Dear Parents

Just a suggestion: If you feel your son or daughter has had a negative experience in my class and you feel the need to communicate with me via e-mail (and by all means... please do!) You may want to open with simple questions or statements and then leave the ball in my court.

For example:

Dear Mr. Maestro - We have noticed that Petunia's grade in your class is currently a B. We don't understand how the grade is broken down, and would like to speak to you about how this can be improved.

Short, sweet and to the point. This, I can deal with.

Here's an example of what not to do:

Dear Mr. Maestro - We have noticed that Petunia's grade in your class is currently a B. This is very alarming to us. Since the first day of school, Petunia has told us how much she loves your class, and how much she looks forward to it. We hear her practicing her clarinet every day, and have been looking into private lessons....

(two paragraphs later)

.... has been her desire to make music since the second grade, when she picked up a recorder for the first time. Since then, every teacher has remarked about how musically inclined she is. We find it hard to believe that someone with her aptitude for music could possibly be penalized for....

(five paragraphs later)

...going back four generations of musicians in our family. In fact, our immigrant parents both insisted that music continue to be a part of the family values and education...

(further down the page... I stopped counting... and reading to be honest)

...unfair treatment of students of Eastern European descent, which our children have suffered continually ever since they were enrolled in this school system. It is frustrating and unfortunate that this society we live in cannot get past such petty....

(until finally)

Please contact us immediately so that we can prevent any further damage to Petunia's academic career.

Sincerely - Pavlo and Nadia Smalki (No... not real names)

Please do not think that I do not appreciate the eloquence (and stamina) it requires to pen such a thorough statement. It's just that I wouldn't want you to feel silly when I respond with:

Dear Pavlo and Nadia,

Thank you for your e-mail. My records indicate that Petunia has not turned in her student contract, found on the back of the syllabus, which (as I stated in the class e-mail in the first week) resulted in an 11% deduction from the September grade. Petunia may still turn in the contract for full credit. You can find a copy of it posted on the school web site.

Thank you for your time.

M.

Good Karma... I Love It!

So here I am with a new boss, a new baby and soon... a new house. All of it is awesome. The only down side is that the baby/house combination is about to send me into abject poverty. My wife anticipated having to borrow more money from family just so that we don't have to sleep on the floor.

Except that now we don't have to.... borrow money or sleep on the floor.

See folks... I'm a simple man. I have very simple creature comforts. I teach because I love teaching. I was never one to count beans, nor even keep track of where I stood on the pay scale. My wife is the finance major... she's the one who monitors that stuff. Well, in the face of mortgage payments and diaper bills, I decided it was time to figure out where I stood on the pay scale. So I called.

I felt like an idiot because... well, who in their right mind doesn't know (or seem to care) what their salary is? But the people at payroll were very nice. They told me. The only problem was, I wasn't as far over on the education columns as I thought. I got my master's degree some time ago and I figured that between that and my credential units, I was easily bumped over to the far-right column where the big bucks were. I was wrong. I was one column short.

What the hell?

Hmmm... well, If I wasn't in the high column, I figured I had to be close. So today I drove over to the district office to talk to the nice people in HR. I just wanted to know how many units I needed to get over into the last column. The nice lady at the front desk pulled my file and thumbed through it. After about 20 seconds of looking at my education/training sheet she said "Ummm... actually, you should be in the last column. I don't know why you aren't" So we went and consulted another clerk, who meticulously went through all of my paperwork and checked off, item by item, all the coursework that I did going back to the mid 90s. When all was said and done, they figured that I'd been on the wrong column since the 2003-2004 school year. I had turned all the paperwork in correctly, it was just never registered in the system.

Their mistake.

Now, another person might have gotten really upset at this point (and honestly, the clerk kept looking at me as if she was expecting me to blow a gasket). But I decided to hold off on a reaction until I asked the important question: "What does this mean for me?" The clerk looked at me, put her fingers together and made the "money" motion. My eyebrows nearly jumped off my face.

Am I pissed? No. Here's what I figure: I basically got by the last six years without it. Had my salary been correctly adjusted way-back-when, I'd probably have nothing to show for it today except a few more toys. But now, with a new child and a new house.... I'm about to be compensated for six years worth of the difference.

The timing couldn't be more perfect.

I've done some good things in this lifetime, but I don't know if any of it merited something like this. I must have been martyred in a previous life.

The Value of Trust

There's an amazing amount of trust that comes with certain things - allowing other people to handle your newborn child for instance. There's a flash in your mind of all the things that can go wrong... but you trust them anyway. It seems absurd... that brief mistrust of people you know well, even family. But it's your baby. And when you get him back in your arms, you feel all the better - for the trust rightfully given.

So it is with leaving your classes in the hands of another teacher for two weeks. I've never been gone that long before. I lined up the best possible sub I could have found, and I still worried. Well, not only is the sub doing a great job, but so are the students. Apparently, everyone is so supportive of my bonding time with my new child, they're all working together to keep the program going (and going well) in my absence. I know,because for a few days, I was checking... e-mails, Facebook, you name it. Then, I stopped checking, and started trusting.

That makes me feel good. That makes me feel loved.

*sigh*

Bat-Shit Crazy

...Okay, I think my school is about to explode in controversy again. This one is even out of the hands of Principal Leto (As it should be. He wasn't here when the trouble started, and he should lie low until it blows over.)

The hubbub over Former-Principal Palpatine just won't die. It would seem that the natural consequence of the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object is that both are eradicated - the teacher who was the center of a very public conflict with Palpatine last year has been put on leave until they can investigate allegations that he may have recently shot his mouth off in the wrong place at the wrong time and in the wrong way. What makes it worse for him is that he announced his predicament on his Facebook status, which was then quoted in local newspapers in short order. More accusations, more statements meant to ignite public outcry. Once again, his students (and former students) and their families stand ready to leap back into the fray. Ugh... it makes me glad I'm out on paternity leave.

One interesting thing... the article in the local press revealed the whereabouts of Former Principal Palpatine, who did not end up in the position that she left New Republic HS for. She apparently accepted a job as a high school admin in a district far away...

The only thing is, it would come as no surprise to me if the torches and pitchforks followed her there as well. A lot of people are still pissed at her, maybe enough to try to get her fired wherever she goes. That's bad mojo if you ask me. I mean, I have no love for the woman (and you all know how I celebrated her departure,) but harboring that kind of hate destroys you on the inside... Let it go, people. Let her go... then we can get back to rebuilding the Republic. And our lives.

Lucky me, I have a new boss, a new house and a new baby to focus on.

Llama of the Week

October Musings

Baby Craze

So, people keep asking me if my wife delivered yet. I keep telling them that if they see me walking around school, then the answer is "no." It doesn't bother me, obviously... everyone is happy for me. But I am a little surprised at the lack of logic. I will say, though, that I am a little taken aback at how excited everyone is over my baby. I mean I know, I know.... people get excited over babies... but it seems as if people are really excited over my baby. People I don't even know are giving us gifts... is that wierd? People are talking about it as if... well as if my having a child somehow makes the universe complete.... the long foretold coming of the Mini-Maestro. I don't know... it's my first kid and I've never been through this before.

Meeting With Principal Leto

So I had my professional evaluation meeting with my new principal. Let me say that again, because I like hearing it: I had my professional evaluation meeting with my new principal. At this point I'd like to point out that I'm not even up for evaluation this year... when I turned in my personal goal form, I asked for a meeting. I also specifically asked that Principal Leto be my evaluator from now on. He's a band guy, it made sense. Furthermore, I recommended that we have the meeting in my office, not his. That's because he's never seen the music rooms, and I wanted to show him the facility. And show him I did.

The part that delighted me the most was when I showed him the storage room behind the music complex where we stored the old library and all the unsused equipment. He took a look at the shelves of music and kind of went into band-geek mode. "You know... when you see the old storage boxes that color... you know you have something special. I bet you have some great stuff here." It warmed my heart that someone else had the ability to recognize the treasure we had hidden away there.

He also saw one of the old marching uniforms - "Jesus Christ! Those things are ugly!" That got a surprised laugh out of me. Then he said "Man, if you get a marching band going, promise me you won't put them in those." Now dear friends, those of you who know me may imagine that this is the point where I realized that my savior was really another devil in disguise... but no. I smiled and nodded. Principal Leto has the ability to utter the "MB" word without lighting my fuse. That's because I'm not worried about what he's plotting behind my back.... because he isn't.

We actually spent some time talking about marching band, and once again he managed to say all the right things. He reassured me that while he believes that a marching band is good for the community, that he strongly believes that it isn't the most important thing in a music program. He also didn't talk about getting one up and running as quickly as possible - he focused on getting more kids in my program in general.

"If you get the kids, the rest of it will happen... and I mean all of it. Not just a marching band, we're talking multiple levels of band, multiple levels of orchestra, multiple levels of jazz."

It's a beautiful vision, and one I hadn't dared to promote at New Republic High School. But the guy has seen big programs in his day... maybe he knows how to make it work here. The only problem with it is that... well, it would require another music teacher which would mean having to give up some of my classes. The most logical thing would be to hire a vocal person to take over the choirs... and giving up my advanced choir would be like chopping of a limb. I don't know that I'm ready for that.

Still, at the moment I'm enjoying the benevolent rule of a wise and compassionate principal.

Long live the Duke!

I am SO Stealing this...

So today I was going over the basics of clef and pitch identification with my choir class. About half way in I started seeing the "theory glaze" cover their eyes. Then right about the time I went over the bass clef pitches, we got a shot in the arm -

I wrote out the names of the line notes on the bass clef staff: G-B-D-F-A, and I was about to give them the mnemonic device to remember them (You music types know the universal one for the treble clef - "Every Good Boy Does Fine"). It was right there on the tip of my tongue - "Grizzly Bears Don't Fly Airplanes" - when the aide for Autistic Billy raised his hand and said "How about 'George Bush Didn't Find Al-Qaeda'?"

It took me a few minutes to recover from laughing.

Mystery!

So there is a thief among us. One who has stolen from me, twice now. It wasn't anything big... lord knows I have a lot of valuable stuff running around my office. Nope, it was a cool little trinkety thing I bought at the end of Summer. I hung it on the wall in front of my desk, along with scores of other trinkety things. Two weeks ago it disappeared. Could have been a theft... but it could have been knocked off the wall and lost when my office was in disarray because of a major furniture relocation.

I griped about it to a few people... then I bought another one and hung it in the same spot. Today, the replacement disappeared.

Okay, now I'm pissed.

I'm guessing that it's the same culprit that took the first one, and probably thinks it's funny. Okay, yeah... maybe I asked for it by replacing the first one. But I couldn't be sure. Now I am.

It's been a long time since a student stole anything from me. The thing that I hate about it the most is how it makes me try to figure out who it is without having any kind of real evidence or detective skills. Worst of all, I start being paranoid about my students... I start suspecting totally innocent kids.

A weird thought hit me today, though - this time I noticed the disappearance after school... after I had run an errand off-campus and then returned to clean up my room a bit. The rooms were locked... so I don't know who could have gotten in unless.... did the maintenance guy snake my trinkets? It sounds absurd, but the truth is that the first one disappeared right after a maintenance crew replaced my broken desk.

Unlikely? Maybe... or maybe the butler did it!

In the mean time, I'm keeping my doors locked and my eyes open.

Frustrations and Surprises

Frustration: I e-mailed a couple of parents about gum-chewing today. Gum-chewing. I don't know... maybe you better organized teacher types send off referrals and fire off phone messages for that sort of thing on a regular basis.... but I never bothered with it. I figure, if I'm going to contact a parent - there's got to be a fairly substantial behavior or performance issue. Nope... gum-chewing. I even talked to a counselor about it. Why? Because I had directed these two girls, both of whom are returning students... to throw out their gum on a daily basis since the first day of school. I've talked to both of them individually - one of them yesterday. Today we played the game of "I'm going to hide my chewing from you." Fuck that. I refuse to spend my class time totally distracted by the process of trying to catch these girls in the act. Technically, it's defiance... albeit a really lame form of defiance, and I feel stupid making this much fuss over it. Phhhh.

Surprise: So, I have this mostly 7th-grade beginning band class that I've basically yelled at almost every day since the beginning of school. I don't hate them, but they constantly do stuff that I have to react to. So I yell a lot. There are a few that I'm going to try to have removed... but that's another blog. Anyway - we're about a month into the school year, and I figured that they all think I'm a big grouch.

Well, today I got the call that my wife was being sent to the maternity ward at beautiful Ocean View Hospital. I immediately called the front office and told them that I was leaving, and that I needed coverage. I quickly told my class where I was going, and why... and they got really excited for me. One kid even hugged me (and I'm pretty sure it was the kid I yelled "shut up" to yesterday)

Go figure.

Well, it turns out that my wife wasn't going into labor. When she went to her exam, the Ob/Gyn noticed that the baby's heart beat was slowing. Fearing a situation where he might have had to do a C-section, he immediately sent her to be monitored, and told her to call me. By the time I got to the hospital, the baby's heart rate had recovered, and everything looked good. They let us go.

I guess we'll see how they react when I come back to class tomorrow :-)

Llama of the Week