Starting Over: A Post-Katrina Education

Up – Yesterday we had a wonderful “informance” at the school to celebrate Jazz Awareness Month. Renowned jazz saxophonist, arranger, and producer Harold Batiste joined The Next Generation jazz band to entertain, inform, and teach 170 students about the music that was born in New Orleans. The 76-year old musical genius answered questions posed by second, third, and fourth grade students. The Jam session included Adella, Adella, the Storyteller, who read the book Jazz on a Saturday Night (2007), by Leo and Diane Dillon. It was a magical moment as the musicians punctuated the story with their musical interludes laced throughout the tale. Jessie McBride, the band leader lectured about types of instruments, learning to read music, and the history of jazz. The program was arranged through one of our former teachers.

Down – One of our eighth grade girls was recommended for expulsion yesterday. She committed a serious infraction and included three other students in the activity. The parents of two of the witnesses and the “lookout” were very cooperative as they faced the consequences for their participation. The guilty student offered an explanation for her crime when she said, “Everybody in my house does this.” It must be a pretty sad place to live.

Up – 55% of the parents came to Report Card Conference Day. The activity was held at 4:30 p.m. to allow parents to come after work and permit teachers to leave before the sun set. More parents will be allowed to schedule individual conferences this week.

Down – One of the fifth grade boys was recommended for expulsion today. He had a weapon in school. When it was discovered, he threatened to bring his whole clan to the school to turn the place out. His grandmother, a very nice lady, is doing all she can to help raise a very angry student. I can’t believe we had two serious offenses in as many days.

Up – We interviewed for two more charter schools today at the State Department of Education..

Down – I had to drive 80 miles to the meeting and it was raining. I don’t like driving and I hate leaving my house when it’s raining. After the meeting, I had to rush back to New Orleans to get to the school for a meeting by 3:00 p.m.

Up – I did a presentation for the new staff members this afternoon to explain the goals of our charter school and the differences between this program and more traditional school settings. I think I was able to give some encouragement to a few of the teachers who are struggling with a student body that includes students who are overage, chronic behavior problems, and several grades behind academically.

Down – My friend Paulette was supposed to come to my house so we could collaborate on a special grant proposal. We were going to do it last night, but I had work to do to prepare for the charter school interview in Baton Rouge. It was too late and I was too tired to collaborate tonight.

Up – She understood. We’ll try again tomorrow.

Posted by Roslyn Johnson Smith, Ph.D. at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

It's late-- after midnight. I'm still up because I was wondering how many parents went to school yesterday for Report Card Conferences. Teachers remained at school to distribute cards from 4:30 - 6:30 p.m. I'll find out what percentage showed up when I visit the school later today. I hope we had a good turnout for the first quarter. I remember how hard it was to get some families engaged in their children's educations when I was a principal. A large portion of our population is eligible for free or reduced price meals; they are families who live in poverty. Poverty plays a large role in their participation.

Frequently, parents who live in poverty don't take enough time to become actively engaged in their children's education. Some parents work long hours and can't get time off to visit the school. A few parents are intimidated or alienated from the school because of their own negative experiences as students. Parents may think that it is the teacher's job to educate their children without interference from families. They may even put the teachers on a pedestal and believe that the teacher can do everything alone. Some are too old or sick to come to school even though they care. Many of our children are being raised by grandparents. As a result of Hurricane Katrina, some parents live in other states and cities while their children are being cared for by relatives in New Orleans. These relatives may be overwhelmed by the responsibility of raising someone else's child. Others don't care at all.

We will send letters home to the families who did not show up, encouraging them to schedule special conferences next week. If the students are making good grades or even passing grades, a telephone call will do.

The Board will distribute certificates to students who are on the Honor Roll, who have Perfect Attendance, or Excellent Behavior. I'm thinking about asking the Board members to give a call of encouragement to parents who do not respond to the follow up conference letters. We want them to know how much we really care about their children's success.

Posted by Roslyn Johnson Smith, Ph.D. at 1:53 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday, I posed a question for my blog readers which required them to decide which of three simultaneous problems I addressed as the most urgent. As a reminder here are the problems: 1) the report cards for Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten had to be picked up from the print shop. Report card conferences are Thursday. 2) The photographer forgot to take pictures for IDs and cumulative folders, only taking pictures of students who wanted to purchase his photo packages. 3) Two staff members got into an ugly argument which was witnessed by several parents.

I have several comments that were sent to my email address and are not posted on the blog site so I will summarize them. Everyone thought that I would focus my attention on the two staff members who were arguing in the front office. I did not. No one thought I would pay attention to the photographer issue. Actually, I left that problem with the Business Manager. Also, everyone thought that picking up the report cards should have been delegated to someone with less authority than the Board President. If that’s what you thought I did, you were wrong. I picked up the report cards. How hard can it be?

For two or more weeks, I got feedback from the school’s Leadership Team on a design for our report cards. Although we have report card software in our new student information system package, we can’t use it yet. The training on the various components of the program is taking longer than expected. We are already almost a month behind in reporting our student enrollment data for annual funding and our teacher certification data. The new program was not as easy to get started as the sales representatives made it seem to the Recovery School District technology guru, I guess. We have these two vital parts of the program working, but since the template must be individualized for the report cards to fit our pupil progression plan, it will have to wait.

In the meantime, we designed a quarterly progress report and took it to the print shop to have it printed on NCR paper. The report cards for grades 1 to 8 are okay. The Pre-K and Kindergarten reports were in a separate order. Somehow, the second order got mixed up and the copies were run on regular copier paper, not the 4-part carbonless packets we needed. Actually, on Monday I had delegated the task of picking up the package to someone else. When he called me from the print shop to tell me that the order was not what I expected, I decided to pick it up myself on Tuesday to be certain it would be delivered to the teachers on time.

With only one day to spare, I wanted to make sure the order was correct. Also, the other two people who have signature authority for the checking account were unavailable. We could not get a school check to pay the bill. I wanted to use my new bank debit card to pay for the $200 invoice, but I had not activated the darn thing. I did not know the school's bank account number which the automated voice at the other end of the phone requested and the Business Manager was out of town for the day. I could have delegated the task to someone, but none of the people who could make the pick-up had $200 bucks to spare. The easiest solution was to do it myself.

The situation with the photographer is really more complicated that it looks. We need student IDs for security purposes, the discipline plan, and field trips. We also want photos of all of the children to complete the cumulative records on our new student information system. I was upset to learn that only some of the students had been photographed. I was hoping for digital photos of all of our students for our records.

I was more upset when neither the Principal nor the Business Manager could tell me who authorized the photographer to take the pictures in the first place. We did not have a signed contract for him to sell his packages. Although I did business with this photographer for many years while I was a principal, pre-Katrina, I always required a signed contract. Many schools did not bother with that technicality. Obviously, some schools are still operating that way; I just don't want to be one of them!

With the transparency expected in a charter school operation, we have made a point of proving our fiscal responsibility by getting at least three bids on every vendor service. I had three photography companies in mind, when I asked this gentleman to visit our school and talk to the principal about his packages. It’s actually a fund raiser for the school so bids are not really necessary. But a contract is required for proper business relations. Already, we have a disagreement about the percentage he wants to take from the funds raised. We have a wonderful Principal, an excellent Business Manager, and I’d like to believe, a competent Board President. Defining our roles and duties got confusing when the seasons changed. At least, that’s what I’d like to think. We each thought that someone else had taken care of the important details. None of us did.

Have you heard the story about four people: Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody? There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when actually Nobody asked Anybody.

By the way, I was clear on whose role it was to deal with the two employees who made a public display of their disagreement in front of several parents and students. That one was definitely for the Principal. She’s handling it very well. I did not get involved with that issue because the investigation, reporting, and recommendation for disciplinary action had to be determined by the building administrator, before it was presented to the Board. As the Board President, it would have been inappropriate for me to get involved before the Principal had time to exercise her authority with her staff. If you picked the staff issue as the one that was most important, you are correct. It just wasn’t urgent that I get involved. I politely stepped out of the Principal’s way to let her do her thing.

Knowing what to do is necessary. Knowing how to do it is important. Know what is urgent is not always easy to figure out.

Posted by Roslyn Johnson Smith, Ph.D. at 11:37 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday was a rainy Monday. It was also a terrible day that included tornado warnings, street flooding, and heavy thunderstorms. I was very happy to be able to remain inside my house. It's one of the joys of retirement. But after the storms passed, we had a cold front today with much lower temperatures. So many things went wrong at school today that I remembered what it was like to be a principal when the seasons changed. It drove the kids nuts. But, today everyone was nuts.

I won’t go into the details but I will say that with each hour of the day, more bad news kept popping up. It was hard to decide what to do first. I applied one of Roslyn’s Rules of Administration. Here’s an explanation and an example:

Rule: When you have lots of tasks competing for your attention, decide which tasks are necessary, which ones are important, and which ones are urgent. Urgent tasks always trump important and/or necessary tasks. When problems involve parents, teachers or students, students always come first.

Example: I had to decide whether to focus on one of three problems today. 1) The report cards for Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten had to be picked up from the print shop. Report card conferences are Thursday. 2) The photographer forgot to take pictures for IDs and cumulative folders, only taking pictures of students who wanted to purchase his photo packages. 3) Two staff members got into an ugly argument which was witnessed by several parents.

Readers, which of these problems do you think I addressed and why? Please comment. I'll tell you what happened tomorrow.

Posted by Roslyn Johnson Smith, Ph.D. at 8:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

J.K. Rowling was in New Orleans yesterday. At her much lauded book stop, she read to 1600 public school children and signed Harry Potter books. None of the children at our school were in attendance for this once in a lifetime event. We received some donated books for the library and late Wednesday evening, 20 tickets were delivered for our student representatives. Unfortunately, the details did not come with the tickets. The principal gave the tickets out to the children in the after school tutoring program and told them to ask their parents to take them to the event. It was too late to order a bus or get permission slips out. It was too late to conduct the essay contests or Harry Potter discussions held at other schools this week. We never got the communication about the event. We didn’t know tickets were reserved for our school. The next morning, a bus showed up to transport the children to the Convention Center for Rowling's appearance. No one told us that a bus had been ordered.

I read about the appearance of this internationally famous author with great interest in the daily paper. The first article stated that 40 children from 40 schools would be selected to attend the reading. I wondered how we missed the opportunity to be included in the 40 schools. Today's article states that 20 students from 80 schools were included. Subtract 20 for the McDonogh 42 Owls who were missing in action. My daughter, Saia, is a big Rowling/Potter fan. When the last book was released in July, she went to a midnight book gathering to get her copy. She finished the 700+ page turner by the end of the next day, even reading during breaks while standing at her register in Dillard’s Department Store. She was aghast when I told her that we had unused tickets to the reading, free copies and a promise that each book would be signed by the author. She was so disappointed about the wasted tickets. She even considered skipping class and trying to find one of the unused tickets. Saia is a senior English major at Tulane University.

This is the third time this week that an important communication did not reach us. Something is terribly wrong here when something as simple as getting on the right email list is so difficult. How hard can it be to communicate with all of the schools? Luckily, one of the finance people at the state level noticed our school was MIA and reached out to us. Now a few more people know we exist. I am very worried about information or deadlines we have missed already.

I think that the “transition” from district run to charter school has not been completed. Maybe our mail and notices are being routed to another school. The teachers and students who were in our building last spring were sent en masse to Harney School uptown. I plan to talk to the principal today to see if she has any unusual mail traffic that might be ours. Maybe she has the letter informing us about the unique opportunity we missed for fans of Harry, Hermione, Ron and Neville.

You can read the article in today's Times-Picayune:
http://blog.nola.com/living/2007/10/new_orleans_students_give_rowl.html.

Posted by Roslyn Johnson Smith, Ph.D. at 2:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

“I’m not doing this.”

One of our teachers quit today and spoke those words before stripping the decorations from her bulletin boards, packing her personal items, and walking away. She left her class of 19 seven-year-olds and never looked back. When the principal shared this news with me, she did not appear concerned. Actually, she seemed relieved. The principal agreed that the teacher was correct; she was not doing it.

A colleague saw her leaving the building and noted that the school has so many experienced teachers who really know what they are doing that the few faculty members who have weak management skills or deficiencies in instructional delivery and planning stick out like sore thumbs. I immediately imagined the former employee on the side of the road with her sore thumb stuck out trying to hitch a ride. Although Katrina left us with a severe teacher shortage and we are trying to retain our good teachers, I can’t say I was sorry to see her go.

We are doing some very hard work every day in New Orleans’ schools. It’s not unlike teachers everywhere, except that the rest of our lives, outside of school hours, are so very difficult. We still don’t have all of the conveniences of normal city life in parts of the Big Easy. In my neighborhood some stores have reopened. We held ribbon cutting ceremonies and huge parking lot celebrations when the Walgreens and Rite-Aid Drug Stores reopened. I took pictures inside of the new Winn-Dixie Supermarket a few weeks ago and bought $58 of groceries that I hadn’t planned to purchase. The colors in the grocery store match the paint I selected for the first floor of my house. Honestly! But, we don’t have a dry cleaning company, a printing shop, a florist, a police station, or a hospital yet. Some of my neighbors have looked at their houses and the slow pace of recovery and uttered the words, “I’m not doing this,” just like the teacher. The rest of us mask our disappointment and feelings of abandonment by secretly labeling them Quitters* and pretending to celebrate the extra space (vacant houses) and oxygen (barren lots) they leave for the diehards.

We are building a staff, not staffing a building. It’s necessary for us to remember. I told myself these words years ago, when I was a fledgling principal and people wanted to quit working with us before we were fully operational. The teacher who left today is a veteran with more than 25 years of teaching experience. Research on teacher retention tells us that to keep good teachers they require support, safe environments, good salaries, and opportunities for career growth through shared decision making. We’ve incorporated these research ideals through careful recruitment, selection, induction, training and evaluation of our teachers.

An informal evaluation of the teacher who told us “hasta la vista” today (as the Mexican painters at my house tell me) showed that she could not keep up with the young students. She needed to sit down when she should have been standing and moving. She fell asleep during faculty meetings when solutions to problems were being discussed. In spite of the assistance of substitute teachers and paraprofessionals assigned to help her, the class was getting more and more out of control. Today after she left, a paraprofessional was pulled to take her place in the emergency situation. The class came to order so quickly that one passing teacher said she peeked in the room to see why things were so unusually quiet. We said farewell to a teacher who did not fit in.

Ironically, another teacher who interviewed with us in July and decided to go somewhere else, called today to ask if she could transfer to our school. She’s looking for peace of mind that she doesn’t feel in her current position on the west bank of the Mississippi. Since she is so willing to walk away from her own class of young students, we don’t think she would have the kind of stick-to-itiveness we are looking for. We are still building our staff, but everyone can’t do this.

When I got ready to leave the school today, the principal was regaling me with wonderful vignettes and comments from yesterday’s Leadership Team Meeting where the school leaders discussed ways to help each other improve teaching and learning. She shared with them one of my personal examples of what a good fit means.

For teachers who want to teach in New Orleans right now, the shoe must be a great fit. It’s not enough, if you can squeeze your foot into it. Just because you can wear the shoe, doesn’t mean you can walk in it. During this rebuilding stage, walking in the shoe isn’t always enough because sometimes we have to run in it. But, at the end of the day, a great fit means you can dance in it. Dance with me. Dance.

*[I agree that it may be politically incorrect and harsh to label as “Quitters” people who don’t have the wherewithal to participate in the rebuilding process. There are numerous reasons why people make other choices. Many of them are painful decisions. I apologize, in advance, to anyone who is disturbed by my use of the term.]

Posted by Roslyn Johnson Smith, Ph.D. at 2:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Don’t you hate it when you have to call an office in the State Department of Education? There are so many bureaucrats in the building that as you get transferred from one person to another so many times, you forget why you called. Usually, you can’t get an answer or the person you need to talk to is unavailable, out to lunch, in a meeting, or on vacation until the next week. This weekend, I had to contact the Louisiana State Department of Education on a serious matter. I was so sure I’d get the runaround that instead of making a telephone call Friday evening, when I discovered the problem, I decided to send an email at a quarter to ten Sunday night. Email provided the promise of less confrontation and the protection of electronic communication. It was a cowardly act; I know.

I wanted to blame someone for missing a due date for the LEAP Remediation Fund Application. However, my philosophy for whenever things go wrong is to look at myself first and decide what else I could have done to make things better. I had received most of the information that would be necessary to complete the grant from the principal and the program coordinators earlier in the week. My goal is to write or direct the writing of all of the grants and applications this year to set a standard of excellence and create models for future years. It’s the kind of work I really enjoy. I wrote these things for years when I was a principal. I edited and approved lots of them when I was an Area Superintendent. How hard can it be? But, I also wanted the school’s administrators to write the application because they need the growth experience. Somewhere in between these competing ideas I/we dropped the ball and missed the due date. I hate when that happens.

I sent a brief email to Sharon Compton and copied Susan McCurley, Education Program Consultants from the Louisiana Department of Education’s Division of Standards, Assessments and Accountability. My request for an extension and apology for our lateness included several reasons why we were not on time with the application including missing student records. As a new school, we don’t have student records; these have to be requested from the schools our students attended last year. The student body of 480 students came from more than 114 schools around the city, throughout the state, and across the country, compliments of a Katrina Diaspora. My final plea read, “Kindly let me know if it (the application) will be accepted a few days after the clearly stated deadline. I apologize for any extra effort that an extension may create, but we would appreciate consideration of our start-up status.” I know how to be nice when I need a favor.

To my delight and surprise, I received a response to my email from Susan early this morning before I had my first cup of café au lait. Even more surprising, she called me on the telephone five minutes later. We had the best conversation about the application! She let me know that the deadline had already been extended. Our school’s contact information was missing which is why we hadn’t been updated. She took the contact information and even looked up answers to several nagging questions that I had not had time to research. We talked for quite a while and she gave me the names of several colleagues (Sharon and Jeanette) who are reported to be as nice and helpful as she was. At the end of the conversation, she encouraged me to call whenever I had questions and to not waste time stressing over things when help was as close as the telephone or computer. Who’d a thunk it? Every Monday should start like this one. Thanks Susan.

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Remember these words from the hit song in the early 1980s recorded by the Pointer Sisters?

I'm so excited
And I just can't hide it.
I'm about to lose control
And I think I like it.

I'm so excited
And I just can't hide it.
And I know, I know, I know, I know
I know I want you. I want you.

Well, that’s how I am feeling this evening. The “I want you” that I’m singing about is a new kitchen for our charter school. I love cooking and I love good food, especially New Orleans favorites like Red Beans and Rice, Gumbo, Jambalaya, and Bread Pudding. Unfortunately, we can’t serve traditional dishes like this at our school because we don’t have adequate kitchen equipment yet. All of the school’s equipment was ruined by flood waters. The “warming kitchen” that we’ve been using is woefully inadequate.

Our lunches are cooked at a neighboring school and brought in to be served in a beat up, borrowed serving steamer. We don’t have a stove (a requirement for real Gumbo preparations) and we don’t have ovens large enough to bake our own bread. We have a small freezer that can hold one day’s frozen goods. We have warmers so we can serve things like pizza and hot sandwiches. We need to buy a milk cooler, refrigerator, and steamer among other things. The cafeteria manager is a very creative chef who has figured out how to serve an abbreviated menu to our students. She made delicious “baked” red beans one day. But even pizza ceases to interest children, if they get it too many times in a month.

Today, I got a message from the Principal that our food service vendor had visited the school. She went in this morning to ask us to purchase the proper equipment for our kitchen to ensure that she can deliver meals that are safe. The vendor said there is a high risk serving food that cannot stay at a safe temperature. The lack of equipment limits the foods she can serve safely for our children’s breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snacks. Also, she wants to be sure we can meet codes from the health department. Last year, the school didn’t even have a serving steamer. Students were served the infamous frozen sandwiches which were distributed across folding tables covered with vinyl tablecloths.

I decided to make the kitchen renovation a top priority. My request for attention went straight through the chain of command all the way to the top. The first response came from Paul Pastorek, Louisiana’s State Superintendent of Schools. I was impressed, shocked, and delighted to hear from Paul within minutes of my appeal for attention. His email was followed by a response from Karen, who is in charge of RSD kitchen equipment purchases. She gave me specific “short steps” that we can take to purchase our equipment and get our kitchen up and running. I’m so excited that I want to stop typing for a minute and sing along with the Pointer Sisters . . . . . . Done.

Here’s a coincidence in this story, although I don’t believe in coincidences. Up until last week, my family had been living in our house without the benefits of a functioning kitchen. Hurricane Katrina’s flooding poured 4 ½ feet of muddy salt water into our house and soaked it for two weeks in 2005. We were able to move back home in October of 2006 after living for three months in Baton Rouge, LA and 10 months in a rental home in the lower garden district of New Orleans.

Before moving back into our house, we purchased all new stainless steel appliances (refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, washer, and dryer). However, the electrical work was not finished in the kitchen until last week. I’ve been cooking our meals on a two-burner hot plate, a tabletop grill, a toaster oven and a microwave. I baked last Thanksgiving’s turkey in an electric roaster and I have lots of other electric equipment (skillet, waffle iron, mixer, George Foreman grill, etc.). I even cooked Gumbo on the hot plate. How hard can it be? Very hard. I don’t recommend it.

Even though all of the electrical appliances are new, there are some things that can’t be cooked correctly unless you use a seasoned cast iron skillet. A cast iron skillet requires the even heat distribution of a real stove. I hugged the startled electrician when I heard the “Beeeep” of my electric stove’s clock for the first time. Now I’m cooking in style! We’ve had Chicken and Dumplings, Smothered Okra and Shrimp Stew, and Southern Fried Catfish in the last two weeks. Last night, I baked a cake in the oven for the first time. It came out perfectly.

I can’t wait for the first day I get a whiff of the aroma of homemade bread wafting from our school’s kitchen. I’m so excited.

Posted by Roslyn Johnson Smith, Ph.D. at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

If you read this blog, you must be ready to travel to the strange places where my mind wanders.”

Maybe it’s a little early. We haven’t gone trick or treating and the Thanksgiving turkey is in the distant future. However, we are thinking about Christmas. Hurricane Katrina was more than two years ago and the holidays have been a blur. Many of the traditions and celebrations to which we looked forward have been suspended, while our families were scattered all over the United States. What kind of memories will our children have because of the aftereffects of “the thing?” Lately, I’ve been thinking of my own childhood memories. I was twelve years old when Hurricane Betsy flooded our house on Piety Street in the Ninth Ward. I don’t remember Christmas in 1965. I’m not the only one thinking of ways to create wonderful memories for children. Our school’s principal has already planned the lunch menu down to the sweet potato pies for dessert. I’m thinking about Winter Wonderland.

Growing up in New Orleans, there was a seasonal ritual that all children anticipated with great joy. Anyone who is over the age of twenty-five will remember. In the storefront window of Maison Blanche department store (today a Ritz-Carlton Hotel) a magical scene was created every December that mesmerized men, women and children. The display included the newest toys perched on mounds of sparkling white snow, a beautifully lighted towering Christmas tree, and a whistling train that ran on a track through the middle of this magical scene. Toys came alive in that window. Toy soldiers stood at attention; choir boys sang carols; and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer smiled and nodded his head to the music. These puppets sang, danced, cavorted and even flew through the air. Mr. Bingle, a talking snowman, an assistant to Santa Claus, was the star of the show. This special little character's snowman body was adorably adorned with an ice cream cone hat, candy cane in hand, red ribbon with bells and holly wings. The holly wings were so he could fly. I still remember his theme song from the radio and later his mini TV show:

Jingle, jangle, jingle/Here comes Mr. Bingle/With another message from Kris Kringle/Time to launch your Christmas season/Maison Blanche makes Christmas pleasin'/Gifts galore for you to see/Each a gem from MB!

Okay, some people will say it was just a clever commercial to sell toys, but it was more than that. It was magic. I wanted to recreate that magic for the children in my school during the 1990s. In the school where I was principal (my former life), we collected animated display characters and built our own Winter Wonderland scene. Inside a little white picket fence, we put up our 9 ft. lighted tree, dancing animals and dolls, carolers, twinkling reindeer, and popular children’s characters. They sat atop mounds of bunting and fake show as a whistling train ran on a track through the middle of the magical scene. A special addition for our annual display was the collection of toys we gave away in a lottery the day before the holiday break began. Usually, we had perfect attendance at a time when most schools were half empty because students had to be present for the Yule Lottery to get a ticket. Every child received a small gift from the PTO. But lottery winners received the bikes, dolls, sports equipment, radios, games, and skates that filled out the spectacle.

Although our showcase was a far cry from the one in the Canal St. storefront, it was a special treat that our neighborhood families looked forward to each year. Parents brought toddlers to see the moving dolls, Disney characters, and Mr. and Mrs. Santa (African American and Caucasian versions). Over the years, we added more and more animated figures for our display. By 2005, we had dozens of delightful figurines for our Winter Wonderland scene, but they are now locked in a molding, Katrina-flooded school with boarded up windows. The teachers at McDonogh 42 who worked with me years ago want to bring this special tradition to the new charter school. How hard can it be to bring back the magic? We long to recreate some nostalgia, the thrill of life the way we were pre-Katrina. We will see.

Posted by Roslyn Johnson Smith, Ph.D. at 2:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Mr. M is standing tentatively at the door with a look on his face that seems to question whether he is in the right place or whether it is even permissible for him to enter. His clothes are dusty, sweaty and filthy from a long day of doing some type of manual labor. I beckon him into the Business Office and offer him a seat. He pauses briefly before he calmly sits on the newly purchased upholstered chair. Mr. M is a young, very dark-complexioned African American man with lots of gold teeth, an impatient attitude and a slight scowl. He is the father of two students in our school. But, as he looked at me, I could read the sincerity in his eyes.

Today is the second meeting we have had since the school year started. On August 17th, at our first meeting, he was like a raging bull, making threats of a lawsuit, yelling at the staff, accusing everyone in the school of incompetence, demanding documents, and proclaiming that the principal should have her license revoked. I’ll admit that the scene was ugly and he looked dangerous as he paced back and forth while spitting out threats. I felt slightly uneasy, even with the school’s security guard standing at the office door. But I understood this furious turmoil that spilled out of Mr. M in frustration. His two young sons were missing from school – kidnapped.

Earlier that day, the children’s mother had come to the school and signed them out, citing a doctor’s appointment as her reason. She also withdrew them from the school saying that they would not be returning. Mr. M would not see his sons, a first grader and a second grader, for the next six weeks.

In the fog of his raging anger, Mr. M could not accept our explanation that the children’s birth mother had a parent’s right to take her sons out of school; she had the same rights that he had as their birth father. Mr. M had purposefully omitted any information about the mother on his children’s enrollment forms when he filled them out. Mr. M thought that this would prevent her from taking his children. After all, he had papers from a judge giving him legal custody. Unfortunately, he had not shared the custody documents with the school authorities or alerted anyone that the mother of his sons could not see them. Consequently, the birth certificates which named her as the birth mother and her identification were all we needed to release the children. They were gone.

Mr. M was scheduled to regain possession of his sons last weekend. The boys’ mother had been ordered to turn them over to him no later than Sunday. This meeting with me was to ask permission to re-enroll his sons in the school. The principal refused to see him or make the call; she had been the object of most of his abusive tirade. Following his frightening out-of-control behavior, it was understandable that he suspected we would be reluctant to take the children back. He needed to apologize, take back the insults, and show a different side of himself to the school personnel whom he had so furiously debased. How hard can it be?

It was much easier than he thought it would be. Although he had been told that his children were no longer on the rolls, I apologized for the misinformation. What he did not know was that the students had never been dropped from the enrollment. Since their mother had no legal authority to remove them, they were considered absent due to a family emergency. They were living in Atlanta, GA, but she had not tried to enroll them in another school. Mr. M breathed an audible sigh of relief when I told him that his sons were still students of McDonogh 42 Elementary Charter School. I also added that he owed the principal an apology for the threats. She did not deserve his harsh treatment. Now, he wanted her to accept responsibility for his children again!

He still has major problems to resolve as a single father raising three sons (including a 3-year-old toddler). After school care, transportation, homework and purchasing more school supplies were tribulations yet to be worked out. But, his beaming grin told me that one major load had been lifted from his shoulders. His sons were home and back in their neighborhood school. It was truly a beautiful smile, one that brought tears to my eyes.

Posted by Roslyn Johnson Smith, Ph.D. at 6:11 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Last Wednesday was a great day, partly because I didn’t have to go to school. That sounds like a statement you’d expect to hear from a truant child more that from the President of a charter school board. But, truth be told, I have been going to the school almost every day for the past three months. Sometimes I stay for 4-5 hours. And, last Friday at 5:00 p.m. when I left, everyone else was already enjoying their weekend.

My first telephone call, using our newly installed system was to an angry parent (who put me on three-way with her mother) and it went on for almost an hour. Grandma said that she’d written letters to the “powers that be” in Baton Rouge and reported our school to one of our State Senators after we informed her that her previously enrolled three-year-old grandson could not continue to attend our school. His birthday on Halloween makes him too young to meet the September 30 cut-off date. Unfortunately, the error did not surface until after he had attended his Pre-K class eagerly for three weeks. I offered to pay for his school supplies, book bag, uniforms, shoes, socks, and drawers. That wasn’t enough. Mother wanted him enrolled in school, in spite of the age regulation. Grandma wanted the teacher fired for not noticing the date on the birth certificate sooner. It wasn’t their only complaint but it was the complaint du jour.

I had a long meeting with the Principal Monday afternoon and a significant dialogue with the Business Manager on Tuesday, so they didn’t need me at school for a change. It felt great! I love the charter school work, but I don’t want to be an administrator again. Been there. Done that. I want to be a Board member. We are working without the benefit of our Operations Manager who had a pressing engagement that demanded his attention for the past month. I’ve been sitting in for him.

When I retired from my job as Area Superintendent, I promised myself three things:
1) I will never work a Monday – Friday job again in life.
2) I will never do another 8:00 A.M. meeting.
3) I will not leave my house when it is raining.
Since then, I added one more thing which is to watch “The Young and the Restless” everyday at 11:00 AM.

Even though I considered it a “light” work day, here is a list of things from my “Did It List.”
• Sent a fax to Baton Rouge to RSVP for the October 1 meeting on the HEAP funds. It’s eighty (80) miles from my house and I don’t like driving.

• Conversation with the Business Manager (about 30 minutes). We need attractive trash cans, door mats, citrus drip deodorizers for the restrooms, and a portable intercom system before next week’s Open House. Maintenance contract talks continue. Email addresses are not active yet. Charter Schools meeting is on Thursday Morning. Schedule the monthly progress meeting (part of her Personnel Evaluation).

• Conversation with the School Clerk about a very "concerned" parent (5 minutes). I’d love to tell Mr. W that we can’t take his children back, since he was so ugly the last time we talked. Actually, I talked; he threatened, after his sons’ mother “kidnapped” them from the school a few weeks ago. More on this later. We must follow the rules. He’s b-a-a-a-c-k.

• Conversation with the Principal (5 minutes). Student enrollment audit guidelines demand that each teacher copy the students’ social security numbers from their cards, not from the enrollment forms because parents often write the numbers incorrectly. We need to regroup the get the forms done on time.

• Organized pages for the website (30 minutes). Too hard for today.

• Discussed Jazz Awareness Month Activities with Cherice (20 minutes). Oh yeah! More later.

• Worked on Employee Handbook draft (as the Lionel Richie song says “All Night Long”).

Posted by Roslyn Johnson Smith, Ph.D. at 6:13 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This story has a happy ending, but it didn’t look like that would be the case for awhile.

Our teachers started working on July 30, 2007 in a 10-day professional development activity centered upon preparing for the opening of school. They were paid up to $1,000--$100 per day to decorate their rooms, cart textbooks and manipulatives up the stairs (we don’t have an elevator in our 3-story building), and attend academic meetings. In the past, teachers were expected to come to school days in advance to prepare classrooms and they were never paid for their time. Our charter school board wanted to be one of the first schools to pay teachers something for the 2007 – 08 session, even though the amount was far less than their regular checks would be. The faculty members were grateful for the consideration and the “baby checks” after being without salaries for the months of July and, in some cases, June. They also know that one of our goals is to make them some of the highest paid teachers in the state.

August 31st was our school’s first regular pay day. Many of our teachers previously worked for the New Orleans Public Schools (NOPS) where we had chronic problems getting paychecks on time, with the correct amount of money, or with the right deductions. It is a history that still creates tension for teachers who wait anxiously for their first paycheck each year. Our Board of Directors was determined that these teachers would be paid on time with the correct amounts. We tried to make sure no one went home disappointed that first pay day. We had all of their salary information. How hard can it be?

I was very pleased to hear from the Business Manager that our payroll vendor had deposited each teacher’s money into her or his bank account by Thursday, August 30. The checks would post on Friday as scheduled. That was the good news. Later, I learned that the payroll vendor had recently changed banks. Their new bank reported that the teachers’ checks would not clear until the next business day—not Saturday—not Sunday—not Monday, because it was the LABOR DAY weekend! I was worried sick about the possibility of teachers writing checks in advance and the rubber we would bounce all over the city, if the funds for our first payroll were not processed and available for our staff. Was this payroll fiasco part of a New Orleans school voodoo curse?

We called the teachers in to explain the situation and most of them took the information in stride. When several teachers checked their bank accounts on-line and saw that their paychecks were posted, we saw smiles. Actually, they were so happy with their salary increases that no one was upset about the possible delay in the bank’s schedule. Although the money wasn’t immediately available, at least it was posted in their accounts as promised.

Later that evening, we discovered that the payroll company had calculated the teacher pay based upon a 40-hour week instead of the 35-hour week we stipulated. Every teacher had been underpaid! Only one teacher realized she was due more money that her check receipt showed. We didn’t dare tell them that all of our checks were wrong. I don't think this ever happened even on the worst pay days with NOPS.

In case you are wondering how this story could have a happy ending, I must add that the teachers received a supplemental check for the difference when they returned to school after the Labor Day holiday. You would have sworn that the Tooth Fairy had visited as cries of “Mo’Money” and “Cha-Ching” could be heard all over the building.

Posted by Roslyn Johnson Smith, Ph.D. at 11:19 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

$368 per night. That’s what it costs to pay for two 8-hour shifts of a security guard’s vigilance in our empty school each night. If anyone reads the daily newspaper in New Orleans, one might think that the high level of crime we endure in the Crescent City requires a special need for security in our well-stocked schools. Actually, we do have more computers, calculators, projectors, etc. than we had before Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters washed everything away. But, no one has tried to break into the school to steal anything. In fact, lots of the houses in the Treme neighborhood around McDonogh 42 Elementary Charter School are still empty, gutted, and in disrepair. People are still waiting for Road Home grants and SBA loans to fix their houses. We are paying for round-the-clock security because we can’t get a lock for the front door of the school. That’s right. We have paid thousands of dollars to a security company because we can’t get a $50 lock for the front door!

Our school is the first one that was opened by the state’s Recovery School District (RSD) and subsequently transitioned to a charter school. The transfer from one agency to another agency begs the question, “How Hard Can It Be?” The Lease Agreement requires a walk-through and an agreement on work that needs to be completed before the Treme Charter School Association (TCSA), our charter group, has full possession of the building. Repairs that would put the building into pre-Katrina condition are supposed to be completed by RSD or their hired hands.

Although our school has been open since August 13, 2007, we still don’t have a key to lock the front door of the building. No one can find it. Last year, all 20+ RSD-operated schools had 24-hour security, so I guess this dilemma is no big thing to some people. I could hire a cafeteria monitor for the whole year with the money we’re paying unnecessarily for overnight security.

Today, I told the Business Manager to look in the Yellow Pages of the phone book and find a locksmith. Craftsmen such as electricians, plumbers, and locksmiths charge very high prices in New Orleans these days. Until the Lease Agreement is processed we don’t have authority to change the locks. We’ll probably have to pay for this transgression because we are putting a lock on that door this week. But, if I’m going to pay an arm and a leg for anything, at least I’ll rest easy at night knowing that we are not throwing the public’s money away while we wait for our maintenance punch list. I’ve learned that it’s always easier to get forgiveness than it is to get permission, anyway.

Posted by Roslyn Johnson Smith, Ph.D. at 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)