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When a forum such as this website becomes known to a community, it naturally becomes a magnet for both supporters and detractors. There may be teachers who disagree with the slant of this site, but it is the teachers who support our efforts who are emailing and speaking to us privately. This is a delicate subject, and we recognize right up front that every organization has people who are dissatisfied for one reason or another. Yet, the similarity of the comments among teachers is unsettling.

In all of the anonymous emails and private conversations we have shared with Readington teachers in all of our schools, there is one overriding theme.  Our teachers are concerned about a wide variety of issues, but they are universally fearful of speaking up.  Whether the issue is testing, curriculum, math or reading programs, staff assignments, physical plant conditions, portfolios, lack of student contact time, or other things, virtually all of the teachers with whom we have had contact worry about retribution for pointing out their concerns.

Specifically, they fear that administrators and certain cliques who hang on the coattails of administrators will find the means to punish them for speaking up, perhaps by attacking their reputation, by altering schedules or classroom assignments, by verbal or written reprimands, or even by the loss of their jobs.  Whether these fears are well founded cannot be judged from our vantage point.

What can be determined is that our teachers are demoralized.

To counter this entrenched fear among teachers, it is important that our superintendent, our principals and our board members make a special effort to shake off their coattails and to seek out the advice of our teachers.  Our leadership should be seen in school hallways speaking individually with those whom they may not have sought out before.  It is a slow process to rebuild a lost trust.

Leadership in any human organization must contend with people who become "hangers-on".  It is dangerous and unproductive to allow those who would use their friendship, their special physical access, or their shared agreement with organizational leadership to enrich their own status in the organization.  It is especially insidious in a relatively flat organizational structure like a school district.

Imagine, for example, a teacher being told by a "hanger-on" that his views or his current project are not acceptable to the Person In Charge.  Maybe that teacher is advised to keep quiet on a particular subject or face certain rebuke from the Person In Charge.  Now that teacher is in a quandary.  He can risk forging ahead anyway, since he doesn't know the true thoughts of the Person In Charge.  On the other hand, the "hanger-on" has created fear, uncertainty and doubt in the mind of this teacher.  In a flat organization like a school district, there is nowhere else for this teacher to turn except, perhaps, to fellow teachers who may be in the same boat.  The result is a teacher who is now paralyzed and an organization that will be missing his input at the next staff meeting.

To counter this FUD factor (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) it is crucial for our board members, principals and superintendent to be widely and publicly clear with their goals and to seek individually the input of teachers with whom they may not normally associate. Known "hangers-on" should be quietly pulled aside and asked to back off.  It is natural to have favorites or to become friends with certain people.  It only becomes a problem when such people are allowed to use their status to build their own power-base.  The effectiveness and cohesiveness of our teaching staff depend on our leadership finding a means to rebuild the trust.