Leadership Lite
School Administrator, March 2019
Chicken Caper
Michael Schaefer, the principal at 1,600-student Gresham High School in Oregon, was in a weekly administrative planning meeting when he overheard some-thing afoul in his radio earpiece. It had something to do with a live chicken in a school hallway.
Turns out the chicken was brought to school by a student in her backpack. But when the bird objected to staying put, she let it loose inside school rather than being saddled with a tardiness penalty by returning home with the bird.
Once the chicken was corralled, Schaefer took some delight in showing up on the doorstep of the student’s house to ask her father: “Is there any chance you’re missing a chicken?”
SOURCE: High School Today, National Federation of State High School Associations
Did She Serve Time?
High school yearbook advisers shared a good laugh on their professional listserv when one of their members posted a screen shot of graduating seniors’ quotes from a 1911 high school yearbook. (The school went unidentified.)
Senior Robert Edward Freeman listed his ambition as “To run a bowling alley.” Robert Horton Peddycord, apparently a serial dater, stated his goal was “To keep one girl at least a month.”
But what really caught the contemporary yearbook teachers’ eyes was Phyllis Belle Johnson’s published ambition, now recorded for eternity this way: “To murder the faculty.”
The advisers wondered among themselves how Phyllis turned out.
Kindergarten Confidence
A study by economists and management professors published in the Journal of Financial Economics suggests there is a connection between the performance of mutual fund managers and how old they were when they began kindergarten.
The study of more than 4,000 managers found those among the oldest quarter of their kindergarten class outperformed by a significant margin those in the youngest quarter.
The researchers offered a rationale: Fund managers who were older in kindergarten are more confident, resulting in better, bolder decisions.
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal
A Quack Worth Heeding
Jeff Butts, superintendent in Wayne Township, Ind., and a finalist for 2019 National Superintendent of the Year, was asked recently about the best advice he ever received.
“When I was 14, my grandfather gave me a plaque to hang on my wall,” he responded. “It has become my mantra for most things in life. It was a picture of a duck with a quote: ‘Always behave like a duck — keep calm and unruffled on the surface, but paddle like the devil underneath.’”
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.