Goodbye and Good Riddance: Adios to Low Performers

Today I went to the retirement party of one of my former bosses. I didn't want to go, but my current boss asked me to go with him, so I decided to go. I am disappointed in myself for doing so.

For the sake of this post, I will call her Suzy. Suzy has been a school principal for years and years and she was my first principal when I was a new teacher.

When I arrived, tons of people were talking about what a wonderful person she had been. The first speaker stated that she aspires to be like Suzy one day, and she said that the greatest thing that she learned from Suzy was how to shop on QVC. A couple of other speakers stood up there and talked about how Suzy hooked them up with many police officers and maintenance workers that she always had hanging around her.  One of her former teachers stood up there and talked about how Suzy could drink a lot of alcohol and was a great pool player. A higher level manager talked about her ridiculously pink office.

I could go on and on about all of the things that they spoke about, but I want to refrain from making myself SICK. Not once did anyone mention what a great leader she had been. Because she wasn't a great leader, at least in my opinion.

When she interviewed me for a sixth grade teaching position years ago, the first question she asked was if I was single and whether or not I liked to party. She always catered to all of the men, babied the men and tried to be the eternal matchmaker instead of actually writing up shitty teachers and holding people accountable. 

I can recollect a time when one of my wacko colleagues had two young girls spend the night at his house. He was infatuated with one of the little girls and I suspected that he was a perv. I approached Suzy and told her about my concerns. The first thing out of her mouth was, "Oh, we need to find him a girlfriend". I said to her, "No, we need to find him a fucking shrink." I actually had to strong arm her into investigating the situation because in my sane world teachers don't have third and fourth grade little girls spend the night at their house.

Everything about Suzy and her leadership style bred mediocrity. She rarely came out of her office and the few times that my students saw her walking around they actually asked me who she was. Can you imagine that-students not even knowing who the school principal was?? She made excuses for everyone, especially the men, and everything was a big party to her. She put people up on a pedestal and told everyone what a great teacher they were, when she had never even been in their classroom. She didn't get into classrooms much because she was truly shopping online in her office all day long, and she was not one to hide it. 

Suzy left the school in shambles a couple of years ago as one of the lowest scoring schools in the district.

As I sat listening to everyone's stories, I felt dirty in a strange way. I felt like a hypocrite sitting there because every story that someone told about her made me think even less of her. 

On my ride home, I thought about the time that I read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I recall an exercise in the book where the author asked you to imagine your funeral and imagine what your loved ones would say and what your colleagues would say about your life. Throughout the entire party today, not one person brought up the fact that she was an excellent leader who made a difference in the lives of children.

People in my school district always accuse me of taking my work too seriously. I can only hope that at my retirement party people will talk about my accomplishments and how I have made an impact on the lives of children and our community. I most definitely hope that people don't remember me for having taught them to shop on QVC or as a wild party animal. I hope I am remembered as someone who busted her ass to make a difference for children and worked tirelessly to make this world a better place. 

Goodbye and good riddance to her. I am very sorry that as a leader in the same institution, that now I have to clean up some of the mess that she leaves behind.