Strike Two

I decide to make them sweat a little by not speaking right away.

I remove a highly organized file from my high end leather brief case.

I am confident the no one in the room will notice that it is still embossed with my married name monogram.

I retrieve a smart looking pen from the same high end briefcase and remove the pretty little screw-off cap.

I gracefully uncross and recross my ankles and open my file with my flawlessly manicured hands (Thank you, Hil for the spa treatment.)

I am sure they are panicking. Clearly I’ve studied the game films.
Without looking at the contents of the file, I quietly clear my throat.

“I need to be frank with you, “ I say.

“Oh, of course! Please do!”exclaims McDuff with a welcoming gesture. He’s trying to look collected and unflappable.

“You, and by “you” I mean you personally, and you collectively, are unprepared and ill-equipped to deal with bullying on any level at this school. Further what inconsequential measures you do have in place are nothing more than lip service, and suggest to me that you are not really genuinely interested in this topic.” I took a breath to continue.

Before I could go much further, McDuff jumps in. “Oh no no no! We are very well aware of the importance of preventing bullying!” He has to say that, of course. He then goes on and on in an effort to wow me with all the neat things they have “in the works.” An online reporting system being tweaked for launch in a month or two. A seminar (the same one from last year and the year before) about cyberbullying (And what about bullying like they did before Alexander Graham Bell and the advent of crank phone calls?). Whips out a nifty two page checklist for conducting an investigation. It needs some tweaking, too, so it won’t make its debut until spring. I will be in Depends before they have their act together.

“With all due respect,” (there I go again) I am not interested in what you are going to do. What matters is what you have now. And frankly I am shocked at what you don’t have in place. This is not a new issue. You have nearly nothing and you know it. And your kids know it, too. And that is why you, Dr. McDuff have 75 complaints stuffed in your padfolio that you can’t organize let alone address. You are so caught up in perfecting and tweaking your back-of-the-house administrative tools that you have failed to make any kind of position statement to your kids. You haven’t told them what you expect. Nero is fiddling while Rome burns.”

McDuff is leaning away from me now. A defensive posture. “So what you are saying is…”

I cut him off. “What I’m saying is that you have a very serious problem exploding in your face and you won’t even begin to address it because you don’t have any idea how to address it! Your policy is pathetic and you have no procedural guidelines. I am beginning to feel a little badly about how I responded to your mishandling things with Pat. It’s not your fault. You have nothing and no one to tell you what to do.

He picks up on the idea that we were very much at odds during the email exchanges. He tries to assert that we are beyond that now, and can collaborate peaceably.

My ass.

I said, “Dr. McDuff, things did get a little prickly during our email conversation. My kid was getting picked on at your school and you were ready to ignore it and dismiss the whole things as “normal adolescent dynamics.” There is no normal teenage dynamic that includes hitting my kid. I am sure it would be convenient for you if there were, but there isn’t. And now that we’ve established THAT, I have no confidence at all that you’ll have any clue how to handle the next situation. Or anything else already in the pile of complaints sticking out of your notebook over there.”