A Meeting by Any Other Name is Still a Meeting

I woke too early today, so I might as well write another blog entry. I have a lot to write lately. And school has only been in session 2.5 weeks...Anyway, in my district, principals can have a maximum of eight meetings per month. Even in a month with five weeks; if a principal has a meeting twice a week, than during a five week month teachers get one week free. I love those months. A principal also cannot have meetings during conferences, nor can s/he have them the week prior to conferences. I love those weeks as well. And not all principals have eight meetings a week, apparently. I'd like to work at one of those schools. Because our principal has eight meetings a month and is always trying to figure out how to get more. So I have to watch him like a hawk. I'm getting quite good at it. Last year, he scheduled our staff meeting every Tuesday morning, and then another meeting every Thursday morning. He had a name for our Thursdays meetings, but in reality it was just another staff meeting. We basically had two staff meetings a week. He thinks everything he has to say to us is so vital we need to hear it in person and not via email. The year before, and all years prior since I've been at my school, we had a staff meeting once a week and a team meeting once a week. But last year we weren't give the second weekly meeting to meet as a team. At the beginning of last year we were told we'd just have to meet with our team on our own time. But get that meeting time on the calendar so we know when you are meeting with you team, we were told, so that anyone can come by to join your team. But that is a 3rd meeting a week, I said. You can't do that. You are already at your maximum number of required meetings. No, he responded. This is not an "official" meeting. Just get it on the calendar. If you are expecting it to be on the calendar, I said, then it is official. If you are expecting to be able to come to my room at a certain time on a certain day each week to see me meeting with my team, it is an official meeting. This debate went on for quite some time. I just continued to send emails to teachers, encouraging them to meet whenever they wanted to but to not get it on a calendar as requested, as Mr. Principal was out of compliance with the contract by requesting it. I think a few brown-nosers put their meeting on the calendar, but most did not. After awhile, I did not hear anything more about team meetings. When we got back from winter break and started things rolling once again, in now for the long haul, Mr. Principal again announced at our first staff meeting that he needed us to get our team meetings on the calendar. Immediately, I sent our union president an email. I told her I was tired of this same battle, that he was not listening to me, and that I needed her now to get out to our building to tell Mr. Principal that I was and always have been right about the team meetings. She did that. There was no more requests that year.