Open Forum

Variation on a recognizable theme. Advice please:

For the first eight years of my program and through three high school principals (including the current one), our spring play has been presented for two in-school performances and attended by the whole student body.

Now, for the second year, my principal has refused the in-school performances. "I'm not bein' ugly," he said (we are in the South) (the rest is paraphrased but accurate), "but there's too much going on in our schedule with testing, other trips, athletics and so forth, we just can't take another day." 

I'm part time, not tenured, in essence pink-slipped and renewed each year, so I step back from the difficult conversation because I need to keep my job. Instead, I do my best to convey the news to my students in a way they can accept gracefully, and we focus on the public performances.

Today we get a message from the school that because of an early-afternoon "away" basketball game, we will dismiss a half day early so those who wish to attend the game can do so. Reinforcing what my students are already saying and what I'm tactfully not: it's not about the schedule, it's the absence of a scoreboard that decides how much attention a program will get. And after two years of no school show, I grimly fear that this will be the new normal and my theater students will lose whatever credibility they had with the student body because the only ones that will come to the public shows are their friends and family. We get a handful of teachers and a total of zero administrators.

I shouldn't write this now because I'm angry, but this might be the best time. Is it worth asking him "I don't mean to be ugly, but how come basketball gets a half day and theater doesn't even get an in-school field trip?" And since I know that is the absolute wrong way to ask, and since I truly do respect my principal despite our vastly different interests and priorities, how should I approach it with him in a way that will make a difference - even if it's not till next year? Enlist the students and parents? Is that a backstabby move?

I'm glad the basketball team is in the playoffs, but I'm frustrated and feeling helpless as a professional and in my ability to make a difference for my kids. How would YOU proceed?

Variation on a recognizable theme. Advice please:

For the first eight years of my program and through three high school principals (including the current one), our spring play has been presented for two in-school performances and attended by the whole student body.

Now, for the second year, my principal has refused the in-school performances. "I'm not bein' ugly," he said (we are in the South) (the rest is paraphrased but accurate), "but there's too much going on in our schedule with testing, other trips, athletics and so forth, we just can't take another day." 

I'm part time, not tenured, in essence pink-slipped and renewed each year, so I step back from the difficult conversation because I need to keep my job. Instead, I do my best to convey the news to my students in a way they can accept gracefully, and we focus on the public performances.

Today we get a message from the school that because of an early-afternoon "away" basketball game, we will dismiss a half day early so those who wish to attend the game can do so. Reinforcing what my students are already saying and what I'm tactfully not: it's not about the schedule, it's the absence of a scoreboard that decides how much attention a program will get. And after two years of no school show, I grimly fear that this will be the new normal and my theater students will lose whatever credibility they had with the student body because the only ones that will come to the public shows are their friends and family. We get a handful of teachers and a total of zero administrators.

I shouldn't write this now because I'm angry, but this might be the best time. Is it worth asking him "I don't mean to be ugly, but how come basketball gets a half day and theater doesn't even get an in-school field trip?" And since I know that is the absolute wrong way to ask, and since I truly do respect my principal despite our vastly different interests and priorities, how should I approach it with him in a way that will make a difference - even if it's not till next year? Enlist the students and parents? Is that a backstabby move?

I'm glad the basketball team is in the playoffs, but I'm frustrated and feeling helpless as a professional and in my ability to make a difference for my kids. How would YOU proceed?

Variation on a recognizable theme. Advice please:

For the first eight years of my program and through three high school principals (including the current one), our spring play has been presented for two in-school performances and attended by the whole student body.

Now, for the second year, my principal has refused the in-school performances. "I'm not bein' ugly," he said (we are in the South) (the rest is paraphrased but accurate), "but there's too much going on in our schedule with testing, other trips, athletics and so forth, we just can't take another day." 

I'm part time, not tenured, in essence pink-slipped and renewed each year, so I step back from the difficult conversation because I need to keep my job. Instead, I do my best to convey the news to my students in a way they can accept gracefully, and we focus on the public performances.

Today we get a message from the school that because of an early-afternoon "away" basketball game, we will dismiss a half day early so those who wish to attend the game can do so. Reinforcing what my students are already saying and what I'm tactfully not: it's not about the schedule, it's the absence of a scoreboard that decides how much attention a program will get. And after two years of no school show, I grimly fear that this will be the new normal and my theater students will lose whatever credibility they had with the student body because the only ones that will come to the public shows are their friends and family. We get a handful of teachers and a total of zero administrators.

I shouldn't write this now because I'm angry, but this might be the best time. Is it worth asking him "I don't mean to be ugly, but how come basketball gets a half day and theater doesn't even get an in-school field trip?" And since I know that is the absolute wrong way to ask, and since I truly do respect my principal despite our vastly different interests and priorities, how should I approach it with him in a way that will make a difference - even if it's not till next year? Enlist the students and parents? Is that a backstabby move?

I'm glad the basketball team is in the playoffs, but I'm frustrated and feeling helpless as a professional and in my ability to make a difference for my kids. How would YOU proceed?

Variation on a recognizable theme. Advice please:

For the first eight years of my program and through three high school principals (including the current one), our spring play has been presented for two in-school performances and attended by the whole student body.

Now, for the second year, my principal has refused the in-school performances. "I'm not bein' ugly," he said (we are in the South) (the rest is paraphrased but accurate), "but there's too much going on in our schedule with testing, other trips, athletics and so forth, we just can't take another day." 

I'm part time, not tenured, in essence pink-slipped and renewed each year, so I step back from the difficult conversation because I need to keep my job. Instead, I do my best to convey the news to my students in a way they can accept gracefully, and we focus on the public performances.

Today we get a message from the school that because of an early-afternoon "away" basketball game, we will dismiss a half day early so those who wish to attend the game can do so. Reinforcing what my students are already saying and what I'm tactfully not: it's not about the schedule, it's the absence of a scoreboard that decides how much attention a program will get. And after two years of no school show, I grimly fear that this will be the new normal and my theater students will lose whatever credibility they had with the student body because the only ones that will come to the public shows are their friends and family. We get a handful of teachers and a total of zero administrators.

I shouldn't write this now because I'm angry, but this might be the best time. Is it worth asking him "I don't mean to be ugly, but how come basketball gets a half day and theater doesn't even get an in-school field trip?" And since I know that is the absolute wrong way to ask, and since I truly do respect my principal despite our vastly different interests and priorities, how should I approach it with him in a way that will make a difference - even if it's not till next year? Enlist the students and parents? Is that a backstabby move?

I'm glad the basketball team is in the playoffs, but I'm frustrated and feeling helpless as a professional and in my ability to make a difference for my kids. How would YOU proceed?

Variation on a recognizable theme. Advice please:

For the first eight years of my program and through three high school principals (including the current one), our spring play has been presented for two in-school performances and attended by the whole student body.

Now, for the second year, my principal has refused the in-school performances. "I'm not bein' ugly," he said (we are in the South) (the rest is paraphrased but accurate), "but there's too much going on in our schedule with testing, other trips, athletics and so forth, we just can't take another day." 

I'm part time, not tenured, in essence pink-slipped and renewed each year, so I step back from the difficult conversation because I need to keep my job. Instead, I do my best to convey the news to my students in a way they can accept gracefully, and we focus on the public performances.

Today we get a message from the school that because of an early-afternoon "away" basketball game, we will dismiss a half day early so those who wish to attend the game can do so. Reinforcing what my students are already saying and what I'm tactfully not: it's not about the schedule, it's the absence of a scoreboard that decides how much attention a program will get. And after two years of no school show, I grimly fear that this will be the new normal and my theater students will lose whatever credibility they had with the student body because the only ones that will come to the public shows are their friends and family. We get a handful of teachers and a total of zero administrators.

I shouldn't write this now because I'm angry, but this might be the best time. Is it worth asking him "I don't mean to be ugly, but how come basketball gets a half day and theater doesn't even get an in-school field trip?" And since I know that is the absolute wrong way to ask, and since I truly do respect my principal despite our vastly different interests and priorities, how should I approach it with him in a way that will make a difference - even if it's not till next year? Enlist the students and parents? Is that a backstabby move?

I'm glad the basketball team is in the playoffs, but I'm frustrated and feeling helpless as a professional and in my ability to make a difference for my kids. How would YOU proceed?