Good morning and welcome to the new school year! I hope everyone had a great summer. I spent it in my luxurious office, making calls to Very Important People. None of them were teachers! And you won’t be hearing from me anytime soon.
Thank you for all that you do for the children and families of the New York City public schools…and for your work this week to get ready to welcome them back. I know you weren’t paid for most of it, but hey, I make $349,840, so it’s no skin off my apple.
It’s been 36 years since my first opening day as a teacher—in a fourth-grade classroom at P.S. 167 in Brooklyn, and boy am I glad to have gotten the hell out of there. I still feel the same excitement and get the same butterflies every year on this day, but I’m pretty frigging happy not to be in crumbling trailers doing the actual work. Seeing the bright faces of our young people and feeling the brilliance of their promise and potential is so joyful and uplifting. You’d almost think it wasn’t me denying them sufficient funds or further delaying reasonable class sizes!
From my first day as Chancellor, I’ve been tremendously energized by the opportunity to team up with you and our entire city to reimagine how we can strengthen support of our schools, tighten the partnership with our families, and lift our students to a limitless future. Man, that was a long sentence. I hope there aren’t any English teachers reading this!
It’s my joy to be in my perfectly isolated, perfectly ventilated air-conditioned office and see how you inspire, care for, and educate our children. Every day I thank the Lord that I get to sit here and pontificate while you do the actual work. It’s my expectation that, together, we rise to become the best school district in the nation. If that happens, you’d better believe I’ll take all the credit and do my very best not to invest one thin dime in your contract, which expires next week.
I look forward to photo ops alongside you every day to reach higher heights. Hopefully, we’ll hover happily hunting highest heights. And if you think you’ll receive one iota of support from me, I want to know exactly what you are high on.
Thank you for your work and your dedication. Enjoy my crappy grading system. Together, let’s make it a great school year for our kids. If that happens, I’ll take all the credit, along with the mayor, blessed be his name for hiring my brother. If it doesn’t work, I’ll blame you all over the press, and seek those classes of 400 Mayor Adams wants. Sure it will be terrible, but think of all the money we can invest in redecorating my office.
I have a vision, bro.
Soaring high,
David
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