The age of COVID-19 has (yet again) pushed teachers/schools/administrators/school districts into the limelight in a very familiar way. From March-June of 2020 all the “OMG teachers are HEROS! DOUBLE THEIR PAY!!” hysteria took flight all over the internet. For a hilarious take on this check out Key & Peele’s TeacherCenter Videos. As an educator of 20+ years, I viewed the positive press with dubious optimism. In school administration, my colleagues and I often speak about the “pendulum.” The pendulum always seems to swing too far in one direction and then a few weeks, months, presidents, etc. later – it snaps back in the other direction jarring educators and shocking the system until (like all pendulums) it settles into an equilibrium point. Here is a list of just a few examples of the pendulum “swinging too far”:

• Standardized testing. (From “hey let’s do this a couple of times in your academic career so you can compete to get into college if you want to – to “we’re falling behind the rest of the world OMG let’s test 8 times a year, judge teachers and schools on their scores and punish those that don’t perform, to hmm we’re worried kids are tested too much and a lot of colleges aren’t even requiring these tests anymore but we’ve gotta judge the teachers and schools somehow so let’s keep it up – yes even during COVID)
• School safety/discipline. (From open-door policies, zero-tolerance and metal detectors, to ‘metal detectors make schools feel like prison, to Restorative Practices, to no zero-tolerance, and now onto “post-covid behaviors are out of control let’s go back to super punative again”)
• Etc., etc., etc……

The list goes on and on. But in general most school leaders that I know watched all of those “Teachers are Heroes” reports on the news in 2020 with trepidation – all of of us knew that it wouldn’t be long before we’d all be villainized again. I firmly believe that if COVID-19 had just suddenly disappeared in June of 2020 and we returned to school as “normal” in the fall of 2020 with the pandemic just a distant memory, the pendulum wouldn’t be swinging so wildly now. Maybe schools would even have gained a ton of respect and gratitude and would have gained legions of parental involevment and support by grateful parents fresh out of pandemic learning. But as any teacher or administrator who is currently trudging through what most of us consider to be BY FAR the hardest year that we’ve ever had, will tell you – instead it’s been a rollercoaster. To see the same parents who were screaming for us to get raises in March of 2020 now screaming at us and complaining about every decision made since returning to school in August of 2021 – just stings. Actual assaults of school board members, principals, and teachers over mask mandates, elearning options, and hybrid schedules (that were all implemented with the express goal of protecting children) are a far cry from the “PAY THEM DOUBLE THEY’RE SAINTS!” rhetoric of April 2020. Feeling that pendulum swinging has definitely been a demoralizing and often frustrating experience for all teachers and administrators. In truth, I don’t know a single educator who isn’t experiencing an unheard of level of stress, depression, anxiety, burn out, or PTSD in some form or fashion brought on by the pandemic.

During the pandemic, the concept of “toxic positivity” and it’s impact on teachers began to get a lot of attention. Examples of “toxic positivity” in schools include the overuse of the sentiment, “it’s not about us it’s about the kids,” or administration holding a “wellness day” where staff are required to participate in “self care” activities for a day but the very next day the real issues causing burn out aren’t addressed.

And toxic positivity in schools IS certainly an issue. There’s NO denying it – but there’s also an insidious force working inside of many schools, within groups of educators in person and on social media that I refer to as the Cult of Negativity. And the most discouraging part is that many that are deeply involved in the Cult of Negativity are some of our very best teachers – who don’t even realize that they may be contributing to it. The trials and tribulations brought on by the pandemic have made this Cult of Negativity so much more prevalent and active – especially virtually.

When you move from the classroom to an administrative position in schools – a lot of your teacher friends accuse you of “turning to the Dark Side”. To be clear, being a teacher is VERY difficult. It is hard and very demanding work (both academically and emotionally). The work is stressful, and it is often incredibly thankless. But when I look back on the very worst of my teaching days – they were still a lot less overwhelming or demanding than my days as an administrator. If you take all of the difficulty, demands, stress, and the thanklessness of teaching and multiply it by about 100 times you get to the level of stress on deans and assistant principals; now if you multiply THAT amount by 100 and you get the principal’s level of stress. Then of course you multiply that some more and get to the Central Office amount of pressure. Often school leaders don’t/can’t talk about this pressure and intensity because part of our role is to support our staff – we aren’t allowed to “break” or to show weakness because it “lowers morale”. Also – if you do try to be vulnerable with your staff or teachers, the frequent (and insulting) response is the dreaded comment, “that’s why you get paid the big bucks!” So we close our office doors on tough days, scream into a pillow, eat the chocolate hidden in our bottom drawer, and slap a smile on our face and visit some classrooms. We confide in our closest colleagues and our pets because there are a lot fewer leaders than there are teachers. Our circle is much smaller and there are a lot fewer people who know what it really feels like to do the job. One of the toughest parts of the COVID-19 pandemic was the constant barrage of “support the teachers, support the students, support the parents, etc.” and there was often no one for us to go to for support. A lot of the pushback against “toxic positivity” was coming from teachers and directed at administration. As a building administrator, a lot of this criticism was directed at my team because we were the ones delivering the messages – although many of those messages were coming from Health Departments, Governors, or State Boards – nor ourselves.

One example of this occurred at one of my previous schools. Building administrators were directed to improve morale and make sure our teachers felt appreciated. Since anything that my team did for our staff of over 120 teachers basically had to come out of our own pockets – we couldn’t really spend $1000’s. So we made them a cute make-your-own caramel apple bar and told them to help themselves to some “apples for the teacher”. My team and I went classroom to classroom to relieve teachers to ensure they each got a break to make and eat their snack and socialize.

The teachers (many of whom we had very positive relationships with), knew we had spent our own money and that we meant well – but they didn’t want caramel apples – they wanted extra planning time. So when I saw their hurtful Facebook posts about “Thanks for the apples but I still had to do x, y, and z”; admittedly, it stung. What they WANTED were things that were outside of our locus of control to give them. Only the district or school board or governor could give them that. So my team and I were stuck in the middle. We had been DIRECTED to do something nice for our teachers – while what the teachers WANTED wasn’t something that we were able to give them. The teachers knew how hard we had advocated for them behind closed doors and begged for things that we just couldn’t get for them. But the building leaders took the hit/blame regardless. Meanwhile, when teacher morale is low – district leaders look to building leaders for answers/blame. Despite being a big part of the job, that’s tough on building leaders’ morale. We had spent our own money to bring a little cheer into our staff’s morning – we had done what we COULD to show our support. But of a staff of 120 – a total of TWO people thanked us. (Not that we were looking for thanks). But at least 40 complained or went out of their way to mock our gesture. On top of that, upper administration also fired back with “why is your building’s morale still so low? You were told to address it.” As a building leader you are often stuck in between these two opposing forces and you take the negativity from above, below, and outside simultaneously. It begs the question: who is taking care of the building leaders? And who will lead when and if they all give up and leave?

Concern for school-level leaders’ morale is not necessarily a new problem. PRIOR to the pandemic 1 in 5 school principals was already considering leaving their position due to stress. Now, the numbers are much higher. Peter Dewitt addresses this in his Education Weekly Article from 2020. Since then, the numbers have become even more bleak.

“A recent poll by the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) and Learning Policy Institute (LPI) revealed that “42% of principals across the country said the pandemic has accelerated their plans to leave the profession.” That’s too many of our school leaders feeling as if there is nowhere to turn but away!”

https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-principals-assessment-were-not-ok/2022/01

While I personally am quite happy in my current role, I know that out of all the stressors that I face on a daily basis – almost none of them are actually the children. My top 5 stressors tend to change in priority from day to day – but almost always parents and teachers are near the top of the list. To be clear, I LOVE to support teachers. I consider it one of my professional strengths to coach teachers and assist them in truly improving their instruction and making positive changes to improve their relationships with students and parents, helping them to create thriving learning communities, and addressing the learning needs of their students in proactive and effective ways. I have a good coaching relationship with almost all of the teachers that I work with. We have friendly, productive, and collegial relationships. I DEFINITELY do NOT work in a toxic environment (although I certainly have worked in toxic places in the past). Despite all of that, I definitely work with some people who engage in what I call the “Cult of Negativity” (many without even realizing that they are doing it).

I have to admit, that when I was a Social Studies Teacher at a 6th-12th grade campus there was a period of at least 2 years when I was an active member of the Cult of Negativity. I had NO idea that I was being negative or toxic at the time. In my classroom then, I was very much at the top of my game instructionally. I was experienced, I was positively impacting my students’ test scores, and I had great relationships with most of my students and their families. I participated in a wide variety of school and District Curriculum Committees, and considered myself a teacher-leader at my school. But on the flip side, my campus was instituting an iniative called “meticulous lesson planning.” (I can literally FEEL teacher-readers groaning at the name alone). Our overall schoolwide achievement data was suffering. Our average ACT score was maybe a 17. Our School Improvement Goal was to get it up to at least a 20. A professional consultant was hired to observe the school all day everyday for a month and then make recommendations based on the instructional trends that they saw. One of the items that was considered “low hanging fruit” (easy and fast to implement without a lot of training) was a cycle of meticulous lesson planning, using a research-proven template that forced teachers to address a certain continuum of student skills on a weekly basis.

Submitting lesson plans is ALWAYS a hot-button issue for teachers. Great teachers get offended because “it’s a waste of time, I already think about and do all of these things why are you making me write it down? If you want to know what’s going on in my classroom just come in and watch.” There are entire blogs, Facebook groups, and Instagram pages created by great teachers trashing the idea of submitting lesson plans. Even teachers that are struggling/aren’t as strong hate doing it because they’re already drowning just trying to keep their heads above water and would prefer to spend their time on other things. Oftentimes administrators also hate it because there aren’t enough hours in the day to observe all the classrooms and read all the lesson plans AND handle student discipline, etc. And frequently, lesson plans do result in difficult conversations between administrators and teachers (even their best teachers) due to plans not being submitted on time.

I HATED the meticulous lesson planning school improvement process. I resented having to write and turn in approximately 12-page voluminous lesson plans daily to my Department Chair. And I’m sure my Department Chair didn’t exactly love burning the midnight oil giving all of his teachers written feedback on their plans either. In retrospect, our administration definitely could’ve presented it to us so the process was more well-received and so that teachers bought into the process. (Maybe we could’ve alternated every-other-day or every-other-week to lighten the load and make it more manageable for everyone. Maybe some other initiatve could’ve been taken off of our plates in order to make it manageable.) But regardless of what wasn’t done to make the medicine go down easier, we were going to submit our meticulous lesson plan templates every day and our Department Chairs would give us feedback. I’ll be the first to admit – I’m a rule-follower. I comply. I did my lesson plans. And I HATED every second of it. I bitched and bitched a blue streak to my colleagues in the teachers’ lounge, I rolled my eyes about it in meetings and completed what I openly called an “exercise in compliance”. But I was never insubordinate. I never was outwardly disrespectful to my supervisors or administrators. But when I reflect on it now, my complaints to my colleagues about it were contributing to the Cult of Negativity.

In retrospect, even though I LOATHED every second of those meticulous plans – I have to admit they DID make me a better teacher. They forced me to preemptively put on paper possible student misconceptions. They forced me to pre-plan what questions I would ask to which students in which class periods. At the time I THOUGHT that I was mentally doing all of these things a LOT more often than I truly had been. I actually learned through doing the painful process that I called on girls twice as often as boys (despite having twice as many male students). I discovered that I was assigning more homework than I really needed to, and that I wasn’t giving students as much input into the curriculum as I thought that I was. This process pushed and challenged me in a way that I never would have done on my own without doing meticulous lesson planning. Why would I have? I thought that I was an experienced profressional who “knew what she was doing, and deserved the trust and respect of administration.” But is being “good enough” a reason not to get better? As a result of participating in what I considered a “stupid exercise in compliance”, at the end of the year my students’ test scores grew MUCH more than they had in previous years (despite the fact that I was already considered a “strong teacher” by my administrator and myself ). If I had never gone through that painful growth process, my students would’ve still learned because I was proficient – but the lesson planning process REQUIRED me to be more intentional than I had ever been. It FORCED me to attack certain parts of my planning that diagnosed issues and student needs in a much more fine-toothed manner that I had been doing previously. Once I worked at a building where lesson plan submission wasn’t required at ALL – I was still mentally going through a lot of the steps that that hated template had taught me and was doing it naturally. But I had no idea if my colleagues were being intentional or not because they weren’t even required to write anything down ever. To a certain extend the old adage is true – you can only expect what you inspect. You can’t inspect what’s not even visible.

Now if I had been a poor teacher to start with – this process would’ve still made me become an intentional planner – more well-prepared for the types of things that can go off the rails during a lesson and handle it in a poised manner. If I was a really bad teacher – it might’ve pushed me to become at least OK enough to make sure students didn’t backslide – to ensure that I wasn’t HARMING the kids that I was in front of everyday. The reality is that we should grow teachers and make sure they continue to improve (even the experienced ones who “know what they’re doing” aren’t perfect and can always be better). But the reality ALSO is that students only get ONE chance at First, Eighth, Eleventh, or any grade. And as school leaders – it is our RESPONSIBILITY to “do no harm”; and guarantee that teacher quality ensures that each student grows at least one year’s worth of knowledge/skill level/grade level each year that they are in front of us. And that if their teacher isn’t that intuitively strong or is struggling – it’s a leader’s job to ensure that they are ADEQUADE ENOUGH to ensure that a child’s education is still positively impacted. If you went into a hospital for a surgery to have a basic operation to remove your tonsils in a routine operation and were operated on by the intern that had already botched 3 or 4 previous surgeries – I would HOPE that their supervisor had gone through their surgical plan with them in detail before allowing them to pick up that scalpel and operate again. If something went wrong not only would the intern but ALSO their supervisors be committing malpractice. Our students are BEING OPERATED ON and are trusting our capable hands. If we have hands that we aren’t sure about in the operating room or hands that sometimes shake when they get nervous – we have to constantly supervise them, insepct their work, and make sure that those hands either become capable enough to do routine operations effectively and safely – or we need to find them a job at the hospital (or somewhere else) that is better suited to their skill set. At the end of that year of meticulous lesson planning – AS A SCHOOL – we didn’t have ANY teachers who were weak enough to have to be dismissed. Our test scores went up, school culture improved, and we met our School Improvement Goals. I’m still very proud of the progress we made as a building that year. Sadly, I’m a lot LESS proud of my own behavior that year.

At one point, my Department Chair met with me in private and told me something along the lines of, “You’re a REALLY great teacher. And even though you HATE doing it – this process is making you even better. But you acting like you don’t need this process because you’re already a good teacher, or that you hate it – that sabotages the idea that as a SCHOOL we need this. Here’s the problem with good teachers – you don’t understand that not all of your colleagues are doing what you are – that they NEED to LEARN how to teach or to improve their methods. They need to go from good to great; and great to awesome. Some of them AREN’T that “naturally” good and just need to get to adequate so they can get to good and then to great. And everyone can push themselves. Even Stallone has some weak muscles and has some exercises he HATES to do but needs to do to really be his best right? Don’t be a disgruntling factor. Part of improving as a group is being positive about things that maybe we don’t want to do. Disagree in private. Make your concerns known at the leadership meetings. But cheerlead in public.” At the time, I misunderstood his point – I felt chastised. I thought he was trying to tell me not to share my concerns or ask questions. In reality, he was trying to encourage me to use my powers for good and to help be a positive leader. Now, I’m grateful he had the conversation with me. I still FULLY encourage teachers to ask questions or raise concerns. I WANT my teachers to say “look what’s the point of this? I’m already doing this stuff or I think it’s a waste of time because…” I don’t want them to swallow their concerns, silently comply without seeing the value, and then hit the real or virtual Teacher’s Lounge and just slam the process. But I do want them to understand that everyone can grow and when every plant in the garden is thriving – the whole crop benefits.

The Cult of Negativity happens anywhere there are GOOD or GREAT teachers who don’t see the value in something that other teachers (maybe even themselves) may genuinely NEED to do and trash talk it and tear it down. One of the dangerous impacts of this is that 1. As a teacher you really don’t have a LOT of insight on what your colleagues are doing (unless you’re lucky enough to co-teach with them or are able to observe other teachers’ classrooms a LOT) and 2. It creates a safe space for teachers who really do need dramatic improvements to feel comfortable in mediocrity and it can breed a toxic environment. As a teacher, I rarely got the opportunity to be in my colleagues’ classrooms on a regular basis. People that I assumed were doing the same quality of work that I was doing – turns out – weren’t always. Even I was doing well but not as great as I could’ve been when I was pushing myself. When everyone takes that approach that’s how a school/classroom/district becomes average. Jimmy Casas – one of my heroes – sums this up perfectly in his book Culturize.

When I first became an administrator, teachers that I had assumed were consistently amazing based on my own experiences with them, were actually giving 11th graders word searches and using 6th grade reading materials in their high school classrooms. Maybe not everyday – but often enough to be questionable. With only 180 measely days of instruction in a school year (which is really closer to 150 when you subtract state testing, special events, field trips, etc) time is just too precious to waste. All of a sudden I was wondering “wait a minute – if they were doing meticulous lesson planning and getting constant feedback on the impact of their daily activities this probably wouldn’t be happening. They wouldn’t just have some great days they’d be consistently great. The impacts on students would be greater.” I got the opportunity to observe teachers that I had openly complained to about the worthlessness of lesson planning teach without having a plan – or poor plans. I had blindly and loudly put my complaints out there without thinking about the value to people who needed the improvement WAY more than I did (while admittedly I needed it too). These people were impacting the education of 150 students. REAL students who had to grow academically and whose REAL lives depended on the education that their teachers were providing them (or NOT providing to them). Students who don’t get a do-over the way that a teacher can learn from a school year that wasn’t their best.

One typical sticky point for teachers (and coincidentally for middle school students) is that often directives are given to ALL teachers when only SOME teachers truly need them. And that’s 1000% true. Eventually, once I had been observed a bunch of times, and had really reflected and improved on my meticulous lesson plans and classroom practices, I was gradually asked to do less and less of the template and focus only on a couple of targeted parts of my plans – personalized to my own specific areas of growth. Unbeknownst to me, other teachers needed a lot more work to start with than I did. So the plans were rolled out like any MTSS process. Once 80% of teachers had made gains, they needed to do less voluminous plans and focused on only their personal areas of growth, the other 20% of teachers needed more detailed or alternative plans. But you don’t know who those people are and how to focus on them UNTIL you can do a needs assessment of your whole staff. Additionally, union contracts often DO take an all-or-nothing approach. Many contracts don’t LET administrators have those coveted “separate procedures” for certain teachers based upon “perceived” abilities. So you either have everyone do ALL parts of the plans – or have no one do any. And that hardly will move your building in the right direction. It will keep it standing still. At the time, the teacher’s contract that I was functioning under didn’t ALLOW administration to have different expectations for different teachers UNLESS a teacher was already close to dismissal. Why wait until someone has basically already failed before improving their practice? So unfortunately, while many great teachers would be fighting hard against the lesson plans because they viewed it as a waste of time, they’d ALSO be saying “just fire the teachers who aren’t good” – but how can you determine who those teachers are (or have the required documentation to do so) unless you have different and targeted expectations for growth for those that are struggling? Things that you often aren’t allowed to have because the legal contract states everyone must be evaluated in the exact same manner? As an administrator, it can definitely make your head spin and your vision blurry.

Social media adds a whole new layer to the Cult of Negativity. It offers teachers great ways to connect, share awesome ideas and projects, provide support and encouragement to each other, it can function as a virtual PLC, and a place to laugh about the daily or weekly stresses or issues together in solidarity. But also, social media has allowed the Cult of Negativity to spread beyond the teacher’s lounges of individual buildings and become worldwide. Sadly, when I see Cult of Negativity posts slamming school initiatives, building administrators, and schools in general I often feel like GOOD and even GREAT teachers – through well-intentioned (and often-times called-for) venting are actually creating a safe-space for some of those problematic adults in our schools to gain legitimacy and feel like nothing they are asked to do is worthwhile. Jane Morris, a teacher and the author of Teacher Misery and moderator of Teacher Misery on Instagram is one of my favorite teacher communities to go to when I’ve had a tough day and just want a chuckle. I bought her first book immediately after it came out and laughed out loud many times while reading it. I lent it to several teacher friends of mine and we had a good laugh. I’m glad Jane creates a space for teachers to vent and share their frustrations.

I don’t know Jane, and I have never seen her teach. But the voice she speaks from leads me to believe she’s an expert at her content and that she is probably a really great teacher. However, I do not believe for an instant that all of the content on her Instagram page is helpful. There are whole strings of posts slamming initiatives, administrators, etc. And a lot of those intial posts are probably WELL-EARNED and examples of poor leadership or poor decisions. But my concern isn’t even with those things – I have a thick skin and can certainly admit when leaders make garbage choices or put teachers through the wringer. Hell, I’m usually shaking my head and laughing right along with the audience. By all means when things are ridiculous – please do poke fun at it and point it out, etc. My concern is with all of the COMMENTS and followers that put GREAT teachers in a position where they are unintentionally contributing to the Cult of Negativity. Sometimes when I dig deep down into the comments and see some of the negativity I can see through the venting to problematic behaviors. All of the GOOD or GREAT teachers who are taking what they see at face value, assuming that whomever is posting that something is “ridiculous” is a teacher of their own high caliber or doesn’t actually need that “silly” task being posted about in order to grow; contribute to the creation of a safe space for mediocrity or excusing a lack of a desire to grow. As a teacher, one of the things we always teach students to do is to be a critical reader. To understand that each author has their own motivation and interpretation of events. I often wonder if Jane reaches out to the people who send her things to post to find out the full story – or if it would even matter.

A former administrator of mine mentioned once to me that it’s easy to slam district and school administrators because teachers (through HR laws and union contracts), and students (through confidentiality laws) get to share their version of events and are protected in doing so. Due to legal reasons, buildings and districts often can’t “set the record straight”. They can’t come out and say “well the teacher in question got written up”, or “the student lied and here’s what actually happened..” Oftentimes, it actually IS a district supporting the teacher by NOT setting the “record straight”. It’s easier to take the brunt of the negative Facebook comments wondering “what is that principal thinking?” than it is to take the toxic blowback from pubicly throwing one of your teachers and/or their mistake under the bus. Oftentimes taking the hit as an adminsitrator is HOW you support your teachers. Teachers often claim that they want their administrators to support them – but don’t always get to SEE the invisible ways that they do that – by shielding teachers from lawsuits by requiring documentation, by shielding teachers from the brunt of a parent’s anger by taking it ourself, by doing what we need to do to keep the school community calm so that you can do what you need to do in your classroom. The leader of the building lugs around the heavy shield/umbrella so that the rain doesn’t get you wet. But they don’t/can’t change the rain into sunshine.

I believe schools are a complex community with a lot of stakeholders. I love teachers, students, parents, and yes even (these days especially) school administrators. When an event occurs – be it a student getting a detention, teachers having to submit lesson plans, a student being brought back to class after a disciplinary infraction, or a new Math curriculum – everyone involved in that situation has their own lens and perception on what occurred. And unfortunately, teachers don’t/won’t always have the whole story. Teachers will be the first ones to tell you they want more information and the “full story” or to be communicated with openly. But due to Human Resource laws, student and parent and medical privacy laws, and just plain discretion – sometimes not every stakeholder GETS TO have all the information that they really desire. In order to become a teacher – you have to have mastery and knowledge of your content, teaching and learning pedagogy, etc. Once you pass your exams, fulfill the requirements, and get your degree you can apply for your teacher certification and are charged with teaching your students. But, unfortunately, teacher training programs (at least in my state) do NOT include school law courses, or state or local school board governance policies, or human resources training. I didn’t have that training or knowledge when I was in the classroom; and once I got it in my Leadership Program I sort of looked back on a lot of my past complaints and cringed a little (or a lot). Honestly, I think a lot of teacher-negativity wouldn’t happen at all if teachers knew/realized what was legal and what wasn’t. For example, when I was at the High School level – many teachers lamented that cell phones shouldn’t be allowed in the school at all and were always asking us what consequences we could give the students. Currently, in my state, it’s actually against the law to prevent a student from bringing a phone into the school. Once teachers knew what we COULD and COULD NOT consequence students for – we worked collaboratively on a student cell phone policy that made sense for our building. If all teachers had some sort of school law background (even a minimal one), a lot of grumbling could turn into collaborative problem-solving rather than an “us vs. them” grudge match between administration (who admittedly often forget that teachers don’t know these things), and school staff.

For 20 years, at every school where I have ever worked – teachers have ALWAYS stated that they want to know what consequences students will receive. “If a kid does X their consequence will be Y.” In my state, schools aren’t legally ALLOWED to have set Act A = Consequence B – systems like that. It’s literally against the law. Teachers still ask me every single day “If they do X will their consequence be Y?” In response I say, “well once a teacher gives me a disciplinary referral there are a range of consequences that I can issue based upon the individual situation. The range can go anywhere from nothing to a phone call home, a parent meeting, a detention, a restoration, lunch detention, service learning project, apology, in or out of school suspension, or other.” That is often frustrating to teachers – who have a strong desire for “fairness” and “justice”. I was frustrated by my own administrators because of this when I was in the classroom. But the reality is that once you have asked someone else to discipline the child for something – that is the range of options that they have to choose from – and that may vary from what you, the teacher would prefer. The outcome may vary from student to student or from incident to incident. It may not be “equal” from one student to the next. However – equality is giving everyone the same thing – equity is giving everyone what they need.

I have had success in discussing this with teachers when I frame it as an employer/employee scenario. I ask my teachers, “if you were late everyday for 2 weeks what consequence should I issue you as your employer?” They usually say something along the lines of a write up or a warning. When I ask them, “Ok but your husband just got released from the hospital, your mom died last week, and your car broke down and you’ve never been late before this in 10 years. Your colleague across the hall has been late everyday for 2 weeks because they stopped for coffee. Should you receive the same consequence? The union contract says you should. Both of you are adults who should know to be on time to work daily. But each of you would bring your union rep to the meeting to plead your case. At those meetings, a fair consequence would be decided for each of you that might not be the same and the results would be private between me, you, HR, and your union rep. It wouldn’t be broadcast to your colleagues. Two students who do something in the classroom get sent to my office – they aren’t adults who have been taught to do x, y, or z yet – they don’t have a union rep, and they do still have a right to privacy, and legal rights as well. Why would we give more leniency and grace to adults (who arguably have been taught and already know better) than we give to children who also have rights (but not union reps)?

I once was complained about to my superintendant by a teacher for “not issuing a consequence” when he wrote a disciplinary referral for 2 students that were throwing snowballs at one another as they arrived at school in the morning. The teacher felt that my making the students write 3 apology letters (one to the bus driver for causing unsafe conditions, one to the principal for disrupting the parking lot, and one to their parent(s) for representing their families in a negative light) wasn’t a consequence. When I told him that learning how to admit to one’s indiscretions, apologize in a mature and respectful manner, and move on to not make that mistake again IS a consequence and a life skill that one isn’t just born with – the teacher became irate. He yelled at me (in my face), that they had to be “made examples of” so that the other kids “didn’t think they could get away with throwing snowballs”. When I told him that they weren’t “getting away with it”, he told me that I was creating an unsafe school environment by “allowing kids to think apologizing is enough to rectify the situation.” Sidenote: Being raised at Catholic school – I’m fairly certain that even the church states that God forgives you (even if you’re a serial killer) if you’re apologetic and repentant for your sins.

When I brought the students to the teacher to apologize to him – he refused to accept their apology. (A process that it had taken me 1.5 hours of meeting with them, calling their parents, and writing and rewriting with them). I had gotten them into a mature emotional place where they realized they were wrong and were ready to apologize. Instead the teacher rolled his eyes and acted like they got off easy. It would’ve been easy for me to give them a detention and call it a day. (In fact – one of them begged me for the detention instead of having to apologize). But would that have changed their mindset or their behavior? Instead the students that had made all this growth – got the impression (from the ADULT), that all the time and effort and emotional lifting it had taken them to get ready to apologize was wasted.

Later, when I met with the teacher he became irate – he stated, “I’m not accepting that apology it’s not a consequence!” I told him, “As adults it’s our job to model to students how to be gracious. Do you think they’ll have a positive relationship with you now that you’ve sent them the message that only punitive punishment would’ve been effective?” He told me, “I wrote them a REFERRAL! I could’ve just given them a detention myself – but I wrote a referral because I wanted them to get a REAL CONSEQUENCE and be an EXAMPLE for the other kids.” I responded, “Yes, you could’ve just given them a detention (which is in fact a consequence), but instead you gave the decision-making authority to me when you wrote the referral – which I’m then able to choose the consequence for. I apologize that you disagree with my decision, but it’s my job to address negative behaviors in a fair and equitable way on an individual basis and not to “make examples” out of students. For example, if HR wrote you up for screaming at me in an unprofessional manner about this detention – I wouldn’t make it public to the other teachers that I had written you up so as to “make an example of you” so that none of them yell at me in the future. In fact, I’m fairly certain that you’d call your union rep if I treated you that way. It’s my job to be the students’ union rep.” I bring that story up because many of the teacher-venting sites out there have comments that only tell one side of the story. And sadly, not all teachers know what consequences or actions are LEGAL or not for administrators to give. As a result, there’s this Cult of Negativity where behaviors like the teacher that I mentioned are inadvertantly supported. If that teacher with the snowballs had posted on the Teacher Misery instagram, “Kids threw snowballs! Admin DID NOTHING!” it would have generated like 5000 supportive comments. Sadly that wasn’t the truth and created a space for this particular teacher, (who I don’t really think is what’s best for kids), to feel like his own actions (which were never addressed or mentioned in the post) were totally fine. Like all social media – negative teacher venting/student/teacher/admin bashing can shroud the truth in someone’s personal perspective. It’s important to remember that there are always multiple sides to every story and multiple perceptions.

The reason school administrators often get a bad rap and take the brunt of this – is because we follow confidentiality laws that don’t ALLOW us to put the facts of the case out there. So all anyone has to go on is a teacher’s word or a student’s word. It’s a heavy lift and it can be a little frustrating or demoralizing sometimes – but the reality is that I will NEVER stop making kids apologizing for what they did wrong. Apologizing isn’t easy. It isn’t a skill that someone is just born with. But it’s something we all need to know how to do effectively if we want to be productive members of society. Now I also believe that there are school laws whose ramifications can lead to frustration within school communities. I do believe that students should have due process and that schools shouldn’t be suspenion-factories that feed the school to prison pipleline. But I also believe that a lof the pendulums have swung too far and that that has made it seem to many teachers as if students with serious disciplinary issues aren’t receiving consequences – at least not the punitive ones that some people feel are warranted. However – I would encourage teachers who feel this way to get engaged in the work of changing school policy. Chances are your district and building leadership aren’t acting unilaterally. Schools have legal counsel who guide their decision-making process. If the problem IS the law, lobby, petition, join a committee, and work on the real issue. I didn’t truly learn about what it really took to create or change a state educational policy until I did a Teaching Policy Fellowship. It completely changed my perspective on who actually makes educational decisions and what exactly is entailed in the process. Some great places to start are with organizations like Teach Plus, The New Teacher Project, and TCTA (for you Texans out there), and a wide variety of others that can be found with a quick google search.

The internet is rife with stories of school administrators bullying, harassing, or bothering teachers. I do NOT discount any of those stories and often use them as an example of what NOT to do and how NOT to treat my team. As a teacher, I was bullied by an assistant principal and it was NOT fun. So while administrators bullying teachers IS a serious problem – bullying is sadly rife at all levels of school communities. You’d think that with all of the teacher groups out there on Social Media where teachers support one another, that teachers within buildings would be doing so. Unfortunately, teacher-on-teacher bullying is a massive contributor to the Cult of Negativity. Anecdotally, I myself have seen the following things happen to teachers (perpetrated by their peers):

• A teacher would run copies at the copy machine then run back to her classroom to get something and another teacher would unplug the copy machine so that the teacher’s copies stored in the memory never ran.
• A teacher who disliked her special education co-teacher would bully her by locking her out of her own classroom so that she couldn’t access the room until the other teacher decided she could.
• At a school where there were no substitutes: teachers posted the class periods that they needed each other to cover them for on a “Sub bulletin board”. One teacher had her postings consistently torn off and thrown away so she never had coverage.
• Teacher being purposely given the wrong time for a meeting so she’d be late and embarassed.
• Numerous experiences where a teacher would “tattle” on a teacher (using a fictitious claim) to an adminstrator, parent, etc. leading to complaints being filed against a teacher who had done nothing wrong.
• I saw a new teacher at the beginning of her career bullied out of her entire profession by her peers on her own team ganging up on her and creating a toxic and purposely stressful work environment for her.
• A teacher who was bullied by her peers for being Muslim.
• A teacher who was bullied because she took the High Holy Jewish Holidays off and needed coverage by her peers.

These are just the ones that I thought of in 5 minutes. In my 20-year career there have been many more examples and those aren’t even including the things that have happened to me. This letter to teacher bullies written by a teacher expresses some of the many things that teacher-bullies do to other teachers to create unhealthy work environments. Unfortunately, hard and fast numbers are hard to come by because many teachers just won’t tell their administrators that these things are happening until after they’ve found another job and prefer to just leave than make a complaint to HR. Additionally, it’s often difficult for administrators to prove these things without creating an “us vs. them” culture of close supervision or even micromanagement (also a school culture killer). This hasn’t even scratched the surface of parents bullying school boards (anyone watching the news during COVID have seen this happening), parents bullying school administrators and threatening constant and frivilous lawsuits, teachers bullying administrators (yes this really does happen), and teachers bullying students and vice versa.

I would encourage all of the really good educators out there not to get swept up into toxic waves of the Cult of Negativity. Realize that there are always multiple sides to the story. The teachers’, the parents’, the students’, the witnesses’, the administrators’, the laws’, and a combiniation of all of them create the full story. Always challenge decisions or directives that you don’t understand – but do it in a way that doesn’t devalue the growth of yourself or your building. In public – cheerlead all of the great things that your school is doing and celebrate all the wins – no matter how small. Understand the why behind a directive and try to find the value in it for the building as a whole – even if you don’t think it’s something that you personally “need” to do. If everyone in your family has high cholesterol and goes vegetarian – but you don’t “HAVE” to – that doesn’t mean you won’t see benefits from it. Your family will live longer, and maybe you’ll lose 5 lbs. or have enough energy to run that 5k you’ve always wanted to do. We owe it to our students to give them 180 days of the highest-quality education that we can give them – not just the okay-est education that we can get away with because we aren’t being forced to grow. We owe it to each other as educators to push each other and bring out the best in each other. Not to grumble endlessly and be ok with mediocre. There’s a LOT of talk about how adminsitrators need to support teachers – but the reality is that we ALL need to support one another. The best teachers support each other, they support their building administrators, their students, and their students’ parents in the pursuit of excellence – and vice versa – as a supportive village. The best school communities want their students, families, teachers, and adminsitrators to all succeed and be happy. So by all means – raise concerns, demand excellence, but in the words of one of my personal mentors, Jeff Zoul, “Work Hard…Have Fun…Be Nice…Today!” Our school communities and the mental health of all of their stake holders depend on it. There is simply too much hard work to be done and progress to be made for our energy to be spent tearing one another down – there are already enough forces trying to do that.