Why Is Ben Sherman Still Principal?

If you are a leader, and virtually no one has any confidence in you, it's unlikely you'll stay in that position long. I'm a teacher, and while I'm not perfect, the kids are not quite lining up in my AP's office to tell her just how awful I am. In fact, when kids complain about teachers in my building, they sometimes get called to meetings to explain themselves. I know because I'm called to every single one of those meetings.

Sometimes teachers get in trouble, but I can't ever recall 90% of a teacher's students filing a complaint. That would be extraordinary. Of course I'm not a principal. Mike Bloomberg decided that principals could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, however they wanted, and established a Leadership Academy to teach that principle (to principals). Evidently, Ben Sherman learned well.

I've been chapter leader under two principals. If a teacher were to expose himself to female colleagues while urinating, I'm trying to think how they'd react. What if that teacher made cracks to women about their appearance? Now imagine that the teacher slept in his car outside the school to stalk people coming in one morning. I'm pretty sure my first principal would move to have that teacher removed. My current principal, on the other hand, would also move to have that teacher removed. Truth be told, I'd be surprised to see any principal put up with that.

Now imagine the teacher allowed kids to smoke weed in the class, saying it's gonna be legal anyway, so what the hell. And then, of course, there are 90% of the students complaining about him. Though some might fear that teacher, no one respects him. I see 3020a in that teacher's future.

Of course, that teacher isn't a principal. Principals are above it all, somehow. You know, when you read that CPE 1 finally got rid of a vindictive small-minded principal you might think the principal would be shucking oysters somewhere. You'd be wrong. That principal is off working for the DOE, doing who knows what, and collecting more money than any working teacher in NY City for doing said who knows what. Some days I feel like doing who knows what, but instead I'm relegated to, you know, working.

In the case of Ben Sherman, though, they haven't even bothered to make him report to Tweed and do who knows what. Instead, they hired another principal, or superintendent, or someone to report to Forest Hills High School and supervise him or something. Hey, if I did all the things Sherman is accused of doing, there's no way they'd send someone to supervise me. They'd send me to a rubber room, or whatever they're calling those places these days, and I'd twiddle my thumbs while waiting for a hearing in which they'd try to fire me.

I don't know what it is that principals do, or what they have in their contracts that makes them bulletproof, but if your behavior is as bad as Sherman's is supposed to be, you ought not to be principal. You ought not to be a teacher. You ought to find a job more suited to your particular talent, like, say, a fascist dictator, or perhaps a bicycle seat.

Actually I don't know or care exactly where you place people who do things like that. I'd conjecture prisons are full of them. Nonetheless, I'd say a public school is about the last place someone like that ought to be working.

It's remarkable that the NYC DOE feels otherwise.

The Ben and Juan Show--Episode 1 "Too Little Too Late at Forest Hills"

Superintendent Juan Mendez and principal Ben Sherman toured the school yesterday in an elaborate apology project. Evidently, they've been reading the mounting bad press. There is going to be even more, I hear.

They seem to have noted that the Forest Hills High School Parent Association has joined UFT in asking for the principal's removal. I can only guess by walking around the school and saying a few words of contrition they think that the school community will simply forget the last year and a half of failure and frustration.

It's always a good idea to admit when you make mistakes. Sitting on them and letting them build and expand rarely helps the situation. Nonetheless, the apology tour comes months and months after the alienation began. I'm betting the community doesn't buy it. Here's what Sherman said, in a letter to staff:

"I know you have been reading a lot about me recently.  I recognize there are many concerns.  I am against students using drugs, vaping, or smoking in our school.  I am against students loitering in the hallways, staircases, or other places.  I am not a perfect person.  I have many faults, just ask my wife.  I apologize for statements which have offended you, including saying 'because I am the Principal.'   I need to listen better to you.  If I have given anyone the impression that I am soft on crime or that I am permissive about drug use I apologize. 

It sounds good, on the surface. But is it a genuine revelation, or simply something you say out of expedience after the NY Post writes a few articles about you, and Jimmy Fallon makes you the target of a late-night joke? Call me cynical, but I think anyone with a modicum of self-awareness would have noticed there was a problem way sooner.

The unspoken request is that Forest Hills move back to square one, and that the community trust someone who has done absolutely nothing to earn trust. Norm Scott always says, "Watch what they do, not what they say," and that's apt here. While the principal, likely as not at the urging of the superintendent who placed him, has put out a few words, his actions say he doesn't care a whit about the school community.

To me, that's not a strong calling card for someone to lead a school. After a consistent pattern of abuse, of looking the other way, of refusing to own responsibility, a few words are less than persuasive.

As a teacher, if I ran my class the way Ben Sherman seems to have run his school, I'd almost certainly be up on charges for incompetence. It's funny how, here in Fun City, principals can just say, "I'm sorry," and have every expectation of plodding on in their gross ineptitude. Funnier still is, given the Leadership Academy, it's likely the city trained Ben Sherman to behave this way.

If the mayor and chancellor are serious about going in a different direction than that of Michael Bloomberg, they need to take decisive action. "Oopzie," simply does not quality.

It's PARTY TIME at Forest Hills High School!

At least, that's the clear implication I see here:

Principal Ben Sherman, who joined Forest Hills in 2017, shrugs off the pot-puffing — saying “it’s going to be legal” anyway, teachers complain.

So what else is okay in Forest Hills High School? Alcohol is already legal, so why not let kids just get drunk? That's not a problem, is it? Maybe, instead of making them sneak around the halls they should just do it right in the classroom. After all, then they'll be under the supervision of teachers, and whatever goes wrong you can just blame them for it.

Personally, I favor legalization of marijuana. However, I'd want to see an age limit on purchases. Also, unlike what the principal of Forest Hills seems to think, I wouldn't want high school students coming in high. To me, it wouldn't matter much if it were legal. I simply don't think teenagers being high contributes to the optimal school environment. (Of course, I'm just a lowly teacher, and I haven't been to the Leadership Academy, where they teach all that Important Stuff for principals.)

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I'm not particularly fond of students coming in drunk either. It seems that must be okay with administration at Forest Hills High School, because if we're supposed to tolerate drugs that are not yet legal, doesn't it follow that we should tolerate those that already are? I wouldn't want my kid (or yours) drunk, let alone going to school drunk. In fact, I don't think I've ever worked for a principal who said, "Well, it's legal, so just let them do it."

There are a whole lot of legal things I don't want my students to do. Driving is legal, but if they don't know how I'd just as soon not see them on the road. Flying is legal. Giving tattoos is legal. Performing heart surgery is perfectly legal. Being a teacher, I see education as a prerequisite to many things. I also see maturity as a similar prerequisite.

So personally, I'm horrified to imagine that a school principal would suggest that teenagers smoking weed in a high school ought to be tolerated because it's going to be legal one day. I wonder what the superintendent would say if he were to find out about something like this. Intrepid reporter Sue Edelman tried asking the principal first, but he wasn't talking. Anyway, here's what she found:

Sherman referred questions to DOE spokesman Doug Cohen, who said in a statement: “Principal Sherman has been an effective leader for Forest Hills High School, and the superintendent is continuing to support the school. We take these complaints seriously and will continue to ensure a supportive environment for all students and staff.”

I wonder if the DOE spokesperson has also been to the Leadership Academy. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that place must change the way a person sees things. For example, I've never been there, so it's hard for me to square that with the implication that it's okay for teenagers to smoke weed in school, and not because it's still illegal either. It's also hard for me to square that with the chaotic mess I see described.

Call me madcap, but the environment I see described in the story strikes me as something distinctly less than a model for us all. Furthermore, I know a bunch of people who work at Forest Hills. What they describe to me is the polar opposite of a "supportive environment" for staff. Does an "effective leader" have staff in open revolt? If your class were in open revolt, do you think you'd be rated effective when observed?

As a teacher of students from different places and cultures, I'm acutely aware that it's our job to teach respect for one another. Not only that, but it's our job to model it as well. This starts at the top. It's hard for me to understand how a staff under siege can be at their best. I mean, if you're constantly worried about what fresh crap the principal is going to rain upon you, it's got to affect your job performance.

Maybe the DOE spokesperson is taking misdirection lessons from Sarah Huckabee Sanders. From his words, you'd think everything was peaches and cream over there. It clearly is not, or you wouldn't have 90% of staff declaring no confidence in the principal. No one does things like this for fun. The staff is obviously demoralized and fighting for the decent environment they knew for many years before this Leadership Academy principal arrived.

This is a mess. Mayor Bill de Blasio failed the teachers and students in this city when he failed to purge Tweed of the fanatical ideologues planted by Michael Bloomberg. Forest Hills High School is but a symptom of the poison tree Bloomberg left in his wake.

Let's see if this mayor has the guts to do just a little pruning, at least. Then, he should chop down the whole frigging thing.

Forest Hills High School UFT Votes No Confidence in Principal Ben Sherman, 195-21

It's tough being in a leadership position. You have to really gauge what you should and should not do. My position is chapter leader, and I'm acutely aware I have to act in the interests of members. For one thing, it's an elected position. If I'm asleep at the switch, I deserve to be dumped.

It's different if you're a school leader, like a principal. Of course you aren't elected, but it's important to take the temperature of the place rather than zoom in like a Tasmanian Devil cartoon character. I watched my last two principals pretty carefully as I was chapter leader for all or most of their tenure. I know that both were slow to implement significant changes, getting the feel of the place first. I've had significant differences with both, but we manage to get along somehow anyway.

My source tells me the chapter leader at Forest Hills got called into the principal's office for a disciplinary hearing right around the time the no confidence vote took place, and not for the first time either. It appears being chapter leader in itself is an offense at Forest Hills. That's certainly one approach you can take. Go after the CL and hope everyone else falls into place like so many Stepford Teachers. (Of course, they probably have very few no confidence votes in Stepford.)

It seems like the previous Forest Hills principal did things like hire deans and place aides at student bathrooms and exits, and that evidently added a little order to things. The current principal has other ideas, according to a memo I was sent:

The Principal removed aides outside student bathrooms.  At the May 8, 2018 UFT Consultative Council meeting, the Principal stated, that rather than sit aides by the bathrooms, the “money could be better allocated in other things.” (coaches for tenured AP’s?)  Gangs of students congregated in the bathrooms.  Fights broke out.  Urine was thrown into a classroom.  A toilet was violently smashed from the wall. Students got stuck inside a bathroom.  Through all this, the Principal left the bathrooms unattended.

But the no confidence vote seems to have rattled him a bit: 

 Only now, on the verge of a Vote of No Confidence, does the Principal start returning aides to positions from which they had been removed.

Better late than never, I suppose. Deans are pretty key to running a large school. Our principal has not only appointed more deans, but, with UFT cooperation, also changed them from .4 to .6 so that they all serve more periods than they used to. The Forest Hills principal has a different philosophy, evidently:

“Mr. Sherman asked why the hallways were good at the beginning of the year.  A teacher answered that students knew there were consequences and also there were more deans around.  The number of deans has decreased by 29%.  Students are realizing that there are not adults patrolling the hallways.  Mr. Sherman stated that we have enough deans and SSA’s and that our school is also a training site“ (March 27, 2018, UFT Consultative Council minutes)

I'd argue that it's good for students to know there are adults with radios, capable of communicating with one another, in the hallways, but of course I'm just a lowly teacher. My sources tell me that student conflicts are spilling out into the neighborhood and the neighbors find them to be no fun at all. One might conclude a principal who doesn't get along with staff might have issues with the community at large.

I don't know the principal of FHHS. What I know is that there is a philosophy that pervades Tweed and dates from Bloomberg, and it is toxic. The philosophy is this--we are in charge, we will do whatever we like, and you can all go to hell if you don't like it. In fact, Bloomberg had an entire Leadership Academy in which he pushed this philosophy. Bill de Blasio did nothing to change this. The current chancellor, who I think is super smart and capable, has yet to make a dent in it either.

A better philosophy is to get to know one another and find ways to work things out. Calling the chapter leader for a disciplinary meeting because there's a vote of no confidence reminds me of this guy:

Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2019

 

That's not a leader, and that's not leadership. Real leaders are thoughtful and careful, anticipating issues. They know that not everyone is going to like them, and they live with it. They know that when they make decisions there will be critics. Trying to intimidate teachers, especially by trying to shut down union, is a terrible move. For one thing, it only exacerbates the problem, as demonstrated by this very vote.

For another, if you were to be successful, you'd have a bunch of terrorized Stepford Teachers just going through the motions. Unless your goal is to create an entire school full of Stepford Teenagers, that's a pretty silly way to go. It's our job to bring out the voices of our students. It's our job to make them open up and speak. Maybe we can even make them sing.

Either way, shutting down the voices of their teachers is precisely the wrong way to go. There are ways to get along, and just in case principals failed to master them in kindergarten, someone ought to offer a refresher course in principal school.

On the other hand, if the principal is overwhelmingly disliked and distrusted, dangerous to the school body, and reviled by the community, maybe he just needs to go.