Evelyn Harris has been at Houston
High School for as long as there has been a Houston High School. When I came to teach at Houston (during the
schools 3rd year), Evelyn was an English teacher. Along with Ann Rouse, her reputation was such
that kids did not mess with her. I
always assumed that at some point during her first couple of years at Houston,
a severe and probably deadly example was made of someone. My best guess is that the bodies were placed
in “the ditch” and guarding that secret was why so many teachers went out to
“the ditch” during their planning period.
After my first year, Marjorie Lowe,
Houston’s first vice-principal, left to become the warden at Elmore Park and
Mrs. Harris assumed the job of vice-principal at Houston. The job of vice-principal basically consists
of doing all of the stuff that is either not fun or that no one else wants to
do. If a teacher does something wonky in
the classroom and a parent complains (just imagine… complaining parents), the
job of remediating or debriefing the teacher usually falls to the
vice-principal. So, in your office you
find: the kid that was “wonked”, an
angry parent, and a teacher who could not possibly have done a bad thing. Ain’t that a recipe for fun.
My first
interactions with Mrs. Harris were not, as many of you would assume, getting my
rear end chewed out for going off the reservation. My first interactions came at faculty
meetings. Back in the day, the faculty
met once a week after school. The only
way to disseminate information (pre-computer/internet) was to have a
meeting. This probably contributed to
the fact that, back then, teachers actually knew each other….. but I
digress. Mr. Clayton, our first
principal, would get up front with his “coke tablet” and his “#2” and make all
the happy announcements. At the end of
the meeting, the job of telling us what we needed to do better or what extra
work we needed to add to our day fell to Mrs. Harris. While I basically tuned out all criticisms,
believing myself to be above such things, I also decided to avoid Mrs. Harris
since my unfamiliarity with rule following seemed at odds with her mission in
life to make all of us “behave”.
My first 2
years at Houston were full of instances of upset parents since I pretty much
“blew up” what was there when I got the job and started it all over. By the time Mrs. Harris came to be
vice-principal, things on the band front were relatively quiet. The upside for band was that the band began
to grow in numbers. The down side was
the potential for scheduling problems and that brought me to Mrs. Harris’
door. You see, in addition to her other
responsibilities, Mrs. Harris was in charge of scheduling.
Now we get
to the rationale for the title of this post.
Band works for a number of different reasons. Strong parent support, good kids, adequate
facilities, instruction and community acceptance are just a few of the
reasons. The overriding reason why this
has worked so well for the past 24 years is administrative support in
scheduling. I made the case to Mrs.
Harris that a strong band program helped with attendance, academics, behavior
and balancing the needs of the whole child versus the academic/athletic tug of
war that had existed when I arrived at Houston.
In the 25 years I worked at Houston, not one child was ever excluded
from participating in band because of scheduling. When I tell this at conferences or in-service
to other band directors they are both disbelieving and angry. Mrs. Harris would redo the schedule any
number of times in an effort to eliminate conflicts and then, after having done
so, would hand schedule the remaining conflicts when necessary. The number of extra hours she spent in this
endeavor was huge. In the rare event
that a class had to be scheduled in conflict with band, Mrs. Harris would allow
me to “share” a kid with an academic teacher and even explain to the teacher
the importance of this necessity FOR THE KID.
Without
this sort of ‘Kid First” thinking from Mrs. Harris, band might very well have
withered and died at Houston High School.
There are two sorts of people in educational administration today; those
that tell you why you can’t do something and those that try and help you
figure out how you can do something.
For all of my 35 years in education, Evelyn Harris best defines a
helpful administrator. I did end up
(more than once) in her office getting “remediated” about a mistake I had
made. None-the-less, I always valued her
help and counsel and consider her to be not only a large reason for my success
at Houston, but also a good friend. It
is rumored this is her last go around and that she intends to retire in the
near future. To the 4 people they will
have to hire to fill her shoes I say “Good Luck.” To Evelyn I can only say “Thanks.”
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