The year is winding down, but there’s never a dull moment in the life of an administrator…
So I pull up to the school today at about 7:10. I park behind our main building with a small group of teachers and office staff well out of the way of student drivers and buses. As I parked my truck, I noticed a small group of teachers standing together looking at something. I downed my last sip of coffee and hopped out of the truck to walk toward the building when I saw what they were looking at…
Evidently a pigeon had flown himself head-first into the side of the building and was flailing around on the ground, obviously incapacitated. No one seemed to know what to do, but it was like a traffic accident that no one could walk away from.
As I approached the group, one of the teachers called out, "Thank God you’re here! We’ve been watching this poor bird – he’s dying…"
I glanced over my shoulder with the fleeting hope that she was talking to someone from animal control who had managed to quietly sneak up behind me. No such luck. She was talking to me.
"Were you looking for me?"
"Of course!! You’re the administrator…"
So there you go.
Image: "lesser spotted pigeon" by samdiablo666
So … you performed CPR, set a fracture, and sent the bird fluttering on its way? How’s this one end?
Couldn’t you tell, Dan, that I was going for serialized drama a la Lost, 24, and Heroes?
Actually, I debated about posting “the rest of the story” and decided not to at first. Some people can get weird about sick and/or dying animals…
By the time I got to my office, put my stuff down, and headed back outside, the pigeon had expired. One of our PE coaches scooped him up with a handful of school-issue brown paper towels and laid him to rest in the green Waste Management dumpster.
It would have been much more exciting if it happened as you described.
Okay, look, putting myself in your shoes, I was thinking, “Would I have had the stones to crush that bird?”
From your perspective — and, sorry, I can’t believe out of the zillion important questions I oughtta be asking an administrator that it’s this one — would it have been appropriate for you to mercy-kill that bird? With a percentage of your faculty standing around you? How do adults handle these things?
As for how adults handle these things, I’m not sure I can answer that! I can’t lie to you, Dan. I hoped more than anything that when I walked into that building I’d find my principal sitting at his desk so I could say to HIM, “Hey – what do you think we should do about this bird?” or better yet, “Hey – you’re needed outiside. My 7:30 is here…”
But he was at his regular Wednesday principal’s meeting and out of the building leaving me in charge.
Do I grab our agriculture teacher? I mean, she teachers a pre-vet class! Or maybe our AP Bio teacher? Wasn’t she pre-med for a while?
Honestly, I don’t know if I’d have been able to do it or not. There was a big part of me that was very relieved that nature took its course and I didn’t have to make that call.
I just intended to post this as a end-of-the-year, day-in-the-life snapshot of my Wednesday. Who’d have thunk it would generate discussion on such weighty issues…
That’s sad, but way better than the staff requests I tend to receive at my elementary school. The local teenagers like to use the shielded area by our dumpsters for their amorous liaisons. Almost every Monday, a distraught teacher asks me to collect the leftover remnant of their affection and dispose of it. I think they like it because of my general squeamishness caused by germs of all sorts. It becomes a Monday ritual of taunt the principal into saying “I feel uncomfortable in my workplace”.
Principal kills kittens http://tinyurl.com/35x7lo
Teacher kills baby rabbits in front of class http://tinyurl.com/2mfq2p
Now aren’t you glad you didn’t have to deal with the live pigeon?
Now more so than ever!!
Yikes!
Husband, Father, Student, Educator, Geek and much more that I see here. Please tell me your email so that I can ask you some interiew question. Thanks.