So when your
     question asks me did parents impact me, they impact me on a
     daily basis but they don't drive me.  That's my terminology.
     The parents who were in are a good example, though, because
     it's going to become a major issue.  They want PE credit.
     We require one credit of PE.  They want PE credit because
     their kid swims AAU swimming and therefore swims four hours
     a day and they say that this is absurd that we have to then
     take a 50-minute PE period.  And my comment to them was that
     that's board policy and that it's there for a reason and we
     think all kids ought to be exposed to a wide range of
     things.  And it's a wide scale type of program in which they
     exposed to many different avenues of sports, many different
     activities, and it's a cooperative learning type of
     environment, that does not come in their swim program.
     Well, that went over like a lead balloon, like many of the
     things we do, and they are going from here to the Assistant
     Superintendent which I suggested to them to do who makes
     these kinds of decisions and who speak directly to the board
     about whether they want to make a change or not.  So they
     may impact my life in that I may have to deal with a case-
     by-case basis of whether I allow kids out of physical
     education credit.  But it terms of impacting my life,
     parents have only impacted my life in positive ways.  When
     I've left a school, doing something very nice for me, of
     saying nice things about me, you know, giving me gifts and
     just saying you're wonderful; they've impacted my life by
     being very nice.  I can't give you a question or a comment
     or illustration when a parent impacted my life as just -- I
     could give you numerous instances of situations where I have
     had to deal with the parents -- 30 parents show up here my
     first week of school when I was put over here in April, that
     year that I described, and they want the football coach
     fired.  This was my first week and I'm listening to 30 of
     them for two hours, telling me that the football coach is a
     loser.  I could have been very impacted by them and swayed
     by them and by my football coach, but I didn't.  I told them
     "You have to understand that I appreciate your input and
     that I will listen to it, I've written everything down that
     you've told me for two hours, I will go talk to the coach,
     he deserves to have his day, I'll hear what he has to say, I
     will evaluate it, I will talk to the kids, but what you need
     to understand is that I will make the decision, and if I
     decide to get rid of him it will because I decide to get rid
     of him; if I decide to keep him, it will be because I
     decided to keep him, it will not be because of the input
     necessarily that you gave me."  I decided to keep him and
     that was the end of the 30 parents coming in and appealing
     to me about firing a football coach.  So they have impacted
     me in those kind of ways but I don't consider those to be
     big deals at all.
 
Q.   How easy or difficult was the decision --
 
A.   It was very difficult.  It would be pretty easy to fire
     them.  In our district you can dismiss for just cause.
     Thirty parents complaining about the health and safety of
     their kids, complaining about coaching, complaining about
     tactics, etc., that would have been -- I could have made a
     case out of the just cause.  Plus the differences between,
     again, you know, sort of what legal rights does he have
     versus what kinds of pressure can you bring to bear on them
     informally, and the fact of the matter is, he had been
     through a one in nine season, 30 parents upset, I probably
     could have gotten his resignation or could have fired him if
     I had wanted to.  I didn't even know who he was, to be
     honest with you, I didn't even meet the guy until after I
     met with the parents.  But the interesting thing that your
     question may beg was that what I found is if you want to be
     proactive, then you must do your homework.  And what I did
     with them was I laid for them what I would do, as I started
     to say to you, I will talk to the kids, I will talk to the
     coach, his coaches, I'll even talk to opposing coaches, and
     I did every one of those things.  And what I heard when I
     talked to them was, I asked them the specific charges the
     parents were making about ill-prepared kids, poor safety
     practices at practice, just not coaching, and from kids,
     from other coaches and from other athletic directors, I got
     "your kids come out prepared all the time.  Your kids --
     I've been at your practices, we scrimmaged with your coach,
     he cares about safety," and when I dealt with the whole
     database, what I found out was -- what I discovered was or
     judged was that it was 30 parents who didn't like going one
     in nine.  They would like to have gone nine and one.  Well,
     that's not a reason to fire a high school football coach in
     my mind.  A reason for firing a football coach is the
     program is down, it's not going anywhere, but at that
     particular point I didn't think it was and I put my money on
     him.  The truth of the matter is, from that point we went
     four and six, then six and four, then eight and two, the
     divisional title, then nine and one, and it's all been
     uphill since, and part of it, I believe, is because of the
     support he got that he wasn't getting prior to that
     incident.  That's kind of -- yeah, I have that ability, I
     could have done that.
 
Q.   Can you tell me about an incident in which your work life
     was influenced or shaped by a professional organization with
     which you identify or a teacher's association?
 
A.   Yeah, that's what I will give total credit for.
     Administrative professional organizations are inept and
     impotent in this state.  They have absolutely no clout, no
     value, no anything.  With all due respect, though, some of
     my good bodies were active in that and they were very
     complimentary when I received my Chase Bank award.  I'm
     sorry but this state's professional organization for
     administrators is doing nothing in my view.  On the other
     hand, the the state NEA and the YYY Education Association
     are the movers and shakers that have influenced my life.  I
     argue with them constantly but it is a true professional
     discourse.  I don't like some of the things they go after,
     they don't like some of my views, but it's a real
     intellectual pursuit of what's right for kids, and with me,
     if you're not discussing what's right for kids, then I don't
     want to talk to you, because if you're interested in your
     own professional development or rather the professional
     development of your organization, I'm not interested in
     that.  I'm interested in children and who's working to
     advocate for kids and do the best that they can for kids.
     Quite honestly, in my arena, YYY Education
     Association, so they influence my life in a very ironic way.
     I was an anti-union -- and we call it a union here -- I was
     an anti-union principal when I became a principal.  I did
     everything in my power to combat the YYY
     Education Association, in every single way I could.  And I
     served on negotiations for ten years and during that
     negotiations process I argued in caucuses hammer and tong
     with these people over what they wanted.  One of the things
     I started to discover was I stopped yelling and I started
     listening.  I started listening to their needs, their wants,
     their feelings of what happened.  And what happened to me
     was I started realizing that I saw the world through these
     eyes, John Stollar's eyes, and I always felt I treated
     teachers wonderfully and why would they want to demand that
     I had to tell them 24 hours in advance that there was a
     meeting?  Why would they demand that I had to give them an
     agenda for the meeting?  Why would they demand that I
     couldn't meet with them on Fridays or whatever, which was
     union position that they would take?  And what I realized
     was that they had those because my colleagues do those
     things.  I would never call a meeting with a person, because
     I understand the anxiety and what it feels like to just call
     a meeting and say, "Come into my office in the next 24
     hours," you know, that just sucks people off.  I always
     write a note, "Could you see me about Jimmy Jones and his
     progress?  No big problem, but I would like to talk to you."
     So that your sense of anxiety won't -- they want it
     mandated.  Why?  Because there were principals who would
     call teachers in, there were principals who would call a
     meeting on a Friday afternoon, or the principals would do
     this, and what I learned was that their position they take
     is to in effect combat what is, in my view, pretty
     ineffective administration.  Well, my answer to that is I
     wish that my district people would see it as a supervisory
     problem and deal with it so it didn't have to go into this
     bargaining agreement that's in my drawer that's got all
     these rights and obligations of the association. 
     

My organization works
     beautifully with me because the difference with me is I
     cross the I's, I cross the T's, and I treat the person
     humanely as I'm doing it.  Therefore, they never have
     grounds to come in and say you didn't follow procedure or
     you treated these people like dirt.  As such, what I usually
     end up with very strong support from them.  So they have
     influenced my life in terms of letting me know that those --
     in my personal view -- those idiotic union positions that
     they take are grounded in an insecurity and in a treatment
     situation that their colleagues or whatnot have had.  So
     instead of taking it personal now, I look at it as just a
     professional response.
 
Q.   Can you tell me about an incident in which your work life
     was influenced or shaped by students?
 
A.   Yeah, every day.  Every day.  I am going to give you one of
     the neatest in the world.  I came here, as I said, through a
     pattern of what I've given you.  I came here fully expecting
     to go back to my elementary school.  And the people that I
     was with, the kids I met with, I had been told that
     graduations were here, had been ________________ picture
     shows, blown-up condoms, water balloons, dead rats, other
     things -- in fact, two years before I came, they couldn't
     finish graduation because it developed into such a chaos.  I
     was scared to death, to be perfectly honest with you.  What
     am I going to do?  I'm only here two months and I'm supposed
     to change this.  I met with the senior class officers and I
     talked with them and I said, what would you like out of
     graduation?  And they told me the same thing.  Oh, wait
     until you see it.  We do this and we -- I said, "I can't buy
     that and I need to tell you that.  Graduation is an honor --
     " and I went around to every class, 18 classes of econ and
     government, and talked to all the kids just like I'm talking
     to you.  Well, anyways, when I did graduation that night, we
     didn't have a hitch.  It went beautifully.  I promised them
     one hour; graduation was done in an hour; and 630 graduates,
     we got through them in an hour; no speeches, just simply the
     valedictorian, the salutatorian, it was a kids' graduation,
     and that's what I told them it would be, it would be YOUR
     graduation, we'll honor YOU.  Anyways, to make a long story
     short, the end of it was that the class officers and 20-30
     other kids at the end of graduation, they all came up to me,
     hugging me, telling me "we are so impressed that you in two
     months gave us more than we've had in four years from any
     administrator,"  and I said, "All right, what do you mean?
     How can you say that?"  And they said, "You met with us
     more, you cared about us, you gave us a chance to feel like
     real human beings, and you didn't treat us like dirt like
     we've been treated before."  And I said, "I really do
     appreciate that."  I took that to heart and it meant a lot
     to me.  I said "Can you give me a specific because if you
     don't give me a specific I won't know what it is that was so
     important?"  And they said, "The one thing you did that was
     so special was that -- what used to be called "senior
     checkout" was horrible here, we waited in lines for hours to
     check out at the bookstore, with the PE, with the this, with
     the that, and we waited in lines for two hours, if we didn't
     have it all done right, they would send us back and go get
     signatures and we would have to wait in line again -- so
     senior checkout here was gruesome.  You turned it around,
     you made it an arena style like they do at college, where we
     walked into the gymnasium, everybody was in there, we could
     just walk around and get all of our signatures and we were
     out of there in less than a half hour.  That's why.  You
     treated us like people."  And I said, "Thank you.  I need to
     know what it is I do right."  And you want to talk about
     what made my day, I was fully expecting to go back to my
     elementary school.  That's why I put in to be the principal
     of this school because I said if that's the way kids feel,
     if I can make that kind of a difference in their lives, then
     that's where I want to go next, and do something to impact
     their lives.  So that's why I put in for it, and now maybe
     that gives you a feel for why the way the superintendent
     treated it, why I acted and reacted the way I did was
     because I thought -- I knew that if in two months I could
     create that kind of a feeling, just think what I could do
     over time with everybody's cooperation.  That's the -- right
     now -- that's the -- (end of tape) --
 
A.   The question was how much effect do I have over curriculum,
     from nothing to a great deal and I said a great deal.  The
     reason I say that is that principals in high school consider
     themselves, many of them, as maintenance people, that
     they're just to make sure everything runs okay.  I
     absolutely do not believe that.  I pay a lot of money, and I
     have paid a lot of money, to develop the best curricular
     program for kids, because they're the fuel that drives this
     engine called the high school.  If somebody doesn't have a
     clear vision of what the kids need and then translate that
     into programs, you're not doing your job.  If you let an
     assistant do that, with all due respect for assistants,
     they're not the person in charge.  The curriculum ought to
     be a reflection of the kids' needs, the teachers' wants, and
     how the principal feels he/she can articulate that into a
     comprehensive kind of program.  So I am a curriculum
     principal, I'm proud of it, I love it, and I do it, and I
     have my hand in all curricular activities of the school.
 
Q.   How does that work with district and teachers -- what kind
     of involvement do they have?
 
A.   My good teachers at this school -- it's a love/hate
     relationship but it's relative to my personality.  I'm very
     active in curriculum and I'm opinionated about curriculum.
     So therefore there's a love/hate.  The love comes in where
     they think that I am a knight in shining armor who will
     carry their banner of curriculum change, theirs meaning the
     teachers.  The teachers here wanted to change World History,
     it used to be offered at the freshman level and a course
     called Contemporary and Historical Issues was offered at the
     sophomore level, a one semester class.  Well, it's a softer
     class, if you will, than World History; World History is
     meat and potatoes and its content and all this; well, it was
     a real rough freshman class.  They would like to move it to
     the sophomore level and move the softer class, the intro
     class, to the freshman level, and they couldn't get anywhere
     with it.  I got on my horse and rode it and we got it
     changed.  They love me for those kinds of things.  Where the
     hate relationship comes in is when I disagree with one of
     their views about how something should be and I just don't
     sit down and say, "Oh, well, okay, that's the way it is."  I
     advocate my position and so it's been neat because it's
     intellectually stimulating to get into these discussions
     about what ought to happen curricular-wise.  Like my latest
     thing was -- it was an adoption for English reading, and I
     said to the English people, "I'll buy whatever you want to
     buy.  Just tell me what you want to buy, you want to buy
     McDugal and you want to buy the 82-pound anthology book,
     I'll buy it."  But I said, "Let me ask you something.
     You're English teachers; what's the best way to teach
     English?  What's the best way to teach reading and love of
     literature?"  They said, "With books."  I said, "Well, I
     agree, so why don't we buy books?  Why don't we buy one
     set -- classroom set of the 82-pound anthology so we can
     save on kids hernias and buy books and teach kids the love
     of reading."  And they bought it and they agreed, and so I
     bought them, and the stipulation was that if they want to,
     in the future, I'll find a way to get them, if they decide
     that the books don't work, I call from an elementary
     background, trade book approach, if the trade books don't
     work, then we'll get them what they need in order to do it.
     But I love getting in the middle of it -- in the middle of
     curricular discussions about what is good curriculum for
     kids, what ought we to be doing for kids, and then how can
     we do that for kids, practically speaking, you know, how you
     structure for it.  Two of the biggest things we did here was
     -- and it was directly out of teacher and kid input, parent
     input -- we had two signature programs, one is in law-
     related education and one is in aeronautics education.
     Those are curricular programs that I'm intimately involved
     in.
 
Q.   Are you constrained at all by district curriculum policies?
 
A.   Oh, sure, the district says this, for example  --
 
Q.   The textbook selection?
 
A.   No, district does let me do that.  We can do that.  The
     district simply tells us that, as an example, American Lit
     gets covered the junior year, so whatever you want to do to
     do American Lit you can.
 
Q.   What about the state?
 
A.   The state does not necessarily mandate what you do.  Every
     district kind of picks their own sequence of things.  Like
     British Lit is usually some in the freshman class and then
     some in the senior class, here in this district, but it can
     change in every district.
 
Q.   I'm going to skip to another area because I don't have time.
 
A.   I'm sorry.  It's me.
 
Q.   That's all right.  My research is directed at a current
     debate in education.  It is claimed, and in particular I
     have been reading Chubb and Moe, "Politics, Markets in
     American Schools."  It's their claim that private school
     teachers have greater autonomy to innovate, adapt curriculum
     and teaching to meet the needs of their students, and that
     in doing so they are primarily influenced by the students
     and the parents, not by school bureaucracy.  Where public
     school teachers are subjected to a variety of influences and
     pressures that restrict their autonomy in meeting students'
     needs; among these influences are state and federal
     regulations, unions, court orders or the threat of
     litigation, organizational rules called "bureaucracy," the
     kinds of things I have been asking about.  What do you think
     of that argument/
 
A.   I think it's pretty cogent.  I think it's -- it is probably
     true.  And the reason I'm trying to answer that way is that
     I don't feel it and you're probably saying but that's not
     what you've been saying all the time, it's because I think I
     cut through all of that crap.  There is a humongous
     bureaucracy in public education.  We can either pay
     attention to it or you can just go on and do what you think
     is important for kids.  I always felt that as long as I was
     doing what was right for kids, I tell this to teachers, if
     you're doing what's right for kids, you won't be bothered,
     and I won't be, and the district won't stop us.  I believe
     that if you do hold that as your number one priority, that
     you can, within all these federal regulations etc., you can
     do what's best for kids.  Sure we're impacted, we're a
     public agency, just like any other public agency, and we're
     impacted by Section 504, we're impacted by special ed laws,
     we're impacted by no pass, no play, by every state mandate
     that they pass, we're impacted.  When the state says gee, we
     think everybody ought to have speech and debate, immediately
     it impacts public education because we then have to do
     something about it.  But you can either look at that as a
     cross to bear or you can look at it as okay, they give us a
     guideline, how can we look at what we're currently doing and
     in effect already agree we're already meeting that mandate,
     we're already doing that, and it's the way I feel about 504.
     I said to the people in 504, they want to make a big deal
     about it, I said, if a parent came in and told us that their
     kid has trouble taking notes off a lecture, would we allow
     them -- would we help them by giving another kid a carbon
     paper and letting him take his notes on carbon paper and
     then sharing the notes on him?  They said yes, yes.  I said
     good because that's what 504 is asking.  And I said, so if
     we do it anyways, why do we get all upset about the mandate
     telling us we have to do it.  So I believe that what their
     premises -- their premise is that you described is true.
     True in the nature that the bureaucracy impacts education
     and it does not impact it in a positive way.  But I believe
     that it's all in your head how much it impacts you and how
     it impacts you.  And because of a person that believes you
     are in control of your own personal destiny and because you
     are in charge of your own personal attitude about how you
     take things, you can either take them as quote, as you keep
     referring to them in your questions, as impacting you,
     there's an assumption that they're impacting you and there's
     a reality that there's a negative impact, that doesn't have
     to be.  It can be seen -- it's all in your mental approach
     toward life.  If you take life as an opportunity, then you
     can see those as opportunities to do some good things for
     kids, if you can turn them into that.  Plus there's a
     __________ called benign neglect.  And I practice benign
     neglect.  If the state doesn't come in and I feel that it's
     not good for kids, I don't do it.  When the state wants to
     come in and say to me, You aren't doing this, and they'll go
     (slaps) don't do that anymore, John, and I'll go, I won't.
     When North Central comes in and says you couldn't put that
     person in there, how did you did that?  I did?  Oh, I'm
     sorry.  I won't do that again.  And I'll move the person.
     But I'll do what I want to do, for kids, rules, regulations,
     aside, and I think the teachers, if they follow that
     premise, you wouldn't have anarchy, but you would have good
     solid education for kids and they can, if they want to, it's
     all in here, they possess that capability.  That may sound a
     bit corny and it they sound a bit weird, but I absolutely
     believe that and I practice that.  It's funny, because I've
     watched the district change in the five years I've been here
     at the high school and I had a good compliment this spring
     by my boss who said to me, "You, and this is speaking for
     all the other assistant superintendents -- for years we
     heard that it couldn't be done in high school, it couldn't
     be done in high school, it couldn't be done in high school,
     it couldn't be done in high school, it couldn't be done in
     high school.  Then the blame was -- you could point to any
     one of your organizations, any one of the things that you
     want to say they said couldn't be done, you come in and you
     do it.  You get teachers to do this, you get teachers to do
     that, you do this with your kids, you do that with your
     kids, how is it that everybody says it can't be done and yet
     you do it?  And I said I really believe it's because the
     latitude has always been there, it takes a mental mindset
     that I'm not going to let boundaries keep me from doing
     what's right for kids, and that's what I think we need and
     that's what I think is the corollary to my comment that yes,
     those people are right about traditional American education,
     because there are not a lot of people in it, like me,
     whether there be teachers or not, who are willing to take
     that mental stand.  There are a lot who allow themselves to
     be bound by these rules and I see it.  I go to meetings and
     principals will say, oh, you can't do that, the union won't
     let me; oh, I can't do that because that violates federal
     law.  And I go, where?  Show me where it violates the law,
     show me where it violates the special negotiations document,
     because if you can show me where, then I'll say yes, it did
     set a boundary for you, but then I'll also start working at
     well, what does it allow you to do for kids?  It only
     prescribes maybe what you can't do; it doesn't tell you what
     you can do within that same scope.  So that's why I believe
     it's a mental mindset, but they're right, their premise is
     right.  Private schools, I had the good fortune of going to
     probably the greatest private school in America, Bill(?)
     Exeter Academy.  If you're familiar at all, if you've done
     any research on private schools outside of (state name), Crestwood
     Country Day is a -- at Exeter we would look down on that
     school.  It sends 78 percent of its graduates to Harvard,
     Yale, and Princeton, and all the rest will go to some famous
     schools across the country.  And while I was there, one of
     the things I realized was, and this is the magic in your
     private school thing, we can make public school like private
     schools; we just have to adopt their mindset.  Their mindset
     is we're private and we're special and everybody at this
     school is special, and we offer the most special curriculum
     than everybody else offers, and we're neat and we do neat
     things and we do them different, and we do this.  That's a
     mindset as much as it is a structural thing.  At Exeter I
     was able to get classes with 13 kids in them.  I can't offer
     classes with 13, but I can treat kids like they're in a
     class of 13, I can treat kids like they're special, and if
     you do, you create that special environment.
 
Q.   But you can't choose your own kids?
 
A.   No, I can't, but you know what, that doesn't bother me
     either, because if I'm honest with parents about who their
     kid is and what their kid brings to the environment, then I
     have done my job, I haven't set unrealistic expectations for
     that parent, meaning if you tell a parent, gee, Jimmy does
     not do homework assignments, he does 30 percent of them;
     gee, Jimmy doesn't pay attention in class and never takes
     notes; if you tell a parent honestly what Jimmy is bringing
     to the educational environment, you can still treat Jimmy
     special because he's a neat kid and tell the parents that
     and treat him that way and be real nice, but he has to
     accept the consequences of not doing the kinds of things
     that are expected.  And if you do that, you can make some of
     those things happen.  Look at this school.  This school --
     I'm real proud of it -- we have a 90 percent graduation rate
     at this school, you saw that in the paper.  Before you say,
     well, look at that school, it's got upper middle class kids,
     go compare it to the Scottsdale graduation rates, at Arcadia
     which is very similar, at Chaparral, we're 15 points and 10
     points higher than each of those schools in graduation
     rates.  People ask me why.  I think it's because we treat
     kids with respect and dignity.  And I don't care if I kick
     them out, I still treat them with respect and dignity.  We
     go by the rules; you violated the rules, the consequence is
     you're out of school for five days.  It's treating people
     with respect and dignity.  And I think the reason kids
     graduate here is because it's my goal to get them to
     graduate and because I've got a great teaching staff, great
     parents, and a great support staff who, sometimes
     reluctantly, agree that yeah, our primary directive is to
     give the kids an education and their primary directive is to
     get them graduated from high school, and we should be
     willing to bend rules, stretch rules, give them every
     opportunity to be able to do that.