She's an Angel...

Thus spoke a number of former colleagues. Hold onto your hats. I'm talking about a Leadership Academy Principal.

I was in Williamsburg Wednesday where I left my car on the way to Yankee Stadium and decided to pop into a few schools to see some friends. I started with the school where I spent most of my 35 years in the system.

Now I won't go into the full history. Only the abridged version. I'm saving the real goodies for my novel.

I arrived in 1970 (after 3 years at another school) just as a powerful traditional principal of the old school was leaving. He was replaced by a long-time AP and teacher at the school, with the assistance of an AP who also came up the traditional way.

These guys were pretty open to listening to teachers so we pretty much did as we wanted.

In 1975 someone politically connected with little teaching experience was inserted as an AP and we knew things would change. She immediately leaped over the long-time AP when in late 1978 the district pulled a coup d'etat that made her principal, dumping the long-time AP into another school and forcing the old principal to retire (they locked him in a room at the district office and didn't let him pee). Thus we got an early taste of a non-educator running a school, which she did for a quarter of a century.

She imposed a data driven, high stakes testing system and we saw the impact. The school scores rose, but the kids knew no more and their lives were impacted not at all. Thus an early lesson in achievement gap bullshit.

She was forced into retirement not long after the BloomKlein takeover when 4 districts with different cultures were made into one region. They sent a principal from district 16. Her first act upon the start of the year was to make every teacher change rooms - apparently an old D.16 tactic to show people who was boss. She left for an admin position after one year.

Then came the Leadership Academy principal from hell. Rubber rooms, attacks on teachers, irrational decisions. The school's scores rose to the top and she got A after A (her husband worked for Bloomberg). Lots of people left, including a core of excellent teachers, many of whom went to other schools in the district where tales of the Lead Acad horror story spread.

Last summer she went on to bring her light and cheer to some very lucky school in New Jersey. Call it passing the Klein lemons.

Lots of cheering for the wicked witch being gone. But---another Leadership Acad principal who looks all of 29 years old takes her place.

We've heard plenty of stories of these hot shots who come in and think they know everything and attack, attack, attack.

But reports immediately start filtering out this one is different. Nice. And open. And welcoming. A friend who had built a serious library out of nothing but left due to you know who, was invited back for the opening of a brand new library and was raving - about the library and the principal.

So I went to see for myself. As I ran into former colleagues almost all of them were smiling, as if they had been liberated from a prisoner of war camp. One said she was going to leave on the day she was eligible for retirement without telling anyone, but was now going to stay. She can do the work of 5 people if properly motivated. Sometimes a "please" or "thank you" is all it takes.

Another colleague told me that test scores were down, but they were more realistic and there was no hysteria. The school had been so divided and tense before. But now she felt people would all be pulling together.

I was escorted into the Principal's office. Maybe she was 29. I introduced myself as a 27 year school vet and said "I have been hearing nice things about you."

"Well, you can stop by anytime," she smiled as she shook my hand. (Her predecessor would not even acknowledge me when she saw me and rebuffed any effort to assist.)

We chatted for about 30 seconds and before I knew it I was volunteering to help out in some way. "Do you want to work F-status," she asked? "No, I'll just stick to volunteering," I said. I told her about FIRST LEGO League and she knew all about it.

Well, what is the moral of this tale? From the coup d'etat in 1978 until Sept. 2008 when this new principal took over, the school had never experienced complete peace. Though the gal who took over in '78 eventually calmed down a bit, it was always her way no matter how dumb and irrational her decisions were. So this may be the first time in 30 years with a somewhat humanist principal. I have no idea what she knows, but she seems to know at least how to treat people with respect.

I know things can turn, especially if the scores don't move. This school may be one of the few places where people will fight like hell to keep their principal.

Curb Principal Power

From a public school teacher:

My principal would not let a visiting family view the pre-k rooms for no reason and when asked about the curriculum, could not articulate what we do! Needless to say that family said they didn't think this school was for them. It was a family who is part of the gentrification in the neighborhood. We lost a chance at some diversity.

I have heard from other teachers anxious to see more families diversify their public school. Many dictatorial principals fear outspoken, activist parents who might raise questions just as the don't want older experienced teachers who might question their fiats.

One of the major failures of BloomKlein has been the handing over of total power over schools to principals and the weakening of the union which served as a check and balance. We need checks and balances in schools, not only in a system of mayoral control.

Suzane Joseph – MS 313K

Today's Worst Principal of the Day

Can School Administrators Be Accused of Murder...

....if a teacher dies and stress from harrassment can be shown to be a factor?

A guidance councellor who has been under severe attack by administrators at Bayard Rustin Educational Complex in Manhattan collapsed and died of a heart attack at the school's end term party. If you are going to go, what a way to go. Make some people think about rotting in hell.

A union with a bit of aggression would put together a portfolio of what has been done to her and charge adminstrators involved with homicide, if just to make a point.

WANTED!!!

My Own Despot

I worked for what I would call a semi-despot in that she wanted everything her own way - contract be damned. Not an educator in the sense of ever having taught much at all, but a political appointee - yes we had them in the 70's – she also never letters in the file or looked to cost someone their job. If you were sick she went all the way to support you (she would be vilified by Kleinites today for things like that.) Her dad was a fireman and she believed in unions - as long as they didn't interfere with her.

There were also lots of abuses - like favors for those who "cooperated" the unfairness of which used to drive people wild.

Really, a complex person who had a lot of good to go with the bad. It was her way or the highway and she was relentless in getting her way. Most of us had to stand by and watch the dumbest educational decisions being made and enormous sums of money wasted. We even had those practice high stakes tests Klein is pushing backin the 90's (without Aris).

When I became chapter leader, I saw it as my job to make the school a more democratic place to work, with a lot more transparency and the enforcement of teachers' rights. I was not a grievance nut and in fact filed maybe one of two in my 3 active years on the job. That was mostly due to teachers not wanting to deal with the relentless retaliation that would result. I bore a bunch of it but used my chapter leader newspaper (the predecessor to Ed Notes) very effectively to provide information to the members about what was going on. The paper (including jokes) was read by everyone, including parents. She would go to principal meetings and say she had the chapter leader from hell. I tell people all the time - publish, publish, publish. It is the most effective way to fight them. Even say good things sometimes. And keep them confused and on the defensive.

Since they couldn't go after me on my teaching, they went after my computer program, which I had built from scratch. Finding that most of my colleagues did not have the stomach for a prolonged struggle, I took a district tech job offer when it came, to which my principal celebrated with this statement to my new boss, "My car was stolen today, but this makes up for it."

Funny thing is, I was assigned to cover the school for tech support and once I was no longer teaching there, she greeted me with a kiss and a hug when I came around. And even gave me money for Ed Notes (which began life as a weekly school chapter report focused on her leadership. When I see her I call her the mother of Ed Notes.

Believe me, most teachers who worked for her would take her over 80% of the principals we hear about today (her Leadership Academy replacement is despised). She wanted her way but backed teachers (even me when I had an incident with a kid) 100%.

After what I hear today, if I saw her I would give her a big hug. And so would most of my former colleagues.

Back Issues- Angelet on Rampage

Here are some links to backdated articles that I just posted:

Ding Dong at Bayard Rustin Ed Complex - Principal John Angelet is leaving.
But even though he's a lame duck, he is hell bent on taking people with him. He is on a rampage and this wouldn't have happened if he had been removed when he was supposed to a few weeks ago. The UFT needs to make a big stink over this. Here's a bitter guy who was forced out but is exacting revenge. All his actions against teachers from the point he announced he is leaving should be declared null and void.


Race on the Table - Globally and Locally. Excerpt from my Wave column from April 4, 2008.
I address some of the Obama/race stuff and also a local issue at PS 106 in Rockaway where the PTA president wrote a piece in the Wave raising issues about white teacher attitudes towards kids of color. You can track the full PS 106 story by clicking on the link in the sidebar.

The Rising Costs of Health Care and NYC Union Contracts - forum April 22. Chapter Leader John Powers will be one of the speakers. John and his colleagues have been on the case of the GHI/HIP merger and has pressured the UFT to provide more info. ICE has joined in with John for support.

Ding Dong at Bayard Rustin Ed Complex

Principal John Angelet of the Bayard Rustin Educational Complex, a man publicly called an a-hole by Randi Weingarten, has resigned and will be leaving this June. Word is the UFT was on the case for a logn time but whether their pressure made a difference is not clear. Angelet was protected through thick and thin by Tweed. They will send a teacher to the rubber room for yelling at a principal but a principal can say and do anything and get away with it. Some words from teachers in the trenches:

John Angelet has inflicted harm upon excellent Teachers, Counselors, and other UFT members for almost 4 years now as Principal. He has destroyed careers, lives and caused an excessive amount of stress for all who work for him. The morale at this school is non-existent. UFT members have resorted to a "survival" mentality even if it means hurting another UFT member. John Angelet has destroyed this school, yet we still have not received our report card grade and despite numberous acts of violence committed in and outside of school, rumours of grade-changing and Regents scrubbing and an abysmal attendance record for all students, he continues to be Principal, he continues to go after those he wants to exact his irrational rage upon and he will not stop until that person is robbed of their livelihood. I have been going through this for three years and it has got to stop. I know Principals that have been removed for less, yet John Angelet is left to terrorize his staff. The events at this school are being widely publicized, the most recent being a condemning, but accurate, article in Chelsea Now.

Mr. Angelet continues to retain his job while others are powerless to save their own. We have an Assistant Principal of Guidance, Jacqueline Serna, who left her previous school, Urban Peace Academy, under allegations of misconduct.... Still she is allowed to observe and U rate Counselors who work very, very hard and have given years to this system. Urban Peace Academy is another casualty of the BloomKlein regime, yet the very people that caused its demise are simply placed in other schools instead of the rubber room, where John Angelet is assigning people at an alarming rate. The UFT has to respond to this and demand why this incompetent, possibly emotionally disturbed individual is being allowed to run this school.

John Angelet must be removed before June and he SHOULD NOT be allowed to rate anyone considering he is himself incompetent. I have never met a more vindicative, cruel, sadistic individual in my entire life.

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