Gerald
May 29, 2011
Speaking up for Gerald Rawlins, our school's former vice principal who left under questionable circumstances, and possibly inciting revolt against our principal.


Sent: Sunday, May 29, 2011 4:35 PM
To: DL AHS All Teachers

I'm not normally a conspiracy theorist.  But I have to imagine that somebody somewhere is very relieved that our email is down this weekend, and this long overdue conversation temporarily stifled.

Fred already nailed the two best adjectives when he described Gerald as superlatively honorable and dedicated.  The man was also fantastically humble, perhaps to a fault.  He never put himself above us, nor even equal to us, really.  He never walked past a piece of litter too humble for him to veer out of his way to stoop and pick up.  I smile when I imagine how completely mortified he'd have been if someone had tried to dedicate a "vice principal" spot for him in the parking lot.  I so miss his constant presence at the girls' basketball banquets and the music boosters' fundraisers, trying to hide inconspicuously in a back corner, ready to duck out of the room if anyone tried to publicly recognize him, make him stand and take a bow.

I doubt Gerald ever saw himself as a leader.  But he was.  The best kind.  Leadership isn't telling people what to do.  It's setting an example in one's own actions and conduct so compelling that those around can't help but admire it, want to follow it of their own accord.  I try to do that for my kids.  Gerald did that for me.

It's possible that Gerald's silence is for reasons entirely personal.  But I confess to having doubts.  It's hard to imagine that he would have left the way he did unless there was something horribly wrong between him and the powers that be.  And how many others have also left their posts in deafening silence these past couple years, here and elsewhere in the district?  When people tell me about computer problems, I tell them that if it happens once, it's a fluke, don't worry about it.  If it happens twice, then there really is something wrong.

How is it that in a public school district, so much is shrouded in secrecy, so many decisions from on high that all seem to affect our kids for the worse handed down to us without our input, our opinion, or even our being aware that they were being decided in the first place?  I want to believe that somebody somewhere has a good underlying motivation for it all.  So why don't they tell us what it is so we can be on board, a part of it, rather than subjected to it?

And surely somebody somewhere in this district knows why Gerald left.  So why don't they tell us, so that we're not sitting here wildly speculating?  Are we not even supposed to wonder?

And now we're being asked to get together for a picture.  And because of all these crazy speculations in my mind, I'm forced to asked myself whether Gerald would even want to see me in a picture handed to him by our principal.  Or whether that would just bring him down even more.  Whether he might get a chuckle if I try to show solidarity with him and unhappiness with the way things are by also being absent.

Crazy talk, huh?  Making a mountain out of a molehill?  I don't not want to be part of a farewell gift for Gerald.  But I'm afraid of doing him an even greater wrong by showing up.  And I don't expect I'll have anything but rumor and speculation to try to make a decision on.

The only thing I do know is that I deeply miss the man.




 home