TOMMIE SAYLOR: We are too often our own enemies

“Every successful individual knows that his or her achievement depends on a community of persons working together.”

Paul Ryan

By Tommie Saylor

Kennedy High School Principal

Whatever happened to the sense of community?  The idea of united we stand?  Why is it that when something happens (often due to no fault of our own) and we handle the incident exactly according to policy and protocol with the utmost professionalism, instead of the community rallying around our efforts, we get attacked? 

Instead of giving us a call and asking, “What can I do to help?” some people call the media in hopes of playing a game known as “gotcha.” I just don’t understand the allure of making our own look bad in the eyes of the greater community. Why should we devalue ourselves within the Downriver neighborhood? Why lend credence to old prejudices. 

I guess people just don’t understand that it is not a school, or a district; it is their school and their district.  A school is not just part of the community. In the eyes of their children, it is the community.  By harming a school’s or a district’s reputation, they are harming their own kids. By attacking, they are attacking their own children. 

I don’t understand why the people can’t or won’t trust in our professionalism.  If you go to a doctor, you trust that he or she knows what they are doing. You place your life in your doctor’s hands.  You go to an attorney, dentist, tax preparer, etc. and trust that they know what they are doing. 

Yet educators, who have as much and sometimes more formal training than those listed above, are sometimes treated as if they are without trust?  After all, our motives are pure and our honor is clean. We don’t serve to get paid, we get paid because we serve.

I suppose that this is a question without answer, and all that we can do is drive on doing as much good for as many people as we can. 

Even though we may be loathed by some, loved by few and dismissed by too many, we will silently continue to push our students forward to a greater tomorrow.  Only through the efforts of those in the classroom will our country find salvation, and our society redemption.

How and where will you lead them. Making Kennedy the school of choice. Excellence by design.