Leadership Lite
School Administrator, April 2022

Extending Her Voice

As a first-year elementary principal in Guilford County Public Schools in North Carolina, Valerie Bridges would send out a schoolwide telephone message each Friday to close out the week. Her weekly messages contained a plethora of information for the families of Jesse Wharton Elementary School. “I would prepare all week to have a well-crafted message that lasted no longer than the suggested 90 seconds,” she said.

One Friday evening, after recording her message with the standard opener, ”Good evening, this is your proud principal Valerie Bridges with a few announcements,” her fingers mistyped. Instead of directing her words to the 1,000 or so families in her school, she selected the entire school district as her audience, sending the robocall to tens of thousands of home phones and cell phones.

As a result, several colleagues at other schools across the district sent Bridges texts or called her over the weekend inquiring about programs and events at her school. She finally asked one of them how they knew so much about what was going on at her school.

The following week the technology department paid Bridges (who now is superintendent in Edgecombe County, N.C.) an office visit, disabling the option for her and other principals to send messages to the entire district.


Misdirected But Not Misadvised

A secretary e-mailed Jane Stavem, then an administrator in a small Midwest school district, to request permission to leave work early for a scheduled mammogram. Somehow her request was sent to the entire e-mail list in the school district. Stavem, who is now superintendent in Sioux Falls, S.D., realized the misdirection but played along in her response.

She told her secretary — and thousands of others in the school community — that her leave request was fine and that anyone else who needed to schedule her or his regular medical checkup should do so. Stavem privately told the embarrassed staff member that “I was glad you would serve as a role model for getting regular exams.”
 
Down on the Farm

Marci Shepard doesn’t pretend to be a farmer, yet she doesn’t mind someone connecting her to that occupational world at times.

In preparation for remarks to the Future Farmers of America banquet in Ohio’s Oak Hill Union Local School District recently, the district superintendent hopped aboard the farm tractor belonging to her husband (who does some farming on the side). The photo got some visibility on LinkedIn for Shepard, who says she strives to make her short video clips captivating. But not everyone reacts accordingly.

“My son teased me that it was a prop,” she said.
 
 
 
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. Email: magazine@aasa.org. Upon request, names may be withheld in print.