Over the 2022 summer, I applied and was hired as a middle school dean. Now, I know that many public schools do not have deans and I am often asked, what do you do? Well, let me tell you what I am supposed to do versus what I do most days. When I was hired, my title was Dean of Student Conduct and School Culture. I was supposed to work with students to modify inappropriate conduct by implementing PBIS, MTSS, and restorative justice thereby modifying school culture. This, I did. I spent copious amounts of time working with students to modify behaviors that were not appropriate in an academic setting. Behaviors such as skipping class, destroying/defacing school property, bringing controlled substances to school, fighting, bullying, and the list goes on. I was prepared to mediate, send them to the student support specialist for more in-depth mediation, and refer them to the school social workers, Community in Schools support, Child Savers, and RBHA (local behavior and health association). What does an admin license not prepare you for? Drama, pre-teen drama. It truly is worse than high school drama because these poor darlings do not have the impulse control necessary to make good decisions. If they like someone, they touch them. If they don’t like someone, they touch them. Sometimes it is a joke to touch another and sometimes it is a fight-club scenario. Many times I feel like I need a social work degree and private investigator skills.
So, I said that my title changed after I was hired. It is now Dean of Academic Support and School Culture. What does that mean? Now I observe staff and provide educational support for them as well. This is the fun part, right? Sometimes. When I was able, I popped my head into classrooms to see what was going on, touched bases with teachers before and after classes or school, mentored, and offered as much support as possible. This was also the hardest part. Before the first semester ended one teacher quit because he decided that teaching was not his jam. Another teacher left to pursue a job in higher academics but the position was canceled and he returned a month later to pick up the pieces of his class and the department. Why the department? Well, in his short absence, another teacher quit. So we had two long-term subs (one was great when she was there) and the other was there but late and left early each day. The interventionist was reassigned to one room without a teacher but we were still missing a lead teacher for that department. The students were not really taught for two weeks and then they were brought into the auditorium for the department chair to teach them all and return them to class with assignments to do. How is it my issue? I’m just the dean, right? I had to make sure each class was covered by an adult or split into other overflowing classes without certified teachers along with the call-outs. How did we do on our end-of-year, state assessments you may ask? Not so good.
That was just one staff issue. I had long-term subs who refused to follow directions but we were so short-staffed because many teachers either could not, or refused to, work in the environment. Many absences among the staff. While we were working on student chronic absenteeism we also needed to work on staff chronic absenteeism. The staff who were there every day and provided support for me (yes they did) were amazing. I could not have pulled this off as a first-year dean coming out of virtual.
I had amazing students as well. I work in an urban district and there are the issues of an urban environment that spill over into the schools. I suspended way more kids than I wanted to but some of the supports that I would have used were not available to us. A small group of students who decided to “play” fight, which turned into a real fight, were in my office writing out their statements as I made calls home. We have a no-fighting policy that requires a short-term suspension and parent conference upon reinstatement. As I was talking to the students, one of them piped up and told me that he was afraid of me at first because I sounded stern when I gave the suspension prevention speech at the beginning of the year. I asked him, “How about now?” and he said no because I was really nice and spoke to the kids nicely, “but you do your job” which I assume he meant the suspension. I had a few students who wrote me notes saying that they liked the way in which I spoke to them. Many of the students would tell me that they’d rather speak to me than the AP or counselor because “you don’t yell, you listen.”
Many times this year, I wasn’t sure that I would make it. A particularly rough day left me disheartened about the job and my ability to do it. Or rather, my willingness to do it. I had a run-in with a bus driver, a parent who cursed me out on the phone, and then again in the office when she came to retrieve her child, and a staff member. One of the teachers was cursed out for stopping traffic for students to cross the road and busses to pull onto the road. I did not realize how much it had impacted me until the next morning. I did not want to go to work. I got up and got ready anyway. On my 30-minute drive, I was cut off numerous times by people who should have planned better to get to work on time. I ended up screaming at a person who cut me off one too many times and realized that my emotions were a bit more raw than I needed them to be. I cried for a few minutes and drove myself to work asking God to give me strength so that I would not bring my issues in the building with me. He did. Most of the day was calm. The students were relatively well-behaved. We had a full contingent of staff. Even lunch went off without much of a hitch. The rest of the day and even bus duty was good.
What really helped me get through the year was the support from the staff and the kind messages I received from them at our last staff meeting. Many thanked me for being available to them and trying to support them and their students as much as possible. One of my teachers went around and had students on the second floor create a sign for me (which I plan to laminate and hang in my office next year when we are all moving up). I have little notes and pictures from them I keep visible in my office. THEY keep me coming back. THEY always have. This will begin my 23rd year in education as a substitute, student teacher, teacher, librarian, and now administrator. THEY will always keep me coming back.
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