Principal Connections

I love the animated film Inside Out and was happy that it was honoured with an Oscar tonight. I was especially impressed by the message of the film's director to adolescents who are struggling with trials and tribulations of growing up:  I know this message will resonate with a lot of the kids at my school who are aching to find their niche and show their authentic selves with confidence. One of the ways our school is shifting its culture to embrace this idea is the inclusion of our first maker space in our library and it is my hope that more pop up throughout the building. The 21st century is about repurposing, relevance, tinkering... Maker spaces fit the bill and can be the launching pad from which our kids can change the world.

I was so sad to learn about the stabbing at Dunbarton H. S. in Pickering today. It's  only events like these that make me nervous about being an Administrator. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have your school in lockdown with a real threat within the building. I cannot imagine the pressure that principal must have felt to keep his students and staff safe. 9 injuries were sustained as a result of this event and I might have lost my mind with guilt that something like this happened on my watch.  And the media attention??? No one wants this kind of notoriety for their school. This Admin team is going to need a lot of support in the days ahead as they regroup and attempt to return to a normal routine. I just heard that classes will be resuming tomorrow with counselling being provided. Not sure that I would have made that call. I think I get some of the reasons why classes would resume immediately- no one wants a community to be paralyzed by fear or grief and the anxiety ...

I have lost count of the number of times I have said aloud or wondered in silence, "when did we stop being a school?" It would seem that as time goes on, schools are becoming everything to everyone - a place to seek out an educational program, a opportunity to be noticed by scouts, and more often, quasi treatment facilities for kids who are mentally not well. The growing numbers of diagnoses is frightening. The types of medications that our students are on and the dosages prescribed is nothing short of shocking. The demands made by parents on the system to reduce course work, reduce timetables, omit "unacceptable" marks for fear of sending their child spiraling out of control with grief is mind boggling. Our Board has a policy in place that allows schools to facilitate accommodations for such medical needs but it never seems to be enough. Then there are those wonderfully bogus medical "notes" that are written by professionals with actual education that l...