Saturday, August 30, 2008

hoisted on their own petards, Dec. 2001!



The semester right before I retired there unfolded quite a saga. The assistant principal came into my classroom and tried to support and reinforce the principal's "U" evaluation. Two administrative matched opinions can be quite solid, daunting, and damaging. She came in with a transparent agenda and I knew she had predetermined to find fault with the lesson she observed. She was reaching... but she lettered me up and in her report she states: "I distinctly remember discussing homework as separate from the block periods during the professional development day which focused on the math block given in our library earlier this year. It also does not appear in any of the sample formats for the balanced math block, which you received on that day and on another occasion afterwards."
Oh, really? I saved all the curriculm hand-outs and I went immediately to my professional file and retrieved the "Math Block." There it is right there: "Review of Math Homework" is very clear in italics print and highlighted in yellow marker for this blog post. What a jerk! I can say it now... I shake my head in total disbelief. I heard through the grapevine that the AP who wrote that letter was rubber-roomed herself a few years after I left the school. I guess contriving cases and fabricating charges of incompetence eventually backfires and results in being hoisted on your own petard. It was a fitting final chapter to that nightmare. And indeed, revenge is best served cold.
Did I ever tell you the story of the principal who was escorted out of the school in handcuffs? Soon I will write about that satisfying tale.
(please click on above documents to enlarge)

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