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Cleaning Up Other People's Mess

Almost a month ago I participated in our school's music theater production. At the drama teacher's request, I assembled and conducted a pit orchestra. We did pretty good. The roster included eight hired guns. I submitted all the invoice information to our drama teacher, who passed it on to ASB.

Last week I discovered that no one has been paid yet. I went to check on it, only to find that there was a lot of red tape holding everything up. Procedures weren't followed... the proper paperwork wasn't filled out... I don't know how it's going to work out.

I shouldn't feel responsible, but I was the one who contacted these people and I feel like it's my reputation on the line. Illustrious Drama Teacher doesn't have to move and work in the music circles, but I do... and in the interest of keeping good relations with these folks, I'm going to follow up on it until it resolves.

the problem is... I doubt any of these people will work for us again.

Choosing Your Battles

Last week there was also a big meeting where the representatives from three schools got together and negotiated the use of the big district theater facility. Our school was supposed to have first pick for dates in the second semester. I submitted my requested dates (only two, mind you) to the New Republic High School rep (the drama teacher, no less) and trusted that it would all work out.

I didn't get my June date... in fact I didn't get any date in June. I got bumped out of the theater all together.

Now... before I went into a volcanic outrage - I checked in with some of my NRHS art teacher colleagues. Apparently, nobody really walked away with what they wanted, except perhaps my colleague over at Rival High School, whose classroom sits right behind the theater itself.

Now, there's a lot of issue here, more than I can blog about right now (lucky you). One of them is the argument about whether or not that theater is a school facility or a district facility. It really shouldn't be an argument, since the folks on Mount Olympus (The district admin) have said repeatedly that it's a district facility, thus pulling any favoritism from the home school. At the same time, I do sympathize with the PA teachers at RHS - If I had a stage connected to my own classroom but had to sacrifice small animals to pagan gods just to get to use it, I'd be pretty upset as well.

Principal Leto was involved, although he was decidedly biased free when it came to meeting the needs of the PA programs from various campuses. I think he was the one who ultimately pushed my dates off of the June calendar. Part of me was pissed that he didn't fight for my dates more, but at the same time I know what kind of a guy he is - he's not going to look out for just his own campus - he is a former PA teacher himself, and he's trying to take care of everyone involved. The only thing I can really fault him for is not sharing the outcome of that meeting with me directly - I had to find out a couple days later by looking at the finalized calendar that was e-mailed out. (He did apologize for that - sincerely)

The truth is, I've always been a little uncomfortable performing at Sister School. I usually end up using my colleague's rooms as holding tanks - and I always have to worry about how respectful my kids are being to his facility. I'd much rather perform at the local university - I know the orchestra director very well, and he gets me one of the recital halls for dirt cheap. It's a better stage for instrumental performances, and it's easier to keep the kids contained. Also, I could go the really easy route and just host my June concert outdoors here at NRHS - with the only problem being the accoustics. It's only the principle of the thing that bothers me - why promise first pick when I end up getting no pick at all? It seems the system needs re-working... as many people have noted.

The one thing I hope that makes it's way back up to Mount Olympus is that it would be in the god's best interest if they built a a PA facility at NHRS that was capable of relieving some of the stress of splitting the theater at RHS between three high schools.

In the mean time, it looks as if I'll continue to rely on off-campus facilities for my programs.