A Positive School Story

I have blogged about many different aspects of my parental journey through the New Orleans school system. Tonight I don’t have anything negative to say. I want to let everyone know that there are many great people working with these kids. One of them is the principal at my daughter’s school. I still won’t say the name of the school because this city is crazy.

One of the reasons why we decided to go with this particular charter school is because after meeting with the principal he left us with a good feeling. Even with that good feeling the stigma attached to the public school system is such that we had no choice but to take a wait and see approach. I have to say that since the school year started I have been more than impressed with the environment at the school. Much of that is because of the principal. There are a few things that stick out to me. One thing is how he knows every kid by first name and shakes their hands and talks to them in the morning to see how they are doing. Four and five year old kids can have rough mornings and not want to go to school. When he sees that they are having a rough one he walks them to their class themselves to make them feel better.

The other thing I like is how when every parent who picks their kids up in the evening walks through the door he instantly puts the parent’s face with the kid and calls them out of the class. It’s impressive he can remember moms and dads and what child they belong to. It also makes me feel better leaving my girl in his care during the day. He even engages in conversations with me during the evening about the school, my kid and just general things to keep me aware of what’s going on. So far I have to assume that the stuff he said sitting in my living room was not just a scripted sales pitch. I think he actually meant every word of it.

He’s going to do well for these kids as long as some of these crazy parents don’t look at all the interaction as a burden on their time. Some of those parents show up in the evening and act like whatever they are headed to do is way more important than what is going on with their children. If those kids don’t learn anything by the end of the year I don’t know if they are going to be able to blame that guy and his staff. Mr. ‘J’ is the man.