Disillusionment with Analy’s administration has caught up to me. While I will forever present Analy as a journey in which you get out what you put in, the luster of that sentiment wanes with each passing year. As the cycling of positions over the past few years has reduced the mediocre connection the student body had to the administration of 2022-23 to the level of today, I ask more of those who leave their office doors open but don’t leave students with meaningful action when they close it behind them. The student body, teachers, staff, and parents deserve a steadfast administration that understands the spirit, history, and people of Analy, not just the poor optics and repair costs of bathroom vandalism. The Analy community should, and can be, a constant reminder of why the school exists: to serve students. At present, the administration’s priorities seem to be attendance, and dismissal, not accountability, action, and trust.
Do you know your school administrators? Do you know which VP is assigned to you based on your last name? Or when the next Board meeting is? Site Council meeting? Ever attempted to schedule a meeting with any member of the administration other than your counselor? Ever actually succeeded in getting a meeting with anyone deeper into the office? Probably not, and understandably so. I can answer yes to all of these questions excluding the last one (I was ignored), and I still can’t say I know the administration or its actionable plans to improve the Analy experience. The connection between the administration and the students is lacking, to the fault of both parties, but I would argue the staff have the ultimate responsibility in facilitating these lines of communication. The vast majority of students, who have wants, questions, and expectations, but are not a focus of the administration, are being left by the wayside.
In the semester I spent as a faculty-nominated student representative on the site council, I had countless abstract and concrete proposals for the administration, particularly for Mr. Wade. Further student nominations to the site council: noted but not acted upon. Creation of Google Form for students to apply to be on hiring committees: noted but not acted upon. Questions about who to contact about inaccurate and outdated information on the school website: unanswered. The Welcome Back Morning Assembly of the first day of school and the required English class visit for the review of the “new” Student Handbook both had an aura, if I may, of idealism and dodging accountability. The thesis of the handbook presentation I received was: new people, and new rules, so like them and follow them, but if you have a real question to ask that affects students, we don’t have time for that. I walked away disappointed from what will most likely be the only time the principal will be a captive audience of this group of students with minimal reports of positive change, greater student representation, or concrete outlines of the administration’s plan for the school year. But where some fail, others continuously rise to the challenge.
Enter the Analy faculty and staff. Analy is so much more than its administrators, and that sentiment has strengthened as the rest of the school community’s steadfast support and effort has become more important whilst the administration has changed, settled in, changed again, and settled in again. Part of what makes the constant cycling of those positions more harmful to integral teachers and staff is the lack of knowledge new administrators have about what the school needs. These needs include those of the students, staff, faculty, and parents, thus ‘school community needs.’ Some of these needs, like those of staff and faculty, can be communicated at meetings with administrators, but student and parent options are only email or talking in person(including at board meetings). I’ve learned through experience with Analy and district administrators that both of these student methods are not conducive to conversations that get acted upon. This is where alternative pathways for action must take root.
This ignorance about school community needs comes from the separation between student life(including classes, sports, arts programs, and student aspirations) and the administrators who hold power over policy. It is not just the “newness” of the administration that makes it this way, it’s the lack of action taken by school and district leaders to speak to, and with, the general student population. My suggestions are many-fold, and not all immediately actionable, but hearing more of what is needed is the first step. Student body forums held by the administration, feedback forms following policy implementation, strong student presence on hiring committees, posted explanations of policy reasoning, and expansion of the ASB leadership’s power are all ways in which the students, who are the reason this institution exists, can connect with this administration through listening and thorough response.
The school administration is quite bureaucratic, and that fact makes all of this harder to see working out. Still, the current picture is that what is making Analy a great place to learn struggles to include its administrators. This sentiment can and should change, but time and effort on the part of the administration and the students is the only way this issue will move forward.
Otherwise, students will keep dragging themselves to class, teachers will keep teaching while underpaid, overworked, and ignored, and the administrators will simply walk to their office every morning too separated from the pulse of the campus around them. Your move, Mr. Wade.
