Laces loose? Better tie them yourself - Leadership Lite - school humor

School Administrator, August, 2002

First Things First

When he was superintendent in St. Lucie County, Fla., David Mosrie liked to visit kindergarten classes on the first day of school. In one class, a little boy rushed over and plopped his untied shoe into the superintendent's lap, much to his teacher's dismay.

"You're in kindergarten now. Don't you think it's time you learned to tie your own shoe?" Mosrie asked the little boy.

With a look of disgust, the 5-year-old answered, "What do you think I'm here for?"

Can They Fix a Lightbulb?

Before a meeting in Idaho Falls, Idaho, School District 91, two administrators were trying to figure out how to hook up a video monitor while a third administrator stood nearby with a plate of cut-up vegetables.

Looking upon the scene, a central-office staff member came away wondering: How many administrators does it take to hook up a monitor?

Three, she reasoned. Two to figure out the technology and one to serve the refreshments.

(Source: Chris Wood, public information officer, Idaho Falls School District 91)

One Wild Ride

Secondary school students in Circleville, W.Va., have this daily adventure each morning:

They board a bus and head down the North Fork Valley, turning on Route 33 for the trip through Judy Gap and Bland Hills, up North Mountain, passing through the shadow of Harmon Rocks at more than 4,000 feet. Then it's down through the Monongahela National Forest and along Friends Run, through the notch between Peters and Castle Mountains, then the notch between Cedar Knob and Bible Knob, finally emerging in the South Fork Valley and the town of Franklin, where they go to school.

The trip runs 17 miles and takes about 40 minutes when the roads are clear.

(Source: The Rural School and Community Trust)

Essential Transportation

"What a way to start (a new school year)."

-- Gary Rye, superintendent in Dayton, Ky., on the need to run a "bathroom bus" regularly between the district office and an elementary school serving 700 pupils after a water-main break made the school's restrooms inoperable.

Bumpy Work

On its list of emerging vocations, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics lists "school bus monitor."

Lessons To Go

Greg Gathright of Huntsville, Texas, likes to think of himself as a roads scholar.

A certified superintendent, Gathright works in the private sector but keeps his hand in education by teaching a graduate-level research course at his local university and a music appreciation course to inmates of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

While the university reimburses him for mileage, the prison system does not. Gathright figures he puts 25,000 miles on his car relating to his teaching duties over the year.

Salty Celebrations

School administrators in Rockford, Ill., rued any day when their high school basketball teams hosted neighboring Freeport. And it wasn't because they feared the opponent.

Because Freeport's nickname is The Pretzels, Rockford students often would bring out jumbo bags of pretzels to their pep rallies, where they would madly stomp the bags on the gymnasium floor, leaving it littered with crumbs and forcing custodial overtime for cleanup.

"Their administrative team loved it when we came to town," said Mike Anderson, a former assistant superintendent in Freeport.

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 22209-1813. Fax: 703-528-21 46. E-mail: magazine@nasa.org. Upon request, names may be withheld in print.