature to provide enough funding for the parents of every baby born in his state to receive a free classical music cassette or compact disk. He's even arranged with the conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to select the classical music that he hopes will stimulate infants' brain development.

With 100,000 births a year in Georgia, the program would cost $105,000 annually.

Short humorous anecdotes, quips, quotations and malapropisms for this column relating to school district administration and school board governance should be addressed to: Editor, The School Administrator, 1801 N. Moore St., Arlington, Va. 22209. Fax: 703-528.2146. E-mail: jgoldman@aasa.org Upon request, names may be withheld in print.

BOARD WATCH

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

And Youth Shall Lead

Hopelessly deadlocked over who should serve as the next board president of Community School District 1 in lower Manhattan, the nine-member board recently elected a 21-year-old college senior to the leadership post.

In doing so, Joshua Tare, whose public school experience consisted of a couple of months at a neighborhood elementary school, surely becomes the nation's youngest school board president. District 1 has 9,000 elementary and middle school pupils.

"As a political science major," Tare told The New York Times, "this is the perfect way for me to get a hands-on experience."

Coming To Their Senses

When the superintendency in the tiny Fort Ann School District in northeastern New York became vacant, the self-confident, seven-member school board opted to dissolve the superintendent's post and divide up the duties among themselves.

What a great way to save taxpayers $72,000, they boasted. "We just don't feel we need one," clamored one board member to the Albany Times Union.

Six weeks later, board members had a new take on the situation. Tired of tending to the most minute details of running a school system, the board did an about face, elevating the lone principal in the 671-student district to the superintendent's job.

Passing On Their Dirty Work

After it fell one vote shy of doing the deed itself, the Nicholas County, Ky., school board asked the Kentucky state board of education to fire the district's superintendent.

Fearing they might be targeted for investigation by the state for malfeasance in overseeing the district's budget, a board majority felt inclined to take a drastic step.

Wayne Young, who directs the Kentucky Association of School Administrators, described the matter as "bizarre" in an interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader. He added: "If the board doesn't have the intestinal fortitude or the votes to say he's going to be fired, this is wrong."