More Mobile School system goodness

My wife is an elementary school teacher in the Mobile County school system. Recently, she came in possession of a memorandum from a Karen Mohr, assistant superintendent over elementary schools in Mobile County, sent to each principal under her. My wife found this memo fairly amusing, so she brought it home with her paperwork and showed it to me. After reading it I was appalled at the complete lack of understanding by Mrs Mohr as to her audience and her attitude to these professionals.

The memo to which I am referring deals with some reaction to a program began by Ms. Mohr. Apparently, she is expecting each principal to conduct a "Informal Walk-Through" on each teacher at his/her school each day. A form will be completed and filed and/or given to each teacher. This form is titled the "Informal Walk-Through Form". Now, it seems to me that if I were to look up oxymoron in my trusty Webster's, the term "Informal Form" just might be used as an example. No matter how much you attempt to term a program "informal," requiring a form be filled out to document each visit pretty much assures that it is indeed formal. In fact, simply calling it an official "program" is most likely enough to exclude the "informal" moniker from use.

But, I digress. The true issue I have with this memorandum is the condescending tone used and the complete waste of resources this program will cause. Firstly, Ms. Mohr treats these principals as my wife would treat her students. It works well with second graders to hold their hand and give them rigid guidelines to ensure they are performing well, but this method tends to break down when dealing with adults that are highly educated and of above average intelligence. I would venture to say that many of the principals in the Mobile system have their PhD. At a minimum, they are required to have a post graduate degree of some fashion. Each has studied countless hours in school and worked years to obtain the position they hold currently. To think that these principals actually need Ms. Mohr to tell them the intimate details on exactly how to do their job is juvenile. Monitoring teachers is part of the job of a principal. They all understand that and actively do it. If one is failing to complete those duties, that issue needs to be taken with that individual.

The memo goes on to tell each principal to be sure to know that they can divide the duty of conducting these daily visits. It's nice to know they are able to delegate. Ms. Mohr goes as far as defining the amount of time the visits should take. She even gives some handy equations to figure out the total time! She says that each visit should be 2 - 4 minutes. Using her equations below, you can clearly see that this can be completed "in less than 1 to 1-1/2 hours."

20 teachers x 2 minutes = 40 minutes or 25 teachers x 2 minutes = 50 minutes

That math is directly quoted from the memorandum. Well, let's ignore the obvious fact that there are substantially more than 20 teachers in the average school. And that it will take substantially longer than 2 minutes in each room. And that there is a minute or more lag in actually moving from room to room. Oh, and also let's ignore that you have to add the time to complete and file that "informal form". Putting aside all those issues, here are a few equations of my own:

Let say it takes two administrators an hour each to complete all these walk-throughs. How much does the average administrator make? Well, I really have no idea, but as a conservative estimate I will assume the average is about $60,000 per year. Principals are year round employees, so to divide out what they make per hour: $60000 / 52 weeks = $1150 per week. Assuming a 40 hour work week yields $1150 / 40 hours = $29 per hour. I'm going to round that to $30 to make my numbers neater.


$30 per hour * 2 administrators = $60 per day per school.

$60 per day per school * 100 schools in Mobile County = $6000 per day, system wide.

$6000 per day * 180 days in the school year = $1,080,000.00

Yes, that's right. Over a million dollars in a school year of our principals' time on this "informal" program.

One more issue comes in the final paragraph. Ms. Mohr states, "It is not necessary to work through MCEA/Deputy Superintendent as I am open to your comments/concerns." For those that do not know, MCEA is the Mobile County Educator's Association. It is a union. This is a boss essentially telling her employees not to go to their union with issues!

The final blow comes in the signature, "I appreciate your professionalism." Well, Ms. Mohr, I certainly would appreciate some from you.