Everyone knows it’s Wendy
Goofy and weird. Admins, good, bad and points in between, working my way backward in the tall, yet true, tales of principals past.
In the years 2018 to 2020, yes the spring of 2020 right at the start of covid lockdown I worked as STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) Teacher in a charter school in the East Metro of the Twin Cities.
Another Admin in the parade of good, bad and otherwise, let’s call her “Wendy”, a nice person on the Minnesota Nice spectrum and she let me run the STEAM program the way I wanted to. Full autonomy is rare in education and it was great to have freedom to tap into my creative side. I used my experience from years as a STEM teacher in Minneapolis Public. I’m proud of the fun, engaging program I built. I got lots of positive feedback from students and families, to a degree that the school maybe had not seen before.
Check the Sphero Robot swimming pool!
Wendy let me construct a large plastic lined container filled with water. Kids experimented with racing the swimmable, waterproof robots, engineering attachable paddle systems, designing aqua obstacle courses and more. Lots of great engineering and tech play going on. Big learning fun!
I realized later that the reason Wendy let me run things the way I wanted was that the school wanted and touted the STEAM program but had little idea how to create one. The STEAM teacher before was not successful. With my experience I delivered a winner.
Another thing I liked about the school is they used an effective behavior management system. Expectations explained clearly, clear progression of consequences, everyone on board., consistent follow through. If a student, after a couple of calm verbal warnings, continued with bad choices I could call the Dean of Students. The staff member would come right down and remove the student. The student was not allowed back into the room until we had a meeting to review the behavior, plan for a different behavior choice and a logical consequence, like an apology to me and the class. The plan was followed consistently.
I don’t think this approach would work in a bigger school and one with fewer staff resources and a higher degree of disruptive behaviors.
Front and center of this school was the individualized, self-paced online program, Summit. Students spent a good portion of their day with screen time of lessons, readings, instructional and interactive videos and quizzes. This I think worked well with a few kids but most didn’t like it and didn’t find it very engaging. I know because they used to talk about it during STEAM class when we played with robots, created stop motion video art, built model wind turbines and played with flying toys and rockets among other STEAM excellence.
Screen Time with Summit. All Day Every Day.
On the con list was the Touchy Feelyness of the school culture. Not everyone is wired like that. There was a Kumbaya youth ministry feel to the place. Lots of faculty meeting time was devoted to Circle Time. We all “Circled Up”, passed the talking totem and took turns speaking our truths. I went along with it. You could say any old thing that sounded sincere and the faculty and Wendy would nod their heads and be like, “Yeah that’s right!” Fine, if you are in group therapy but most grown ass adults don’t need that. An aside: how about inserting one ass per paragraph in the remainder of this piece? There were many students academically far behind, eighth graders that could barely read or write a complete sentence. Why wasn’t time being spent addressing that problem? That was my silent thought and Circle Time was so easy to poke fun at but, I played nice.
Wendy and the staff were very enthusiastic about goofy games. Like they were stuck in junior high mode and insisted that everyone go along to the point of almost toxic positivity. I drew the line when they asked me to participate in a game performed in front of the students. They wanted me to compete against another teacher in using a straw to vacuum an M&M and transfer it to another container. Most candies moved in a minute wins. The game was identified in communication to the school community as “Suck It.” I kid you not. Nope, I told them I, a grown ass man, ain’t playing no game called frigging “Suck It”. Wendy had no clue how that was inappropriate. Silly faculty virtual yearbook was also a thing. Everyone posted pictures from childhood and high school in a Canva yearbook template page and wrote “Most Likely To etc.” cutesy entries. Everyone shared at a meeting and got giggly. Team building.
Wendy also seemed unaware how unhealthy, physically, the building was. My classroom was in a windowless, converted church basement. Every time it rained, water would stream down the walls, flooding the room. I also discovered that there was heating and cooling coming in but no exit. In other words no air circulation. There was mold behind the wooden pegboard mounted over cinder block walls. Very unhealthy atmosphere for children and staff. Brought to Wendy’s attention she put on a shocked face and went into her “listening” mode. You got heard but felt that 10 or 20 percent of her was looking past you. Halfway through my first year the foundation had to be dug up, with jackhammers, to repair rotten ass concrete from all the moisture. A film of concrete dust that made children sneeze remained and never went away.
One thing Wendy did well was throw staff parties. The Christmas staff party at her house was epic. Copious amounts of alcohol, silly ass hats, party games, gambling games and a riotous Secret Santa White Elephantesque exchange activity in which the rules allowed for stealing gifts. Tipsy teachers and para educators getting actually upset at losing their scented candle or sexy set of shot glasses. So sad you got the handmade tree decoration instead. I remember getting a crafty tree decoration and making a joke about it as loose golden glitter embedded itself into my clothes and hair. Turned out the elderly music teacher lady who created that tacky ass shit (note the extra ass) had put a lot of thought into the gift and was offended.
I heard some gossip that at a recent party, Wendy’s realtor boyfriend made a pass at one of the lady teachers. Big ass scandal, but you know it always felt like her parties were only a couple of extra drinkiepoos away from some salacious suburban swinging.
So, some ok and some bad admin action from Wendy.
School year 2019 – 20 didn’t end that great. We, like very school, went to virtual learning. Wendy decided we needed an end of the year community event. She came up with families driving through the parking lot, staying in cars and staff saying so long for now see you next year good job! from a social distance while returning textbooks, report cards and student work. A send off. Except families and staff did not follow the six-foot protocol that Wendy assured us all would be strictly enforced. This was before any vaccines. The few of us who took covid seriously were very uncomfortable. My daughter was there that day, with me to help station the STEAM table in the parking lot. She got covid and was pretty sick and had to quarantine. That was scary and I’m still very unhappy that Wendy ignored the safety of my family.
Stupid ass.