WWJD?

One of the reasons that people choose Holy Cross is for the religious aspect. I'm not talking about the religon classes, but the way in which we try to get people to live the life, and set good examples.

There is a program called "prayer buddies" where older kids pair up with the kids in the younger grades. A good program, and one that I think reinforces good behavior on BOTH the older and younger kids. This year, the young children gave their 8th grade partners a "WWJD" bracelet.

Apparently some of the 8th graders wore the bracelet to school, as has been the custom and tradition of the school for years...and promptly were punished by losing their final "tag" day by Denise. I am sure there will be a defender or two who will quote chapter and verse of the holy book of rules and regulations, but somehow a Catholic school punishing kids for wearing a What Would Jesus Do bracelet seems that someone is missing the point.

Ways Bad Principals work...

Someone sent me these 10 ways bad principals operate.....any sound familiar?


1. Avoid hiring older experienced teachers who are thinkers./Keep a staff of young revolving door teachers so roots and opinions won't establish.

2. Praise conformity./Staff of Stepford teachers who won't question anything.

3. Give perks to a small group of teachers that form first line of defense against other teachers./Create a barrier clique between administration and teachers by rewarding a few good soldiers who will serve as positive voice pieces for the administration.

4. Overload with work./Create inability to complain about issues - keep too busy.

5. Limit assistance with difficult children or purposely load certain teacher with difficult children./Create inability to complain about issues keep too busy to speak out.

6. Limit support with difficult parents and create barrier between teachers and parents./Attack self-esteem so won't feel empowered and won't trust their own thinking while eliminating parent allies from forming.

7. Place children of high profile parents with teachers who conform./Avoid having parents form allies with strong teachers.

8. Write up false reports./Flex muscles so teacher will know they are being controlled and will become confused.

9. Create files with false and negative reports; create separate file in case contract requires teacher is to be informed, and keep documents out of teacher's view./Build a case against teacher.

10. Threaten- directly or through rumors or innuendo by designated staff messengers./Create wall of fear to silence teacher.

Deal Me Out

One thing that has been on the rise for the past year is the number of gambling activities sponsored by the school.

Now…there is nothing illegal about a church organization running a gambling operation…where would we be without bingo? However, I think there is a difference between a bunch of little old ladies getting together once a week for some chat and bingo or a raffle for a new car and Cheswold Charlie and Leipsic Louie coming in for poker night and stogies.

If you check out the HC calendar, you will find that we will sponsor not one, not two, but three poker nights during the first part of the year. Now, I get that this is quick easy cash. Basically, for those who are not familiar with the concept, certain non-profits can run gambling operations legally. Most go through a few organizations that put on the parties. They basically “borrow” the name of the organization and conduct the poker night, splitting the fees raised by the players and the sponsoring organization. They do all the work, minus any publicity one does, and the organization gets a cut for doing nothing.

Last year the school ran a football poll that was probably on the borderline of legality, and did run a poker night in conjunction with the KofC. Seems that the trend of relying on gambling for funds is spreading…while admittedly legal, does anybody else feel a bit uncomfortable about this? What if they sponsored a Chippendale night…is there any difference?

I like Apple or Cherry, but not this kind of turnover...

A certain amount of turnover, be it student, faculty, or administration, is not necessarily a bad thing. New teachers and staff bring new methods and new ways of looking at things, and it allows administrators more flexibility in improving a school. One would even expect a bit higher turnover rate with a new principal, even if they were a combination of Mother Teresa and St. Francis. However, too much turnover is bad, as it is in any workforce, as they may require additional supervision and time to get to know the system.

Holy Cross will be a different school this fall. There will be unprecedented levels of turnover at the student and staff level. The latest figure is that from last September, we will have had 22% turnover of the teachers and staff, which is a figure that should raise alarm even among the most ardent Jacono supporters.

22%, people! Now, I know some of them may or may not have been people’s favorite teachers, and some probably needed a nudge…but most were very good people, and good teachers or staff. In any case, they did not deserve to be treated…in some cases, being told in front of people to start looking for a new job….LAST SEPTEMBER. Now, this person was one of the better ones we lost and has gotten an excellent position elsewhere, so I am glad for them.

I hope the new teachers and members of the staff are treated well, and do well. Often when some types of bosses hire employees, they treat those who they hire better. Maybe Denise will feel better with more of “her” teachers and staff working for her, and she’ll feel less inclined to yell at them in staff meetings and in front of kids. Maybe she won’t refer to them as embarrassments to the school and the diocese as much…

And maybe we will not have almost a quarter of the teachers and staff leaving next year.

Internet Filtering....or the lack thereof

I'm bringing up a comment that someone posted below about Internet filtering, and leaving out graphics. Leaving out images would make the Internet a pretty boring place. In addition, there are too many diagrams, illustrations and graphic representations that help in explaining things that I would not want to filter out all graphics. I don't think that searching for graphics is the main issue, but what they provide to the experience of learning.

However, that is a minor issue. The real issue, of course, is that Internet filtering is not being done at the school, or at best is set up incorrectly. If you sit in the parking lot you can pick up just about any website you want…except one or two that were manually plugged into the 3COM device. I am talking porn, hate stuff, alternative life style, game sites, social networking, videos….the whole enchilada with extra hot sauce.

This would be unacceptable at any public school, let alone a religious based school. What takes it to the next level is Denise’s insistence that it was fixed, despite several parent’s insistence to the contrary. A few kids got in trouble for getting to “bad” sites, with a patently untrue and weak story about the kids getting around the filtering. While there is a grain of truth that one can use third party web sites to get to bad sites, this is not what happened. These kids simply stumbled onto the websites, and were punished for it. As someone who posted at Newszap said, Denise was aware of it from before the beginning of the school year, but failed to resolve this issue despite offers from professionals.

The web is a wonderful resource, but for the sake of our children they need to be protected. It is amazingly bad management and arguably child endangerment.