Rough Start

A while back, my firend and colleague encouraged me to follow up my "Principal Palpatine: One Year Later" post with a "Principal Leto: One Year Later" - which I tried to do. Right now the incomplete draft is still sitting in my edit box. But since the school year has started it felt appropriate to incorporate that into a new post. Hopefully I'll finnish this one - so many of my drafts go unfinished and un-posted. Apparently I'm in good company.

We are in the second year of what should be a continuing celebration of a distinct lack of the Principal Palpatine regime. Unfortunately, we are starting the year particularly unorganized - the number of mis-placed students and poorly structured class schedules is kind of mind boggling, and the line of students trying to get in to see their counselors looks like the parking lot outside the Apple store the eve of a new iPhone release. I am starting to hear more and more complaints about Principal Leto's leadership - or lack thereof - a thing that makes me very sad. I so want to like him - in fact I do like him... I think everyone likes him. But I think they (we) also want to be given guidance, structure and leadership by him. The consensus that seems to be forming is that he's so much into keeping people happy that we're losing a sense of direction.

Right now, his administration seems to be lacking the acumen necessary for smooth scheduling. To be fair - our former head counselor retired last year. He was a scheduling dynamo, and had a knack for fine-tuning things and fixing small details before they went to print. Palpatine also had a way of nailing things down in a very efficient order - although that order often served her needs more than anyone else's. But Leto seems to have a way of cutting himself off from the resources that would help him do the job better and faster . It also doesn't help that the new head counselor is very inexperienced when it comes to master scheduling. Not to be confused with criticism - she's doing the best she can, and she's not getting a lot of support. Yesterday I left some chocolates on her desk.

So you tell me, which is better? The totalitarian regime, or the structureless anarchy? For myself, I can say that I appreciate the fact that once again, I wake up every day enthusiastic about work, and that I can walk through the front office without fear. I have also regained the title of "Master of My Fate" - and I know how to keep my own little corner of NRHS working smoothly, despite whatever goes on outside my walls. That's probably a selfish way of looking at it - but there it is.

I like Leto... I really do. I hope to God for all of our sake's that he hits his groove this year. Otherwise we're looking at another shift sometime in the foreseeable future, and who knows what that might bring. Plus, we'd start to look like a whiny school who just isn't happy with any principal they hire.