Dear Superintendant……

12/10/99

Wolf Household

The Land that Sanity Deserted, GA

Superintendent of Schools

Captain of the Ship of Fools

Foolstown County, GA

Dear Fearless, and most likely clueless, Leader:

I would like to inform you of the level of apathy, priggishness, and narrow mindedness in at least one of your schools. I would also like to complement you on having successfully trained your administrators to be self-important, pompous and totally out of touch with reality. I feel that complements are in order since you surely must be cultivating these qualities. If you were not, then you most certainly would not suffer such fools lightly.

Upon arriving at the school in question to discuss my daughter’s latest infraction of rules that are not written down anywhere in the known universe, I was told that the Pencil-pushing, pencil-necked geek that I wished to speak to was not in. Imagine the office staff’s surprised looks when I informed them that they had been caught in a lie, as I had just seen the little eraser headed fellow. As penance for my audacity for insisting on the truth, I was left to cool my heels in the office for 30 minutes. All the while Mr. Pencil-neck puffed up his ego by performing his duty an indispensable member of the Hall Duty team, which I understand is a highly skilled position for which no other adult in the school building could possibly be qualified. After that I was left to sit another 10 minutes as he performed some other manly administrative duties (perhaps measuring the size of his male member to make sure it was larger than mine?).

What followed then was an incredibly enlightening discussion. It seems that the administration had taken it upon themselves, without my request, to suspend school policy (a thing which I was assured in my last visit was NEVER done) for my daughter’s benefit. When a miscommunication occurred between my daughter and the administration regarding that suspension of policy, somehow it became my daughter’s fault. Not only that, but it was her second mistake of the day. Two mistakes in one day! This proved an intolerable lack of responsibility on my daughter’s part and warranted swift and sure punishment. I did ask the administrators if they had ever made two mistakes in a day. I apologize for the confusion that question must have caused them for they had no answer to it.

As the conversation wore on, it became apparent to me that it is best not to stay in a battle of wits with parties who are unarmed. Again congratulations are in order, for The Peter Principle is alive and operating at its highest degree in your schools. I surrendered to their stone-wall of silence, refusals to answer rational questions, their total lack of coherent reasoning, and their very busy , very important selves. There were pencils to push and lives to inflict pain upon and I was obviously keeping them from their work.

My last statement was to request their help in helping to find a way to make my daughter’s school experience a more positive one without causing hardship for the school. I want to work together to get everyone back on the same team. The response was a glassy-eyed smile, an office door opened, and a gesture clearly indicating that I was to leave.

I repeat my last words to them again to you in a last ditch effort to restore some positive feelings for going to school to my daughter. At this point I cannot hope to instill respect in her for a system that so obviously disrespects her. I am hoping for simple neutrality. That would be a step up. And perhaps she will not become another casualty of a callous group of pencil-pushing administrators more interested in protecting their own egos than in nurturing the minds of children. What can I do to help make this a more satisfactory and beneficial experience for my daughter and a less upsetting experience for the geeks? Feel free to reply with rational and sane thoughts or helpful suggestions. I await your reply with expectations lowered and desperation held narrowly in check.

Sincerely

Sunshine Wolf

Parent, Mother, Concerned and Caring Supporter of Real Education