Friday Fragments from an Administrator's Perspective

My brain is swirling with administrator thoughts today.  Let me capture some of them:

--I'm hearing about the clog in the courts down in Texas where people crossing the border have been detained in systems that aren't designed for this.  There aren't enough court workers to process people quickly or at all--or to shelter them while waiting for trial.  Children have been taken from parents, but there aren't local shelters.  It breaks my heart on so many levels.

I've been thinking about it from the perspective of parents and children--to have children ripped from the arms of parents?  Are we really this country now?

This morning I'm thinking about it from the perspective of the workers on all sides.  I imagine that people who work from the law enforcement side must be somewhat used to this kind of chaos when families are forcibly separated.  But I think of court reporters and judges and all of the others who would ordinarily never see this level of sorrow.

--I feel lucky in my current administrator life.  I don't see chaos and woe on these levels.  But there are weeks where I see a bit.  This has been a week where students have been making decisions about whether or not to continue with school, and I've heard some sad tales over paperwork signing. 

--But this week hasn't been all sadness.  Yesterday we had our Meet and Greet, a quarterly event.  This time, we had barbecue brought in from a local restaurant that I really like.  When I say barbecue in this context, I mean pulled pork and pulled chicken.  We also bought cole slaw from the restaurant.  I bought salad ingredients at a restaurant supply store (Gordon Food Services, not Costco or BJs), so we also had a big pan of salad.  It was a lovely spread.

We invited continuing students to be part, although we should have invited them earlier.  We missed some EMS students, and I keep telling myself that every student won't always have every opportunity.  One of the continuing students said, "Wow!  Did you cook all of this for us?"  I said, "I'm not opposed getting a big slab of meat and smoking it for you guys, but this time, we ordered from a restaurant."

Again and again, new, potential, and continuing students said, "I really love the atmosphere here" or "it's so happy here."  Any time a person says that, I feel that we're successful.


--The days that I've logged the most steps on my Fitbit were yesterday and our Open House on May 19.

--Today, at my old school, they should be wrapping up an accreditation visit, which started on Wednesday.  I don't envy them.  The more of these visits that I experience, the more I know that so much depends on a lot that is out of our control as administrators.  The worst visit that I was ever part of came almost a decade ago.  It was February and part of the visiting team had a 1 day delay because of weather; they were stuck in an airport part way to us and arrived in a terrible mood.  The visit went downhill from there.

--Today should be a fairly easy day at my school.  This quarter, Fridays have been easy, and I don't expect today to be different.  Plus, a variety of people are out of the office today, which will make it even quieter.