To: for Tuesday- The Summer Letter

To: The High School Staff
From: Your Intrepid Principal

re: 2010-2011


Well Howdy Do!


Here's hoping you are having just a great six weeks of summer! (unless you are teaching summer school, then it's just a quick 4 days off- but with proper planning you can cram a lot of vacation into that space!).



While the summer is short, those furlough days will feel great when they pop up every week or so, providing another day of rest sprinkled throughout the year ahead. Why not take these days as a total 'staycation' and turn off all power and water to your house? It's a great way to save! Thoughtful!

There are a few housekeeping chores we need to attend to:
1) yes, class sizes are a little larger this year. We will try to level the classes, as always. However, 'leveling' the classes this year means trying to balance the average weight and size of the students. We can't lower class enrollments, but we can strive to make sure the physical size of the students is as balanced as possible.

2) To avoid that claustrophobic feeling in the over-full classroom, here are a few tips:
a) ask the students to all wear the same color each day- hopefully a light tone or a pastel. While they love wearing black with big puffy coats, maybe a coordinated 'beige' or 'powder blue' day will help. If they all look the same they will blend into a background.

b) Oxygen is vital! Open windows and doors to keep that fresh air circulating! The rooms were designed for 20-30 students; 42 is a burden on the ventilation system. Students, and you, might begin to feel sleepy and disoriented if the oxygen levels drop. Leafy green plants might help. The biology department reminds us that algae on the ocean surface provides most of the earth's oxygen- maybe the mold growing in our ventilation ducts performs the same service?

3) We have lost our psychologist this year due to cut-backs and 'right sizing.' The district has come up with the new program "Comfort through Comfort Food." Send angry or troubled students to the cafeteria for meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

4) Copiers! The rumors are completely unfounded- we will still have the copier in the workroom! However, we do not ave any paper, so please bring your own from home or re-use previous assignments. Our hardworking students seem to be able to read 'between the lines' when it comes to having an English assignment printed over a human-anatomy diagram. Care should be taken, however. Avoid last year's 'dangling participial' embarrassment.

Also, toner is an issue. Teachers who choose may volunteer to "milk the squid" at the aquarium for extra ink.

5) Please use fewer vowels. The district director of finance has heard something about a need to 'buy a vowel.' If you must use vowels, use the letters 'u' and 'y' as these are less expensive than the big name vowels.

6) Use smaller fonts for email.

7) The collective bargaining with the PTA/PTSA has yielded a few changes. The homework center will stay open until midnight, and overnight child care will be added. In turn, the PTA parents will try to use the word 'trusted teacher' instead of 'freeloading tenure monkey' in their daily press releases and letters to the editor in the local paper.

8) Good news! The Right Wing Citizens Brigade has loosened up a little, and we no longer have to stone girls who break the dress code. The new procedure is to line the halls and shout 'harlot' as they walk to class. Teacher attendance is mandatory for this; names will be recorded and shirkers will be reported.

9) Sadly, the Lefty Pinko Parents and Partners Co-op still maintains that "farting noises" are protected speech, so students (but hopefully not the PE staff again this year) making mock flatulence noises cannot be disciplined or asked to stop. However students who are especially adept at these noises should report to the music program, as the metal instruments were reclaimed for recycling money last year and this year we can no longer afford 'wind' for the wind instruments.

10) The foreign language department has been changed. "Foreign" sounds too, well, foreign. We have adopted the new title "So THAT'S what they are saying about me!" The new title resonates with many of us who feel that people who speak other languages only do so make fun of us or cheat us.

11) We have replaced the school's bookkeeper with the word "No"

12) Instead of in-service days, we will be filling in for nurses at the local hospitals and guards at the local youth security facility as they take their furlough days.

The central office has a few reminders:

Because teachers' reputations are under attack again, the district office has informed us that they will no longer be visiting the school sites. District administrators are concerned about being labelled 'teachers' or 'educators', with the accompanying loss of self-esteem and community status. To this end, they will be 're-branding' the central office as a large 'Home Depot.'

If you see a central office employee on our site, approach slowly and don't make any sudden movements. If you run into one off-site, they ask that you pretend to not know them.

Our own district coordinator of curriculum is now to be known as "He Who Brings The Freshest and Dopest New Programs From Places and Consortium We Have Never Heard Of". All programs that show signs of success will be referred to as "Whack" and will be replaced with something untried or something that as shown promise when tried in small rural villages of the third world, or Pittsburgh.

The district guiding principles have been slightly modified with the addition of an asterisk after the phrase "all children can learn." The asterisk denotes a small addition that reads "probably not your student if she or he needs additional resources" and "this in no way constitutes a guarantee that your child will learn."

The district office will now be referred to as the "think tank" to improve the these employees' chances for being hired at the federal level.

We did not qualify for the 'Race To The Top' funds. I realize how devastating this is. We worked very hard on the application, and thought we had an excellent chance. Unfortunately, when the transportation department realized we would have to throw the teachers under the bus to qualify, they raised the issue of damaging the alignment on the buses. Sadly, we did not earn the $342.00 dollars the funds would have brought to the entire school.

Now, a few "do's and dont's" for this year:

Don't: Use expensive DVDs or PowerPoint presentations.
Do: Use sock puppets to get the point across

Don't: Use school facilities for personal needs
Do: Use the bathroom at home only!

Don't: Complain about custodial work
Do: Realize that sweeping and mopping is a cardio activity!

Don't: Overuse the defibrillator
Do: Shout "Boo!" really loudly to try to get the sinus rhythm going again

Don't: Overuse supplies from the supply closet
Do: Avail yourself of the generally unguarded pencils at the golf course!

Finally, I want to take ts opportunity to unveil this year's slogan. Following on the heels of 2008's "Doing More With Less" and last year's "Doing Even More with Even Less", this year we will be "Doing It All With Nothing."

Thanks, and let's all have a great year!