The big news around our school this past week were stories about the seniors at the mothership campus in San Pedro going wild during a water balloon fight and breaking windows, tables, chairs and racking up around $10,000 in damage. According to rumors, there is school security camera footage of those involved. There are tales of balloons filled with beer and urine and of students tossing balloons at the school director as he tried to stop the vandalism.
Everyone had their views on what the school director should do. It was nice not being in the big chair when something like this happens. I was director of 2 schools and principal of one. I distinguish between the 2 positions in the following way - a principal reports to another person (school director) and a director reports to a Board. I had a couple of student expulsion issues evolve during my time as director, but never a whole class. I had a couple of management theories that I would use when I had the big seat. I'm not sure if they are real theories and can't remember where I picked them up. I don't think they would necessarily help the current school director with his problem, but as I am unloading the things I picked up during 35 years in the business, I'll share them here.
Theory #1: It is a Non-problem: Someone brings you what they suspect is or will soon be a problem. Your assessment is that it is not a problem unless you start addressing it as one. This happens a lot. The trick is how to ignore the assumed problem without upsetting or alienating those who think it is a problem. This leads to management theory #2.
Theory #2: Monkey Management : When someone brings you a problem, you think of the problem as a monkey they are bringing to you. Monkeys require a lot of care and can be very messy. You need to decide if this is rightfully your monkey that you need to take care of, is it a monkey you need to pet on the head and give back to the person who brought it to you, or is it a monkey that you need to assign to someone else to take care of. There are lots of other ways to think about the monkey, but hopefully you have the basic idea.
Back to the problem the current director is facing. It is a real problem. He can't just decide this was some playful mischief by 120 or so seniors and sweep the $10,000 into some part of the maintenance budget. It is his monkey. He needs to find a way to make it clearly visible that the senior class is responsible for cleaning up the monkey mess. It's tricky as most of them are finished with school and accepted to college, and the slap on the wrist that they can't graduate with their classmates is not going to upset them or convince those watching (which is the entire school community) that he properly handled the monkey. Too drastic a response which jeopardizes their future could land the school in legal problems and bring all sorts of new monkeys to town. I imagine there are Board members calling often with views on how to deal with the monkey. There is a certain serence pleasure in watching how this monkey is being handled from well outside the zoo.
My first instinct is that vandalism is a crime and they have the evidence in the form of video footage, yes? Parents want their kid to graduate, so I'd think that a little pressure from the authorities would help the monkey be taken care of???No???
ReplyDeleteThe issue is still not resolved. All parents were invited to a meeting night before last. When you start negatively altering the course of a student's life, the school could be taken to court for 'damages'. Although the school could eventually recover court costs, there are things the director needs to think about before calling in the police. 1)Power of the parents behind the students. 2) What is school policy regarding vandalism? 3)What precedence has the school established for dealing with vandalism? 4)To what extent is the school possibly responsible for the students actions (legal principle of "in loco parentis")? It has turned out that one teacher of the seniors refused to let the students leave his classroom. Why did the other teachers let them out? Now each one of these teachers could be held responsible. The director definitely wants to avoid getting the school tied up in a legal battle. That would be a drawn out lose-lose situation. Certainly many of the parents of students involved have friends on the school board. That is the group that is ultimately deciding any life changing decision.
ReplyDeleteContinues to be interesting watching this monkey scamper around the cage.
I had a long response to this, but website was down so it was lost. Comment went something like this: Calling the police won't put the monkey in the cage. Anything that negatively impacts the lives of a student could have legal ramifications that will keep that monkey free and frisky for a long time. The director would need to consider the following before involving the police: 1) What is school policy regarding vandalism? 2) What precedence has the school established in dealing with vandalism? 3) What is the school's responsibility for the students' actions? The school has the legal responsibility to act as the students' parents (legal concept of 'in loco parentis'). One teacher of seniors did not allow the students to leave his classroom. What responsibility do the other teachers have who allowed students to leave their room? 4) What sort of power do the parents of the students involved have? 5) What support will the director get from the Board if he calls police without Board approval? ...
ReplyDeleteThis monkey is not going to be easily put back in its cage.