I’ll take the lesson plans…

Folks, a principal rant:

It’s very odd sifting through this sub and reading about these micro-managing principals that make your life hell, while I’m here experiencing the other end of the spectrum. I teach at an extremely “average” school for my state: Title I (barely), very diverse, and the campus has a “B” rating…barely. On paper all this is well and good, as is the fact that I have the most low key principal ever that leaves you alone, never inundates you with work, and never pops into your room…and therein lies the problem. The lack of oversight has made many of the teachers extremely lazy. Attendance doesn’t get taken, SEVERAL weeks go by without grades being updated, and classroom management has gone out the window. The “good” teachers look evil in the eyes of the students and parents because they step into our room after having half a day of chaos and are insisted to follow the expectations. They don’t understand why not turning in their work results in a failing grade when “Mrs. A just had us do an assignment that counted for 1,000” - actual thing that has happened…more than once,” and discipline has become a MAJOR problem on our campus. I spent 10 years at a different school before moving cities. When I arrived three years ago I really thought I was going to love this campus, having come from a stickler principal that made us turn in weekly lesson plans, popped in our rooms, held us to the dress code standard, etc. I have to say that I really miss that. Structure is a trickle down effect, and when your faculty meeting are spent hearing “hey guys, please make sure you’re putting in attendance and submitting your grades every week” with half of us slamming our palms to our head, it makes you really miss the structure. The kids are definitely aware of which classes are the “fun” ones, and there are essentially no consequences for their actions, so the lack of consistency in discipline is definitely showing. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.