Another Sleepless Night

I promised myself not to check my school mail this weekend. I couldn't resist. Here's the story as short as I can make it:

An e-mail exchange with Principal Palpatine now has me cornered with promises I may or may not have made, based on misunderstandings from my last big meeting with her. She is now accusing me of ignoring the blatant needs of the students of *My School* in a long, detailed e-mail (full of twisted words, irrelevant information and misrepresentations) that she CCd to two of the top district brass (We're talking assistant superintendents).

However low I may have been on her radar... I have officially become front and center in her cross-hairs. My good friend (Former AP) Jeff tells me that I'm walking on glass, and that the road before me could *possibly* lead to dismissal if I'm not careful.

I am at least careful enough to refrain from responding immediately, if at all. I need to regroup (again) and plot ,my course much more carefully. My mistake this time was over-reacting to an e-mail that I should have just let go. Now I've forced the issue.

Pro: I still have my deartment chair and colleagues batting for me.

Con: Palpatine will try (probably successfully) to take them out of the equation. She managed to sneak my department chair's e-mail out of the reply boxes. I made sure they got forwarded.

Pro: My union rep is right there in the middle with me.

Con: The union rep's notes from the last meeting seem to favor Palpatine.

Pro: I am not unknown to the district brass. Not only have I done several high-profile performances in their presence, I've addressed them directly on more than one occasion at the board meetings. Several of them remember that I was the 2005 "Teacher of the Year" for the entire district.

Con: I don't know how much that will help

Pro: One of the school board members is a former band director. I've e-mailed him asking for his guidance, being that he knows both the music world, and the jungle that is school district politics. We are on VERY good terms. He's agreed to meet with me.

Con: I can NOT ask him to pull strings for me behind the scene. He's not even the representative for our part of the district. Regardless, it would be an exceedingly bad move on my part.

Pro: I haven't yet unleashed my considerable parent support.

Con: Jeff says it won't matter. Besides, the parents sometimes aggrivate rather than help the situation.

I have no idea how this week will unfold. One thing is for sure, I can not show my face up in the front office. I think I've also trippled the work I have to do this week. There WILL be another meeting... soon. I need to be ready. I think I'm going to have to cancel all my private lessons.

In any case, I've just spent most of the night awake, staring at the ceiling.