Reply to Scary school bus incident and safety petition

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Scary school bus incident and safety petition"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Communication is absolutely a Principal thing, regardless if you think "she is great."[/quote]

My 8th grader is at Westland and we've always found Ms Serino responsive to incidents *that we already knew had happened*, such as the sprinkler system flood last year. But this is a MAJOR communication faux-pas on her part.

Perhaps she is not aware of the dangers of anti-freeze, does not imagine the quantity that exploded inside the bus, or thinks that the risk/injury, however concerning, does not warrant a school-wide response if it only affects a subset of students, not on school grounds.

In all three things, she is WRONG, because the issue at hand is:
1. She needs to push MCPS for a Transportation response.
2. She needs to do her job and inform all Westland families of a problem that could have happened to any of the students. Any bus, if poorly-maintained, could have had this happen. She needs to do the crucial PR101 and simultaneously reassure and provide more info (or promise she will push for info, then update a week later on the info she has received from Transportation).

This is basic "How to be the Head of an Organization", chapter "Heading off Pitchforks".

[/quote]

Agreed, wrong not to send out any communication. What if she has been told by Central office not to send anything even if she wants to pending an investigation?[/quote]

Nope. Successful principals at other schools have kids have attended knew how to push back against Central Office. After some years, they understood when they could strike out on their own, and when they had to use, er, subterfuge, to get what they wanted. Not going to tell tales out of school (I was on the executive board of an MCPS elementary school for years) but the lengths some Principals go to for the kids' wellbeing - finagling extra teachers when Kindergarten enrollment surges after school starts, for example - is sometimes phenomenal.

This Principal should not be afraid of being a savvy politician, and throwing her weight about when necessary.
The job requires many hats!
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics