Archived News Item

Grudgingly...

We’ve had a whole heck of a lot of principals in the last few years.

I mention this because, while my lot in life often seems to be that of the perpetual grouser, even I, as a skilled and experienced Scrooge, am sometimes forced to acknowledge the tolerable, the beneficial, and even the fine.

Jim Slemp is a fine piece of principal.

For those out of the loop, Slemp is our current hamster on the administrative wheel, procured hastily and probably with chagrin after the previous effort, Patricia Christa, caught a glimpse of our madness and fled for greener pastures. Slemp, who had been given the dubious honor of second place in the search, ended up recieving a complimentary upgrade, and was promptly installed with two pencils, a teensy administrative staff, and a line of complaining parents and teachers a mile long with a war coffer almost large enough to buy the gun he’d need to kill himself.

So it goes.

Some have been saying that, in reality, Jim Slemp has yet to truly prove himself with his handling of an honestly controversial decision or challenging crisis — and, of course, that pronouncing any sort of judgement is premature until he has, for anybody can lead in peacetime. But really… has he?

The role of a principal is manifold, and hit-and-miss results in the past may have been the worm that wore our old administrators hollow. They must be competent managers, coordinating both people and policy; they must be capable of acting to resolve current, pressing emergencies while also maintaining vision of the scene six months from now, a year, five years. They must be able to wade through the various world-weary factions of the school’s and district’s political scene, pissing off nobody while actually getting things done. Oh, and maybe they could pretend a semblance of respect for them there, ah, whatchamacallem, students.

But in addition to being an administrator, a principal must also be a leader, and this is the role that nobody — principal, vice, dean, or the guy who changes the photocopy paper — has ever managed to fill.

Until now.

What gets me is that, until this year and Slemp, we seemed to be inundated with powers-that-be who acted like proverbial committee-based Chicken Littles. Earnest and serious, administrators would trudge around the campus, flitting from their offices to meetings and back again with grim determination, always seeming to radiate a feeling of, “By god, we will hold back the flood. To arms! Let us die with honor!”

It’s not a question of competence. Managers aren’t exactly a dime a dozen, but they’re workers. Leadership is a whole ’nother basket of eggs, and sometimes working harder at it makes you worse.

So though surrounded by grave, bleak soldiers bearing the banner of “Let Justice be done, though the world perish”, Slemp strolls about the school, comfortable and relaxed, seeming at all times to be just out for a brisk walk. He’s always got a bit of time to talk, and even a few minutes to spare just being a part of the school. Undoubtedly he’s got plenty of work to attend to, no less than his predecessors; but he seems to understand that being a principal is actually a duty too, and just as much or more important than balancing budget minutiae.

Basically, he’s human.

And that’s just too cool.

More? What do I look like, Santa?

Fine, I got more.

Look at the Jacket, the school’s student-run paper. Good gig. Been around since forever, and generally a reliably reliable piece of work. It goes up and down.

This year is an up.

I’m not a part of the Jacket this year, but like most of the school (to some degree or another), I’m a reader, and so far this year, I’ve been most pleased with its work. We’ve got some really fine columns — finer than last year, less so than two years ago, but you take what you can get — and, astonishingly, a comic that’s actually unequivocally excellent. Basic reporting seems on point and well-written, editing has appeared to be capable, and best of all, the printing quality has improved (unless they’re lacing this stuff with placebos now), meaning legibler type, prettier pictures, and less goddamned ink everywhere. It’s like they’re marking you to try and keep track of people who read the Jacket. “Hey! There’s one there! Grab ‘im!”

They ain’t perfect, but that’s how life goes, and we’ll keep watching and seeing. If Berkeley High teaches you anything, it’s to settle for what’s real.

Did you think it was all good?

More or less without fanfare, there’s a groundswell of discussion right now in the back rooms of the school’s politik.

I gather that it has to do with the way, next year, Economy and Government will again be phased back in for seniors. A good thing — sort of. The trouble is that, since we’ve now got another year of classery, with teachers and schedules already overloaded, something’s got to go.

So in short, it’s a headhunt.

In a larger sense, the issue has become IES (Identity and Ethnic Studies, which everyone loves to hate) versus everything else. However, nothing is quite safe, and depending on who you ask, there’s favor for cutting classes of science, math, English, PE, arts, and probably there’s a coalition of whackos that wants to cut lunch. It seems beyond question that something is going to go, so people are abandoning ship and doing their best to shove each other into the meat grinder ahead of themselves. Budget cutting at its finest.

There are big fat wads of resistance to just about everything proposed, but perhaps the situation most objected to is the way these proceedings in general have been hushed and secretive. You didn’t know. I didn’t know until Bradley Johnson, student governmenter extraordinaire, made a brief spiel about it in my spanish class. And nobody else knows, either, which more or less means that it will end up resolved by people you don’t know in ways you don’t understand, and you won’t hear about it until they say something in the bulletin.

You don’t want that.

Quietly, in the dark of the night, I’ve finally done summin’ that should have been done ages ago. The News archives, which have been collecting since day one of the site (and are therefore pretty darned extensive), just became searchable. You can still click on the date of the articles you want, but you can also type a search term into the handy little box, and the system will return any and all news posts that contain the word or phrase you entered. Hot!

Harris Lapiroff writes to mention that he’s starting a Creative Arts Magazine for BHS. Anyone’s welcome, and it’s still in the early planning stages, but interested contributers should drop by C221 lunchtimes on Thursdays. Whether you’ve got a creative bent, or an interest in some facet of publishing, or just want to do something cool, it’s looking to be a neat endeavour. Give them a visit.

— Brandon