Leadership Lite
School Administrator, November 2018
Stuck to His Position
Superintendents unavoidably find themselves in sticky situations. Tom Sisk, superintendent in Limestone County, Ala., willingly put himself in one.
As an incentive for a countywide fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, Sisk offered students at the school in his district generating the largest contribution the chance to affix him tightly against a wall with packing tape. Strip by strip, delighted students at Creekside Elementary School put the superintendent in an immoveable spot.
The final indignity was provided by Sisk’s wife Jennie. She was last in line, applying an extra-long strip of tape across her husband’s mouth.
SOURCE: WHNT-TV, Huntsville, Ala.
Adventures in Adhesive
How much value did students at McCormick Elementary School in Oslburg, Kan., get from reading 991 books during a monthlong campaign?
That accomplishment earned them five rolls of duct tape as the pacesetting school of readers in the Blue Valley School District. The students found a worthy use for all that ad-hesive. They exhausted their supply by duct taping Superintendent Brady Burton to a hallway wall.
SOURCE: KSNT-TV, Topeka, Kan.
Clergy for a Weekend
It was only for one weekend that Lorna Lewis, superintendent of the Plainview-Old Bethpage schools on Long Island, traded in her formal office duds for an unusual career switch — donning a full-length nun’s habit.
Lewis accepted a limited role in her high school theater troupe’s musical comedy “Sister Act” for three weekend performances last year. In the role of a choir nun, she had a line to sing in the opening act. Did she feel up to the out-of-the-ordinary task?
Although the moment was fleeting, Lewis admitted she considered it “spiritually uplifting” and a “humbling experience” to perform alongside talented students.
Must Be a Journalist’s Trick
Thomas Custodio-Kaup, the high school journalism teacher in Auburn, Wash., was the only teacher in his building one day in late summer as he geared up for the return of students. He assumed no one was looking when he improvised — using his scissors to stir his morning coffee, licked off the shears, then promptly returned them to the container on his classroom desk.
He announced his deed to the 1,000-plus subscribers of the scholastic journalism advisers listserv. “I figured journalism teachers could relate,” he quipped.
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.