The Meeting

So I had the meeting with Ms. Rhee and overall it was a positive experience.  I was not as coherent and organized and positive as I might like but she seemed receptive to hearing about our problems and of the same mind that a leadership change would vastly improve virtually all of our problems.  I gave her an agenda, made the case for the students and that I firmly believe we should have an Academy.  I then primarily focused on our entire academy's lack of focus and the lack of effective leadership.  Then she asked me some questions, I told her what I thought would help us and then we were done!  It was kind of a whirl wind, which is why I'm worried I wasn't as coherent as I could have been.  I was pretty nervous but once I got going it wasn't so bad.

She also put me in touch w/another person who was sitting in on our meeting and actually works in our building and is in charge of all the high schools.  Basically they said that I could keep in touch w/him and meet regularly to discuss progress.  So hopefully increased oversight will happen!  So yeah, I should have maybe prepared exactly what I was going to say in what order a bit more (I had my agenda but hadn't necessarily run through it enough and planning exactly how I would phrase everything) but I think that overall it was a positive experience and I got my point across as much as could be expected.

I'm not exactly sure what concrete things will change soon, but she couldn't really make any promises and she said that the school is on her radar and she appreciates hearing about these problems.  And frankly I understand her position.  We are a very small academy at the moment, and we are relatively unproblematic compared to the larger schools.  So I did not expect a team to immediately get sent in to fix things, but because it wouldn't take much to fix them I am going to currently believe that there is a possibility that we will get new leadership and that will make a huge difference.

What I do know for sure:
1) They aren't talking about closing us (at least not yet...)
2) They want us to increase enrollment
3) She said she hopes I stay at the Academy
4) I'm feeling invigorated to continue to fight the good fight and keep closely (hopefully not annoyingly) in touch with the official directly overseeing my director and seeing if some of my ideas can come to pass.

At least I'm trying both inside my classroom and out, that shows initiative and guts I would say and that can't be a bad thing in the long run.  All in all this may be a chance for me to both show leadership potential and take on a more significant role in the future (let alone the chance that I could help effect real change - ok I know that is the best case scenario but that is the point right?).  Who knows.