Chapter Fifty-Six: The Worms Crawl In

Chapter 56 – The Worms Crawl In

Recently I have not had any headache inducing-encounters with The Boss.

Admittedly there was the post-marathon incident and shortly thereafter I did receive a couple e-mails mandating all Prospect principals to attend a week-long retreat in April and a four-day “convention” in May and there was that e-mail in which he decreed a new policy saying he wants to interview all new hires after I interview them.

When I read these e-mails my first reaction was to clench my teeth and hyperventilate, then I remembered my resolution not to waste my limited psychic energy. So rather than respond, I print, file and forget about his e-mail. Passive aggressiveness is not my usual style, but in this case, intentional amnesia seemed to be my wisest response.

The explanation for the dearth of e-mails, phone calls or surprise visits from The Boss is that he has been focused on another principal, Lucy and her Prospect School in Naples. While The Boss is busy micromanaging Lucy’s campus and making her miserable, he is leaving me alone.

I am sorry for Lucy, but I am happy for me. I have enough on my plate with Prospect faculty, students and their parents.
My “vacation” from the boss starts to unravel a few weeks into May. In the early morning when I get on-line, the first email that pops up is from Lucy. It is written to The Boss, and I am blind copied. Lucy is submitting her resignation today. She feels she has no choice. I feel really sad about losing Lucy as my fellow Prospect principal and I want to phone her right away but, as always, the campus is already hopping. I decide to call her tonight.

When I return to my office at mid-day, The Boss is sitting at my desk. Surprise. I haven’t had any Boss-related problems since he turned his focus to Lucy’s campus. I guess he is done with that project and back to me. The Boss says he wants to talk privately. He suggests we sit outside. It is a hot day in mid-May. We end up at a dilapidated picnic table under a huge oak festooned with hatching worms. Lynne warned me about these worms, they look a little like fuzzy caterpillars but they sting. As The Boss talks worms drop from the tree onto the grass near our feet and occasionally, onto the picnic table.

Thinking about the email from Lucy, I wonder whether The Boss is going to ask me to be the principal at both Prospect schools until he can find a replacement. As it turns out, I could not be further from the truth.

The Boss has a yellow legal pad covered with pages and pages of writing. He reads from it beginning with a statement that my campus is a mad house and the children show a lack of respect, are defiant and profane. He says Prospect students aren’t ready for classroom experiences when they come to us and we need to focus instead on behavior and punishment. We need to develop more “uncomfortable consequences.” He tells me my counselors, Rusty and Rosie, are not the right people for their jobs. Moreover he doesn’t like my priorities, for example why do I spend time chasing down truant students? If children don’t come to school that is one less student to trouble our staff.

He continues, saying I am insubordinate, guarded, aloof, protective and not a team player. He plans to make changes on my campus and he can do it with me or without me. The Boss says he does not enjoy our working relationship, it causes him discomfort and distress and he is ready to resolve it or end it.

He goes on and on making the same points over and over while the worms drop from the branches. I take notes to maintain control over my emotions. The Boss talks for nearly two hours. When he permits me to speak I ask him for specifics on how he feels I should deal with our disrespectful, defiant and profane students. He tells me this is what I was hired to do and reminds me he feels my focus on academics is misguided.

I then ask how I have been insubordinate. The Boss refers to his legal pad and lists off five examples of my insubordination. The first item he cites is that just this morning I accepted a bcc email from Lucy on a subject that was neither my business nor related to me. Here The Boss stops and points his finger at me for emphasis admonishing, “You are NEVER to accept bcc emails.” The next example happened several months ago when I tried to set up a meeting with my fellow Prospect principals. The Boss says he knows I was attempting to organize a meeting that would exclude him. Thirdly, I didn’t remind him of my days off for the Marathon. My fourth indiscretion is that I have “engaged in conversations which have negatively impacted the morale of others.” And the final example of my insubordination was that I did not attend the week-long training last fall and I am using my son’s college graduation as an excuse to not attend the week long training later this month.

For over three hours, sweat running down his face, The Boss persists in what he thinks of as “providing feedback,” which isn’t quite how I view it. I try to keep a frozen expression that reveals no emotion while inside a battle rages. I want to yell and shout at this man, my boss. I want to argue each of his points, the half-truths, misinterpretations and lies. I want to ask him why he is working so hard to crush me rather than support me. But fear paralyzes me.

At the same time I want to cry. I am afraid I am going to lose my job and we just moved into our new house two months ago and how will we pay our bills without my income? I want to cry because my school is not the way I want it and listening to The Boss I am afraid maybe it really is my fault. Maybe the students aren’t ready to learn and if that is the case I am not sure I have the skills or desire to change from running an academic institution to a work camp. I remember that when The Boss was a Prospect principal he had the students walking in circles carrying five or ten pound buckets of concrete or scrubbing the building with toothbrushes. I am no more interested in implementing those punishments than I am in administering corporal punishment to the children.

In May 2003, sitting under that worm tree, what I knew to be true but couldn’t prove, was that the boot camp approach advocated by The Boss was not the answer and that removing the “bad” children from public school and segregating them at Prospect was not in the children’s best interests. Had I been able to time travel to October 2004, I could have supported my contentions with a report published by a 13-member panel convened by the National Institutes of Health to review scientific evidence on the causes and prevention of youth violence. A key finding was that boot camps and other “get tough” programs for adolescents do not prevent criminal behavior and may make the problem worse since they bring together teens who are inclined toward violence and they often teach each other how to commit more.

But in May 2003, The Boss departs (after promising to put “all this” in an email to make it a formal letter of reprimand) and I am upset with myself for not being more assertive. After all, don’t I constantly receive positive feedback from all the people with whom I work in the public schools, especially from Henry, my liaison and Rex, my mentor and fellow middle school principal? These educators keep telling me Prospect has never run so well and been so academically oriented and so much like “a real school.” They share with me horror stories of Prospect’s past. Prospect may be far from the school I want to create, but I also know it is better now than it ever has been. I should be empowered to call the bluff of The Boss. Would he really fire the best principal Prospect has ever had? Would he risk incurring the wrath of the Herald County Public Schools, a key stakeholder, our customer? Would he risk them pulling the contract or not renewing the contract? And finally and perhaps most perplexing I keep asking myself: why is my relationship with The Boss so toxic?

As far as my thoughts about confronting The Boss, it is just as well I didn’t because I am not sure I would have had much back up. About a year after I left Prospect, Henry and I got together for breakfast. I listened to him complain about The Boss. Since his job is to negotiate and manage the contract with Prospect, I asked him directly: why does he tolerate this man? Henry admitted that not only would he avoid wasting hard-won political capital on the children of Prospect (who he really doesn’t believe will ever be productive members of society) but he wouldn’t even bother spending money on them if it were politically “free.” So if a Kathleen comes along and creates a fantastic program on a shoestring budget, great. But Henry won’t lose a minute of sleep if Prospect children spend their days carrying buckets of concrete, just as long as they aren’t in “his” classrooms, as long as they aren’t creating headaches in “his” public schools.

While I was the principal at Prospect I missed this pragmatism of Henry’s. I saw him as an ally, a partner in my crusade to “save the children.” But I see now that despite our professional friendship and mutual admiration, Henry would not, and will not, recommend that the School Board “pull the contract” even if the children of Prospect aren’t learning or even being taught.

About a week after the al fresco Boss meeting, I flew to New York for my son’s graduation from Columbia. He graduated on a Wednesday but fearing for my job, I was back at work on Thursday.

I wanted to revel in my son’s success. I wanted to feel proud and happy and be fully present. To use a Verizon training slogan, I wanted “to be here now.” But it was a struggle. Worries about Prospect and The Boss invaded my thoughts. I felt nervous, distracted and irritable. I did have some relief when John (an old college friend of ours) and his girlfriend, joined us. For a few hours The Boss and Prospect vanished from my consciousness as my husband, son, son’s fiancé, John, his girlfriend and I ran around New York City eating edamame (green soy beans) and m&ms while talking about our lives and dreams. John told us about resigning from his corporate job at Verizon, about his trip to Uzbekistan building homes as part of Habitat for Humanity and his future plans: he and his girlfriend rented a house in Italy for July. John couldn’t believe we have a son graduating college, it seems like only yesterday my husband, John and I were doing the graduating. We talk about running. John ran a marathon several years ago. He wanted to hear all about our marathon experience. We share training tips and injury prevention. John’s foot is bothering him, my ham is sore. Too soon the sun sets and John and his girlfriend leave.

That was the last time we saw John. A week later, at age 47, John died of an undiagnosed heart problem.

The Boss gave me permission to attend the funeral but made it clear he expected me to dial into his all-principal conference call the day before the funeral, after I arrived at my motel in Michigan.