SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: When A Strange Principal Calls

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

When A Strange Principal Calls

I loved seeing Uncle Mike not getting his way last week when in a act of having some balls, the state legislature stood up to him and his quest to publicly shame teachers by publishing our evaluations, and made evaluations only to parents on a request to know basis in the principal's office with the Cone of Silence activated.

Of course Uncle Mike is throwing a tantrum, which Leonie Haimson had a good snark at, by insisting, nay commanding, that principals will harass and harangue parents with phone calls (at least a million calls) letting them know that they can come in to see their children's teacher's evaluations.

We at SBSB wondered what such a system proposed by Uncle Mike might look back. Sit back and rub your chin and wonder as the picture get all wavy.........

High school student Jill Johnson is has just arrived at the Mandrakis's house to babysit their two sons. Dr Mandrakis and his lovely wife, Mrs are going out to dinner. They give Jill the telephone number of the restaurant and tell her that they might be going to the movies. They leave and Jill sits down and begins her homework. Suddenly, the phone rings.


"Have you checked the children's teacher's evaluation?" says the creepy male voice on the other end. Jill immediately hangs up. She wonders who might be calling. Again, the phone rings, the same voice again asks her if she checked the children. For a minute she thinks it is Dr Mandrakis, but thinks differently and locks all the doors and closes all the windows.


"Have you checked the children's teacher's evaluation?" This is now the seventh time this caller has called and this time she decides to call the cops. She speaks with an officer Sacker. He tells her that since he hasn't made a threat, or has used rude language that there is nothing the police can do. She understands and hangs up.


This time the caller again calls and asks more forcefully, "Why haven't you checked the children's teacher's evaluation?" This time Jill calls back and gets hold of Sacker. Sacker suggests that they put a trace on the phone, but Jill has to stay on for a minute with this man.


The phone rings, Jill answers, the voice speaks, "It's me. Why haven't you checked the children's teacher's evaluation?


Jill tells the caller, "I know who you are, the Mandrakis's will be home soon." 


"I know," replies the caller, "I can also see you." 


Jill is terrified, she hangs up and turns off all the lights. The phone rings yet again!


"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Jill howls into the receiver.


"Jill, this is Sergeant Sacker! Listen to me! We've traced the call. It's coming from within the house. A squad car's on its way over there now... just get out of that house!"


Jill hangs up. She stands frozen in shock. Several seconds  go by. She doesn't move. She runs for the door. She opens it, and to her surprise and relief a detective that looks like Charles Durning is at the door.

The caller, a deranged principal had broken into the Mandrakis's house and under took Uncle Mike's directive literally to heart.


The scene upstairs in the children's bedrooms made the most seasoned and toughest cops spew chunks. But Mandrakis children had copious copies of their teacher's evaluations not only plastered all over the walls, but Principal Duncan saw to it that copies were taped and stapled to their jammies as well.


Ordinarily in a situation like this a principal like Duncan would wind up in a mental hospital and be terminated from his job. But not in today's DOE. Principal Duncan was given six months off with pay to relax on Block Island and when he returned he was promoted to a cushy inside Tweed desk job along with the subsequent 15% pay raise.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that the strangest part of Mayor Bloomberg's attitude on this issue is that the nonsense that they released would shame anybody who had any shame, or maybe that alone explains the attitude. We still don't know why only 18,000 'grades' were released, how incorrect data was attached to hundreds if not thousands of teacher records, and if the storm troopers at Tweed withheld data that teachers could use to appeal 'Unsatisfactory' ratings. If Bloomberg had come along 40 years earlier, he no doubt would have fit right into a White House criminal enterprise in the name of democracy.Fifty years ago he would have backed the right wing plot to kill the President and Democracy in this country.

Anonymous said...

I would bet that the phone calls will be made by teachers as part of their c-6 drudgery. Imagine reporting on another teacher.

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