I am pleased by your perseverance. As a parent and parent volunteer, I have learned so much. If only parents knew what abuse teachers endure. Not only from students, and parents, but principals, as well. I don't think I have heard of our principal cursing teaches, but he has allowed students to go unpunished for doing the same. It is my opinion, and one shared by some teachers, if this principal does not care for a teacher, it is open season on that teacher. Students learn which teachers are on the "Principal's Hit List". It seems all it takes to get on the "List" is to speak up. Where there are no consequences for calling a teacher the equivalent of a female dog, no consequences for telling a teacher to perform sexual acts to herself, the abuse grows. Teachers pay a price if they dare speak up. The sad thing is, some teachers report, to the principal, everything said to them by another teacher. These teachers are ruled by intimidation. I have found going to the school board is a waste of time. It seems to be a "One hand washes the other" mentality. I wrote letters about the abuse of power I felt one principal was exercising, and I attended many board meetings. They gave me the three minutes allotted a parent, sounded the gavel, and I returned to my seat. Then I wrote to the attorney for the La. Dept of Ed. I detailed everything I had learned. I never received a reply from him, but the principal announced her retirement, within a few weeks.
I am going to do the same thing, but with a different principal. Parents complain all the time, but too many will do nothing more. We as parents need to stand up for our children's rights. As a parent, I am going to stand up for our teachers. My son's teachers watch over him, teach him, and are there for him. Though teachers are not the mothers of their students, I find most teachers, in our school, treat children as they would want their own child treated. Parents need to drop that remote control, get off the sofa, and stand up for their teachers. All too often, a teaher only sees a parent when that parent is angry. When that parent wants to blame their child's shortcomings on someone other than themselves.

Congratulations!!!
I'm so happy for you that your hard work paid off. I'm definitely going to pick up the book--I've the feeling it's going to come in very handy.

Our principal got tenure. So many of us are massively bummed. The vice principal left after just a year and a half of being in our district. He was no prize either, but at least he was better than her. Through the grapevine it was because the principal is such a nightmare to work with. The biggest obstacle with our principal is that everything is done passive-aggresively. It's never overt. I'd list all the problems I've had with her, but I'd rather remain as anonymous as possible here. She's alwys pulling something to interfere or make you look bad or tries to divide and conquer. Of course when she gets busted anything she's done wasn't done maliciously....

At any rate, I keep on writing my letters to the super and BOE--I've discovered that any incidence, no matter how small, needs to be documented to show a pattern of behaviour.

Hopefully she'll move on to greener pastures and leave us far behind!

I wanted to give an update, in case anyone else searches the forums in the future because they're in a similar situation.

Fortunately, our principal will not be returning to our school (or any county school) in the Fall. It's been a long year and I'm glad it's finally coming to an end.

One of the best resources I found out there was a book called "Breaking the Silence" by Joseph and Jo Blase. It details research on abusive principals and can be found on amazon.com.

When we met with the superintendent, we had a lot of stuff already typed out and ready to hand to her, since we didn't know how much time we would have and we didn't know if the conversation would digress. We used the research as a guideline. We took the list of abusive behaviors and for each one gave examples of her acting out those behaviors and, when possible, a complaint letter from a parent regarding that behavior (we had plenty complaint letters to work with).

We went through the list of documented effects on the staff who are subject to this abuse and gave examples of the effects on our staff. We had the data to show that even though we're a title I school, we had among the best, and in some categories THE best, standardized scores in the county--all due to our hardworking staff.

We went through the list of problems, her actions on those problems, and the ill-effects on our school's instructional programs. We also talked about our difficulties with her, the lying, the bad-mouthing, the intentional sabotage, etc.

It was hard--I was trying to stay very matter-of-fact, but there were times I struggled to stay that way when I was talking about what our teachers have been through. The superintendent really grilled us--I do respect that. She was definitely fleshing out our motivations.

There were several groups of teachers who met with her as well. Thankfully, they came to a point where they knew they couldn't not speak out and they know they will never let anyone do this to them again.

I followed up by letting our school board rep know that while we realized they couldn't discuss personnel decisions with us and could not let us know what their intent was for our school before the decision was formally made, if there was no announcement by a month or so before contracts would be extended, we would have to proceed as if she would be back and we would have to start organizing parents accordingly.

Fortunately it didn't come to that. She was not going to be given a contract anywhere in the county for next year and she was told by the superintendent that this had to be announced to the staff right away.

It's been about a month and she's still as vindictive as ever and seems to be trying to destroy as much as possible before she leaves by blaming "a few troublemakers" who are bringing everyone down and causing so much pain for her family, yada yada yada. Before she announced her departure, she announced at a faculty meeting that she had a friend in the superintendent's office who was keeping her informed of all those who had made appointments--she also brings this up during evaluations, seems to know exactly which teachers went to the superintendent. They're hanging in there, know she'll be gone soon, but it's disheartening for them to see the rift between them and the 4 or 5 in our school who support her. It's very sad. Last week she was telling everyone how they can't get a principal to replace her because no one wants to come work with our teachers after the way they treated her. I think she really believes this, she's so delusional.

A really great opportunity came from this--I and a teacher were invited to sit on the interview panel for hiring the new principal. We submitted questions ahead of time and could ask questions there as well. The two of us were very excited to be there and really enjoyed the experience. We don't know the final choice yet, but hopefully will soon.

It's a huge relief--I feel we're pretty lucky because it's no easy thing to get a principal out the first year. Thanks to all for the advice and I hope our situation helps others who have to deal with this.

We had exactly the same kind of situation at our school, where a principal seemed just fine and then became a very difficult problem.

It was our teachers who really had to do something about it. They came together, worked together, put together lists of grievences, and threatened a vote of no confidence.

Our district hires a new principal with a two year contract, so that if she doesn't work out, they still have to pay her for an entire year. You have every right to make an appointment with the head of the human resources department and learn exactly what the procedures are for not rehiring a principal. It all has to be written down on paper somewhere and you have the right to see it.

Then, you may have to speak as a parent group at a school board meeting, with the specific request that no future contracts with this principal be signed.

What happened in our school, is that the administration and the union agreed to bring in a non-partisan negotiator to meet with everybody and get the story from everybody. She met with the principal, the staff, the teachers and parents. At the end, the principal was not given a new contract, but the district had to pay her another year's salary and she worked at the district offices writing grant proposals.

Another thing to think of, is if the principal is not rehired, the district has to put in place the hiring process for a new principal all over again. They may be reluctant to spend the money and the time.

But, because this principal has only one year into the job, and must have all sorts of job reviews and evaluations in order to get a more permanant job, your objections will carry some weight. Document, document, document. Phone conversations and emails are not going to do the job. Someone has to put their names on a formal letter and make formal objections or you are going to be living with this principal again next year.

Good Luck!

Thanks for the input--all great advice. I'm looking into the contract particulars. I believe they are yearly contracts and offered in June, so I'm told I have a little bit of time to get everything together. I'll be sure to find out if there's tenure or other contingies for different employees.

It's hard to explain why we're trying to find out about past disciplinary incidents without going into too much detail. But, for example, if we know that there was an incident at our school where a student(who was new and suspected to be emotionally disturbed and had been kicked out of his last school--red flags everywhere this child is potentially dangerous to other children as well), went after a teacher with a fork, and nothing was done about it for days, no phone call home, not being seen in the office, nothing until the teacher pressed the issue...and then we find out that at the last school she was reprimanded for letting 5 or 7 days go by without doing anything about a child who brought a large knife to school...

Having the facts of the past incident allows us to show a pattern of failing to act and, when combined with the numerous other incidents and three schools where she left on bad terms, demands some accountability on the part of those who chose her for this position over others who applied.

What we really feel is that trying to fix this problem by moving it somewhere else rather than dealing with it, the expediency of that solution, came before the best interests of our kids and staff.

So the latest is that a teacher called a school board member on behalf of the rest of the teachers and talked for over an hour. The school board member was really appalled at everything going on, but, again, told her that they were going to have to make an appt. with the superintendent and tell her all this stuff. They did have a session with the principal earlier in the year where the principal had asked them to air their grievances, but it didn't help because she said she was being attacked and didn't really listen to what they had to say.

I believe the powers-that-be care and are sympathetic, but won't act on the teachers' misery alone. It will take parents expressing how unacceptable this is. I've gotten a lot more information this week and am hoping to have a meeting soon to lay it all out. Thanks again for all the support and advice. I'll report back if we have any success.

I can imagine my posts being fodder for coffee talk--God knows I have enough of them out there! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

That really sort of sucks that your comments are made public. While you may honestly stand behind what you say, if you'd wanted it to get straight to her you could have saved the aggravation and gone to her yourself! It happened to me too. At first I stressed, but then I realized what I have to say may not be something I'd care to say openly (why cause a ruckus if it's not necessary), but it's truthful and I'd say it to her face if I had to.

Why do you think the super and BOE are so reticent to take action? I can't buy that it's just not wanting to deal with the aggravation of letting this person go or reprimanding them--hearing complaints from parents and faculty is just as bad--especially if the potential for the parents to be relentless exists. Has the principal been formally given a warning or admonition? Have the teachers filed any sort of formal complaint, or tried to get mediation? You all might want to not worry so much about the history part right now--it could be far too time consuming. Focus on the problem now, and how you expect it to be rectified. Think outside the box on how to get her out. Harassment charges carry quite a bit of weight.

I normally have a problem with teachers' unions--ours is strong and is costing us as taxpayers a pretty penny, but in this sort case they are very helpful. What are the tenure laws in your state? If the teachers are tenured they have a lot more support to speak their minds and take action without fear of getting fired. In NJ the teacher/adminstrator is hired for a three year contract--if the contract is renewed they are automatically given tenure. :eek: Our principal is up for tenure this year, and many of us are freaking out.

What's been going on as of late?