I Miss Prom

As a 15 year-old, high school freshman, I sat in an older friend's car trying to determine if I was supposed to wear a cummerbund with my vest or not. Both items had been in the package of my rental tux and my pride had gotten in the way of me asking an adult what I was supposed to do, so I put on both. I'm sure it looked as uncomfortable as I felt. I decided to ditch the cummerbund as she and I got out of her car for dinner. Years later, my mom would joke that she should have purchased me a tuxedo because it would have been less expensive than renting one (or more) every year to go to a prom or other formal dance. Fast forward twenty-some years, and I still enjoy the prom.

In conversations this week with friends, I mentioned that our prom should have been this past Thursday night. Someone joked with me saying, "I bet you don't miss that right now though!" As an adult, your outside view of a high school principal's job at the prom is to get everyone to behave. And while our students are always at the forefront of my mind that evening, it's not for the same reason that they thought. I do not worry about them dancing too close. Teenagers have always danced too close. I do not worry about those that choose to party that evening. I worry about them being safe. I do not worry about them getting pressured into bad situations. I worry if they will have the strength to say no to them. And I do not worry about prom in general. I enjoy the fact that these young people are quickly becoming adults and this evening serves as a "student-driver" trial at adulthood.

Our students are not rich. Some live much more comfortably than others, but a short drive outside of

our region quickly levels any financial advantage that they may have. But on the evening of prom, a poor kid can get to pretend that they are a wealthy adult. And for teenage boys and girls alike, something magical happens. For that night, the world has somehow stopped the problems of poverty and class as dance floors fill with the collective heartbeats of young people embracing an evening of looking and feeling their best. Perhaps that is why we have never had many problems on prom night at our school. The elation and appreciation of the moment overrides the opportunity for nefarious plans. While I love that about our kids, it still won't stop me from worrying that they all get home safely.

This year I miss prom. Not for the tuxedos or finger food. Not for the pictures or the dancing. I miss the prom for the experience. I miss the faces of girls excited at how pretty they are and boys trying to look like they are the coolest guy on Earth. Even if he's wearing a cummerbund under his vest. I really hope we get the chance to give them a prom somehow. We all deserve it.

White Rabbit

In the world of education, we often feel like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. We are always hustling to meet some deadline, rushing to a duty station at lunch or professional development on our planning periods, or sometimes even to the bathroom when our bodies don't always line up with school bells. Personally, I had hit the funk of March just before COVID-19 hit us. I was discouraged and I found it tough to try to maintain my usually cheerful disposition. Literally overnight, I watched you all go into action with our school community. My usual request for documenting parent contact became a joke of the past. Our problems of student conflict or lack of parent support were gone. But for many educators, the first two weeks of the COVID-19 school shutdown put us into a time panic. How will we finish our content now? Will they move the state test? How can I get kids to learn this stuff at home?! The hustle of the regular school day had stopped but the minds of educators everywhere went into White Rabbit mode. And on Monday, that changed.

With the Governor's announcement that our school year would be delayed until at least May 15th, our minds shifted. For once, educators now have too much time on their hands. We had nowhere to rush to or no quick deadlines to meet. And from where I sit, I saw something very interesting happen. When you give educators time, they don't shut their brains off. Instead, that brainpower turned into innovation. I have seen so many of you figure out solutions to helping students, use new tech tools together in VERY interesting ways, and take the time to be purposeful in what and how you plan to teach next year and beyond. When the White Rabbits of our school stopped running, it seems that they had a lot of good things to say and do.

If I haven't said it enough, I'm going to say it again now. Thank you. Thank you all for rushing when you need to, but also for keeping that mentality to do the very best job that you can do, despite whatever life throws your way. While the homeschool memes make light of the struggles of parents to do your job at home, the reality is that everyone in America woke up and realized that being a teacher is hard work. This is your time to shine. And not because of what they can't do at home, but because of what you keep trying to do while they are there. Good job White Rabbits.

Voting Behavior

My absolute favorite class in my undergraduate degree at ECU was called Voting Behavior. The class fell under one of my political science requirements and we spent the semester studying why people vote the way that they do and what influences a person's vote to change. The class mixed a bit of history, a bit of psychology and a lot of data. I was hooked from day one. So much of this class has influenced my natural interest in social studies and politics. The class taught me to look for my own natural biases and to challenge my thoughts and feelings about a candidate that had nothing to do with issues that affect us. Since then, I have never been one to support a candidate simply based on party affiliation.

My work with the Greene County Board of Elections allows me to try to use that unbiased viewpoint to get more people out to vote. That job can be pretty frustrating at times though. Despite our best efforts, turnout for this week's primary was only at 34% of registered voters. And while it may be easy to write that off as people simply not caring enough to vote, that's not always the case. You would be amazed at the phone calls and questions that we get about voting that come from completely false misconceptions. This week, several people asked if they voted in the primary would it keep them from being able to vote in November. And if you hear that once, it's funny, but when you hear it multiple times, it becomes concerning. It's all proof that education matters and that we always need to reinforce civic responsibility at every grade level.

While that issue of voting left me frustrated and confused, another vote made me quite happy. This week's nominations for Teacher of the Year warmed my heart. To keep outside people from voting and to keep people from voting twice, your email address is recorded in Google Docs. (Sorry, it's not a real secret ballot). Only I get to see who nominates whom. Despite past professional disagreements between teachers or the fact that some teachers work all the way across the building from one another, many of you nominated other teachers because you recognize professionalism and dedication to student learning. Your voting behavior in this event restores my faith in the system. Thanks so much for acknowledging the great work that you see in one another. I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing who will represent us this year.

You Better Vote

One of the more interesting things that I learned on my trip to Peru earlier this year had nothing to do with the culture or education system. I was talking with our tour guide about their political structure. Like many Latin American countries, Peru has struggled with government corruption in the past. When I asked him about the process now and how elections work, I got a very interesting answer. In Peru, you are fined as a citizen if you do not vote. The fine isn't very steep and equates to about $25, but the fact that they place that much importance on voting impressed me.

As a social studies teacher, I always stressed the importance of voting to my students. Ultimately, we all want informed voters, not just voters. I had a running joke in my class that went like this: "The great thing about America is that everyone can vote. The problem with America is that everyone can vote." In a democratic society, each of our votes counts the same, even when we might think that they should not. Despite the ease and availability of voting, we seem to have low voter turnouts. Just four years ago, we participated in a primary election similar in importance to the one we face this Tuesday. In North Carolina, less than 36% of registered voters participated in the election. Even in the all-important Presidental election that November, only about two-thirds of registered voters participated.

While we place much higher importance on large, federal elections, the local and state offices probably impact our daily lives more than we suspect. The current primary election offers you a chance to select your candidate for offices such as our state legislature (they control your job and your paycheck), State Superintendent (they control many aspects of your job), Governor (they sign laws relating to education including budget) and many others that impact your life in and out of school. If you live in Greene County, you can also vote to select our local Board of Education. (We have two open positions!) If you want to see what all is on your ballot, I suggest using this site: https://ballotpedia.org/North_Carolina_elections,_2020.

I often have people ask me who I think they should vote for in local elections, but due to my position on the county Board of Elections, I cannot endorse or oppose any candidate. What I can tell you is that I want to see you vote. In an ever-increasing time of political polarity, I strongly feel that most non-voters are people in the middle of the political spectrum. Most people are not 100% liberal or conservative. People that don't vote usually don't feel excited about a candidate or the process because they can't personally identify with a candidate. But if you don't vote, you are allowing someone else's political identity and personal values to speak for you. Chances are, that doesn't always match what you believe or doesn't always give you the best possible scenario for your life and your profession.

So this week's message is simple. GO VOTE! (If you haven't done so already). And more than that, take a few minutes to do your homework. (That's what we tell our kids, right?) The next few years of our lives are counting on you.

The Bathroom Wall

We managed to squeeze a lot of work and emotion into an otherwise very short school week. While starting the week on a teacher workday sounds relaxing to most, I had the cloud hanging over me of a threat written on a bathroom wall. I'm here to tell you that there is no specific training or plan for how to handle events like this one. All you can do is try to get as much knowledge on the event as you can and make the best decision that you can for the people that are under your care. Before I sent out my statement, I couldn't help but hang my head. I knew full and well that the critics would come out of everywhere. You have to have thick skin as a school administrator. There are parents and community members that don't always agree with you, teachers and students that sometimes see things in a different way, and news media that would love nothing more than to turn your misfortune into increased ratings. I knew that this would be tough and I woke up Tuesday morning at 2:45 am, with my mind full of questions and thoughts on the day.

With events that put schools in fear, you have no choice but to respond. But what happens after that day? I remembered back to my first year at Greene Central. My arrival at the school wasn't pleasant for everyone and we had a student that continued to express his distaste in me by writing it on a bathroom wall. "F*** Mr. Greene" was the common phrase and it was always in the same spot. The custodian asked me if I wanted him to shut down the bathroom to keep it from happening. My response then is my response now. "We don't tear down the school for a little bit of writing on a bathroom wall. We paint over it and move on."

While the "writing on the wall" this week won't make me fear students or redirect all students into policies based on fear, it did remind me that the most powerful thing about our school is the culture that we have developed among students, staff and our community. While I expected backlash about public schools being unsafe (and we got a little of that), what I saw much more were prayers for our safety and encouraging words from graduates. It reminded me that we found out about the writing because of relationships we had with students that cared enough to speak up. It reminded me to focus on continuing to invest in those relationships. I needed to get back to talking to kids more and to having fun with them as young people. And that's exactly what I tried to spend the rest of the week doing.

So while I wouldn't wish a threat of violence on any school or any student, I will say that my reflection on this week's event taught me to refocus my priorities. As administrators, it's easy to get caught up in data, policies, problems, and timelines. But absolutely no one remembers those things about their school experience. The reason that we open school every year, fully staffed with quality teachers and students ready to be back is because of how those groups feel about the place that they spend 8 or more hours each day. When you remember that schools are places with people and when you care about them as people, you can turn around a bad week pretty quickly.

Inadequate

It's Saturday morning and I'm sitting in an empty lecture hall that I once sat in for undergraduate history classes at ECU. I'm here because my daughter, Rylee, is taking the ACT as a part of the Duke TIP program for AIG students. When I took Rylee to the room, I saw a few other 7th graders there for the same reason. Most of them looked terrified at the thought of the four-hour test that was about to take place. I had tried to take some time to coach Rylee on what the test looked like and even had some help from a couple of our teachers that taught our ACT prep classes. I know that I couldn't teach her all of the skills needed to score well in just a few weeks, but I could make her feel a little more comfortable about it.

When I walked out, I saw the high school-aged students walking in to take their seats in the same room. I chuckled to myself. Can you imagine the thoughts that they had when they walked in and saw several 12-year-olds sitting in the room? Here they are, probably taking the test for at least the second time, to improve a score and try to get into their college of choice. They walk into the room and see young kids that they probably assume to be brilliant minds going into college way younger than them. Both the 12-year-olds and the high schoolers only have their own frame of reference to consider and both enter the room feeling inadequate.

Last week I watched a video of a fight that began in the gym before school. What started as a play-fight led to one of the boys getting the best of another. That boy let his feelings of inadequacy get the best of him and it turned into a real fight. Others saw and joined in. It's an all too common story. Students engage in bad behaviors because they feel inadequate in class or fear looking inadequate to their peers. It's a powerful feeling that causes some to withdraw and others to lash out and in some way, we have all been there. Even as I sat in my first doctorate classes, I wondered for a moment if I was as smart as everyone else, or if my writing was up to par. The feeling of self-doubt can be tough to get over, but if you do, something amazing can happen.

Later this week I was about to suspend a young lady that was escalating a confrontation through a group chat. (Unfortunately, policing messages has become a school responsibility.) As we spoke, I understood that her actions stemmed from her own self-doubt and I had an idea. I offered her a chance to admit her transgressions back in the same group message over a traditional disciplinary action. While it had been easy for her to lash out publicly, it was painful for her to admit her wrongdoings in the same group. But when she did, she instantly looked different. It was over and she moved on and so did the conflict among the group.

Too often our fears of inadequacy paralyze our best intentions. We fear standing out in our group or to be different from the norm. We fear failure so we marginalize ourselves. But if we want better students and more student leaders, then we all have to be examples of stepping away from that and we have to tell that story to them. Whenever we feel inadequate, we assume that we are the only ones in the world that feel that way, but we're not. We never are. Dealing with that feeling is empowering and just like everything else that we do, it's something that can be taught. Don't be afraid...go teach it.

Inexperienced

This week I have been away from school at the annual NC School Administrator's conference. This conference gives administrators a chance to learn from each other, hear from some great speakers and also to network and talk with everyone outside of a principal's meeting or state meeting. Inevitably, you start swapping stories with people about crazy things that happen in schools. Sharing these stories this year started to make me realize that I am at the point where I can probably call myself experienced in my role. That's a strange feeling for me. I started as an assistant principal at 26 years old. I was a head principal for the first time at 29. At that age, it's tough to say that I was experienced in anything related to my career. At that time, I found myself frustrated by how young I was and how I sometimes felt alienated by my age. My dad often reassured me that no one takes you seriously until you are 40. So according to him, I'm still not experienced yet I guess.

At our conference, we heard from Steve Ventura on the topic of student-centered leadership. One of his statements quickly caught my attention. The statement was, "Experience doesn't count for expertise." That statement is probably not the way that we think of education. We often equate experience in the classroom with expertise. Those teachers and administrators that have been around the longest, certainly most have seen it all and they must know what to do. But the problem is that schools today are not the schools of just a few years ago. The experience of what may have worked a while back could very well be useless with today's students, classrooms, environments, curriculums, assessments and everything else. That's precisely why we have to become lifelong learners in this profession.

The one thing that my lack of experience taught me was that I had to work hard to prove myself and to do that, I had to learn what I was talking about. Every year we see this with beginning teachers and experienced ones that step out on a limb and try something new. That lack of experience causes them to learn and those that put in the work, gain expertise. So whether this is your 1st or 31st year in your roll, attack it with the same attitude of wanting desperately to become an expert in your field. It's the learning, not the time that gets you there.