What Holds A School Together

Issue 41 | WHAT HOLDS A SCHOOL TOGETHER

Staff Shortages and Culture — Part Three

June came. You made it. You sat in the parking lot on the last day and asked yourself — honestly — how.

The year had cost the building three long-term vacancies, eleven short-term substitute days with zero coverage, four teachers who hit the wall hard enough that you worried about them coming back, and one position that had been posted, re-posted, and posted a third time before you finally hired someone in April who would spend the rest of the year learning the job on the job.

The kids were fine. Mostly.

That phrase — the kids were fine — carries a lot of weight you don’t always unpack. Fine compared to what? Fine means they made it, they passed, they graduated, they moved on. It doesn’t mean they got the year they were owed.

You know the difference.

Sitting in the parking lot on the last day, you started doing what school leaders do — the accounting. Not the budget. The human accounting. Who held the line when …