There is a Bell Curve to this profession.... By Bill Lacey

There is the most interesting Bell Curve to this profession. And, as I consider attending tomorrow’s NBEA Retirement Luncheon, I’m reminded of it and where I’ve been throughout 35 years of teaching. Years ago, (who am I kidding..? Decades ago…), I was the fresh-faced kid on the last page of the Seniority List. Stretching before me were pages upon pages of names, individuals, careers that had carried the banner for the school system I now worked for. I remember stepping into my first Debriefing Day meeting at Bronspiegel and knowing…

no one.

On the stage was a familiar face. He was my neighbor on Query Street. His name was Nanopoulous, but I knew him simply as “Charlie” from down the street. I have a secret to share, one that has kept me awake for countless nights throughout my career. You see, before I joined the NBPS I worked for the parochial system here in town. I didn’t know who Charlie Nanopoulous was. He was just the guy in the beat-up blue K-car with bad tires. There were so many mornings that I heard him skidding about, trying to get that P.O.S. down Query Street and make it to work. Because I taught at the high school level, I was up pretty early and was usually outside, cleaning my car off. Charlie would be trying to navigate that rusty sedan onto Query Street and I would help him make it happen. 

I swear, I had no idea what damage I was really doing…

You see, Charlie’s mindset was simple. If, as the Superintendent of Schools, he could get to work, well now, there was no good reason to call off school…

Yeah, I’m to blame. Sorry.

But here I was, Day 1, and there was Charlie, blue suit coat, bad tie, brown loafers. Speaking to the entire teaching force of the NBPS, Charlie used a phrase I learned that day and kept forever…

“Happiness~ is working for the New Bedford Public Schools…”

Charlie and I didn’t always see eye to eye, even then. But the thing about Charlie Nanopoulous was this… he didn’t pull punches and what he said, he meant. Period. He refused to say he worked for the City of New Bedford. We weren’t the School Department of the City of New Bedford. We were the New Bedford School Department. 

There was a difference then.

City employees were cops and fire fighters, municipal workers and water department workers. City employees were our refuse collectors and our DPW folk. 

But not us…

We were different.

Why?

Because Charlie said so.

We were the New Bedford School Department. We were held to the highest standards. We flippin’ invented highest standards.

I miss Charlie. I miss those days.

We weren’t asked to think outside the box. We refused the existence OF the box.

Somewhere, I guess, the Bell Curve caught up to me without my noticing it. There were so many Debriefing Days. And there came a time when I would walk into Bronspiegel and I knew…

everyone.

Along with my newfound identity, there came a new reality, too…

Charlie had retired and Joe was the new boss. He didn’t last long though, and that’s too bad. He was a swell guy. But, they found a shortfall problem back then. To my recollection, it was around $1.5 million, and, well, we couldn’t have THAT, now, could we..?

Bye Joe…

The first sacrificial lamb of the NBPS, but mind you, not the last. Oh no…

Bill Marginson stepped in. Bill, too, was a good guy. Right from the get-go this was a planned obsolescence thing… 

Bill in, Bill out.

Hi Mike…

Now, you can say what you like about Mike Longo, and… there’s been lots said…but Mike was a great captain of NBHS and the heir-apparent of the superintendency. Mike was boastful, bigger than life and, like Charlie, loved the NBPS. His motto, “Live, Love, Learn” was a great working mantra to our system. But during Mike’s days, things began to shift and with that shift came trouble.

The city leadership began to exert pressure on one side while the state and the Office of Civil Rights levied pressure from the other. It would have taken Roosevelt to escape this catastrophe-in-the-making…. And I, was caught in the middle of the Bell Curve. So were many of my colleagues.

It had become routine to pull shortfalls. Funny, though, no more heads rolled like poor Joe’s. Well, until, yeah…

Portia.

Now, whether I had noticed it or not, the Bell Curve slope had gotten slippery. Portia was going to fix all our ills and make things better…

This is the point where I sometimes fall away from the hardliners. I…kinda liked Portia.

Kinda…

I mean, it was a tenuous like. But some of the things that were important to Portia were important to me, too… I think her heart was in the right place, but maybe not her brain.

She had been promised complete control and support.

Bwahahahahahahahaha………..

Yeah, that wasn’t written down, honey, see?

What we really wanted you to do was sit down and be a good mouthpiece. Do as we tell you and you’ll be fine…

But Portia had other ideas. Ideas that had come to the surface multiple times in her interviews, both public and private. Portia wasn’t going to be told HOW to run the New Bedford Public Schools. Portia was going to RUN the show….

Bye Portia…

(ka-ching…)

Hi Mary Lou..!

Mary Lou Francis came to the Superintendent’s seat right about the time I realized my career was winding down. The Bell Curve had lost its gentle slope and had morphed into a Black Diamond trail. 

Mary Lou wouldn’t play ball either. She had been revered by the school committee for being exactly what we needed when we needed it, which to say, is like being on the annual Sports Illustrated Super Bowl team of the year cover.

(cue the death knell…)

Bye Mary Lou…

(ka-ching…)

Hello Mike II…

Now, the Bell Curve is closing fast and I want to return to my original concept, though it’s been spelled out throughout tonight’s timeline. I walked into this year’s debriefing Day and know what? I knew…

almost no one.

And that’s actually fine with me… Call it the Circle of Life. Call it the Great Journey. Call it what you will… I’m still a Charlie guy… And despite the ridiculous nature of what we’ve been witness to, whether it be a new Assistant Superintendent, fitting a size 12 shoe into a size 3 mouth, as she promised a questioning school committee member (who had queried how we could cut upwards of a hundred positions and become stronger…),

“This will be an opportunity”

Or a sitting school committeewoman who was determined to hand out NBHS diplomas because she liked having the opportunity to congratulate the graduating body, even as she has neglected her fiduciary responsibilities to they and their parents…

Because we will rise again.

The Bell Curve comes for us all one day…