Hallway Hell

The assistant principal's mentor was here this week. Another one of those open secret's; we are not supposed to know the administrator's have mentors. It's like farting, I suppose, when you bump into them, you politely pretend it really didn't happen.

I bumped into Mr.Mentor, waiting outside Ms. AP's office. I turned my attention to the trouble makers making trouble in the hallway ten minutes after the period started, and urged them to go to class.

Aria responded to my request in her usual fashion, something that had to do with her opinion that it was unfathomable, inappropriate and entirely unnecessary for me to consider interfering with her decision to malinger. However, she said that much more concisely than I just wrote it.

From the corner of my eye, I caught Mr. Mentor shaking his head and rolling his eyes as I opened the door and the verbal abuse got redirected to the classroom teacher who questioned Aria's lateness. I shut the door and continued on my way.

A half hour later I again passed Mr. Mentor in the hallway this time in deep discussion with his mentoree about the state of a bulletin board.

Later that day, the highly effective teacher who posted the bulletin board, found me to complain about the email he received about the bulletin board. Apparently it had been deemed not rigorous enough, and not sufficiently displaying student work.

A note here about highly effective teachers. The term and the process of teacher evaluations have been much in the news this week. Apparently the teacher's union,the governor and mayor as well as every newspaper in NY have has something to say about it. But whether you believe being highly effective is reflective of student's scores on standardized tests, or elements checked off a framework, the above teacher would meet the criteria of highly effective.

The teacher was upset.
Our hallways are a mess.
And its not the bulletin boards that are making our life hell.

What should the teacher do? he asked.
I gave him my best advice.
Politely ignore it.