Leadership Lite

School Administrator, October 2017

An All-Wet Resolution
Despite leash laws and prominent signage that bans dogs from the playing fields that belong to the Cave Creek, Ariz., Unified School District, community members still manage to bring their fidos to the gated areas so their dogs can run and romp. Rarely do these dog owners remember to bring waste bags, so you can imagine what an issue this creates for Cave Creek’s physical education teachers and students when they use the fields.

One weekend, the district’s facilities director received a call from a sports club that rents one of the playing fields about an individual running an unauthorized dog obedience training class on the adjacent elementary school field. He was instructing five clients and their dogs.

Thanks to the convenience of remote-control technology, the facilities director was able to activate the playing field’s automatic sprinkler system from the privacy of his own home.

Problem solved.
SOURCE: Debbi Burdick, superintendent, Cave Creek Unified School District 93, Cave Creek, Ariz.
 

Up on the Roof
Jason Butcher sets a high ceiling for a night on the roof.

Butcher, former superintendent in Lewistown, Mont., and one of his principals camped overnight on the roof of the Lewis and Clark School, fulfilling a promise when students collectively read books totaling 90 million words in a two-month period using the Accelerated Reader program.

It was a cold and windy night, Butcher says, “25 degrees when I woke up at 5 a.m. to work out.”

The two administrators did a radio call-in show at 6:45 a.m., and once the Lewis and Clark students arrived at school, Butcher reports, “We capped things off with a rousing singalong of the Village People’s YMCA!”
 

Mood Lightener
Matthew Duffy wanted to ensure laughter was built into the culture of Elmhurst Community Prep in East Oakland, Calif., when he was the school’s principal.

He did this by creating what he called “silly things.” Among them:

» He addressed an act of graffiti on campus not through suspension but by scrawling over it with his own graffiti in the form of a question, “Why did you do this?” ad-dressed to the student perpetrator by name;

» He dressed up as a student wearing a black hoodie for Halloween and pounded the hallways with a basketball in hand, prompting a teacher to scold him – until the teacher realized it was the head of school under the hood. Duffy is now superintendent of the nearby West Contra Costa Unified Schools.
SOURCE: The East Bay Times

 
 
Short, humorous anecdotes, quips, quotations and malapropisms for this column relating to school district administration should be addressed to: Editor, School Administrator, 1615 Duke St., Alexandria, VA 22314. Fax: 703-841-1543. E-mail: magazine@aasa.org. Upon request, names may be withheld in print.