The Great Ones, Teachers who Change Lives

The great ones know instruction is only a small part of being a teacher. They help students unlock the secrets of the words, numbers, graphs, facts, and concepts filling textbooks, but changing lives is why the great ones became teachers. And, changing lives has more do with inspiration than it does education.

When a teacher believes in a student, the student inevitably will discover things once unattainable are within reach, confidence will defeat insecurity and the seeds of a successful life begin to sprout.

I know some great teachers and I was fortunate to have had a few in my day. One was Jim Copeland. Mr. Copeland was my high school chorus director for two years before he moved on to being an administrator the summer before my senior year. I am sure he was a fine administrator, but it is impossible to imagine his talents were ever as fully realized in offices and meetings as they were in the classroom.

The spring before my sophomore year, all 4 foot 9 inches of me auditioned for an elite performance group called Act 1. I sailed through the first session and was asked back to the final try-out round. I learned my fate from an 8 ½ x 11 inch sheet tacked to a worn bulletin board – audition results had been announced that way ever since paper was invented. I did not make it, but I am convinced part of the reason I grew 6 inches that summer was because of the way Mr. Copeland turned what should have been devastating news into something positively powerful.

Mr. Copeland pulled me from the group gathered outside the chorus room and told me I had a unique talent, I had much to contribute and I would be an outstanding member of Act 1. The spot I had longed for went to a deserving senior, he explained, but that didn’t reflect on me. I had demonstrated I was prepared, fearless and capable. I had met the challenge, but my time had yet to arrive. The decision came down to numbers – the number of spots available, age, experience and other digits. Those things were beyond my control. What I could do is work hard, keep learning and try again. He was sure I would find myself as a member the following year. I followed his advice (and still do) and I was a part of Act 1 for two terrific years.

I am not sure how great teachers learn how to do what Jim Copeland did that day – education majors are not taught how to do that in college.

I have rarely felt so great about being rejected. Mr. Copeland believed in me and that made all the difference. For a moment I saw myself through the eyes of a mentor and I liked what I saw.

Another school year is drawing to a close. Take a moment to thank a great teacher. They are everywhere. Some of them taught your kids this year. You saw them in your community. You had a Mr. Copeland or two for a teacher yourself. Let them see through your eyes. They did the same for you and it changed your life. Then tell them you appreciate the fact they are one of the great ones.

Jim Copeland taught at Chamberlain High School in Tampa, Florida until 1982. For the last 30 years, he has been the choir director at Central Presbyterian Church in Tampa. This August he will retire from that post. On Sunday former students and friends sang for him one last time. A WUSF story about this can be heard by clicking here. A scholarship for Chamberlain High School Chorus students has been established. Information on how to contribute to the Copeland Scholarship Fund can be found by clicking here.

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Graham Gillette continued to grow through his first year of college and now claims to be 5’10″ on a good day. It is hard to say whether this is due to good diet, genetics or something else, but Graham still believes the great ones like Mr. Copeland played a role in helping him reach many heights.


Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register online essay.

Des Moines School Board the Issue, Not Sebring’s Sexual Emails

Regardless if you were horrified, humored, sickened, disappointed or saddened by former Des Moines Schools superintendent Nancy Sebring’s salacious emails, don’t let the steam heat distract you from the worst of what these emails expose, the Des Moines School Board’s blind trust of the superintendent.

Nancy Sebring broke District policy by using school resources both on the clock and off for, let’s call it, juvenile electronic cavorting. Shame on her and, well, ew. Thankfully, she is gone.

The huffing and puffing by suddenly outraged school board members over these sexually explicit emails and how policy was broken with their transmission is a sloppily choreographed dance to avoid the real issue. Strike all of the sad bedroom talk found in these emails and we get a peek into Sebring’s unfettered and selfish leadership. This school board has been a fervent and breathless group of Sebring backers for the last six years, allowing Sebring to operate with little to no oversight.

Even the board’s handling of this matter shows their unwillingness to do the job they were elected to do. According to Teree Caldwell Johnson, the school board president, as soon as she knew the media was about to be given copies of the emails, Sebring resigned. The very next day the board went into closed session to discuss the matter anyway; something I maintain was in violation of Iowa law since Sebring was no longer an employee or being considered for a position. At the conclusion of the meeting the board president made a statement saying Dr. Sebring had decided to resign her position earlier than expected so she could focus on some personal matters – a kind of “there’s nothing dirty goin’ on” riff. We know now that this was not the case.

The board president was protecting Sebring even at the end by trying to downplay the matter. She was hoping this kerfuffle was going to go away for both Sebring and the board’s benefit. It has not and the board president was wrong to mislead the public.

The school board claims it did not want to violate the privacy of a legal personnel matter. Fair enough, but the board president’s statement was a bald face misrepresentation of why the meeting was called and what occurred. A simple, “Dr. Sebring has resigned and we have no further comment” would have sufficed. The board opted for the smoke and mirrors.

The really scurrilous stuff in the emails confirms a pattern of behavior the school board has rigorously denied and, at times, even defended as appropriate. One needs look no further than the charter school to see an example of Sebring’s active support of friends and relatives in Des Moines. Her willingness to dangle a job under her management in Omaha to her six-week lover proves beyond a doubt Sebring felt little shame in using public jobs to reward those who pleased her personally.

The emails also show Sebring was actively involved with the charter school. This had to be plainly obvious to the school board as it was conducting its own ‘thorough’ review of the failing school. If it wasn’t, one should wonder what exactly the board was reviewing.

It comes down to this, Nancy Sebring convinced the school board to edit, pass and strictly follow a governance model that stripped the Des Moines School Board of most of the activities an effective body conducts in order to ensure the public needs are being met.

During the Sebring years the school board became little more than an out-of-touch, disengaged cheerleading squad. Those who should feel the most shame in the wake of the Sebring emails should be the seven people who sit on the school board. The board has many responsibilities. Chief among them, setting policy and ensuring those policies are followed. It is the board’s obligation to hire the superintendent and to provide effective oversight. This board did not and has not for some time.

The seven members of the school board need to stop gasping about their disappointment in Nancy Sebring and look in the mirror. It is time the board was back in charge of our public schools. The governance model used by the Des Moines Public Schools is an unmitigated disaster. Sebring’s sexual dalliances are a passing story. However, if the school board fails to change the way it governs, Des Moines will soon discover something worse may be going on than sex talk on public time.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register online essay.

Iowa’s Budget Boondoggle

Governor Branstad has brought the legislative process to a halt.  Legislators should have closed up shop for the season and headed home twelve days ago, but the lack of a budget keeps them from adjourning.  The biggest stumbling block is the Governor’s demand that the Legislature pass a two-year instead of a single year budget.  He said he wanted this on the campaign trail and has been insisting on it since taking office in January.  You would hope creative minds could have found a compromise in the intervening four months.  Nope, Iowa is short on creative minds in the halls of power these days.

In fairness, I will admit I like the concept of a two-year budget.  The annual posturing over appropriations makes for poor government and makes planning for the future harder than necessary.  With a two-year budget, school districts, local government and state agencies could spend more time doing the vital work they were designed to do and less time pounding the marble floors of the Capitol politicking for funds.  Even better, the Legislature could spend less time tinkering with budget formulas and more time, well, legislating.  And, that is precisely why legislators do not like the two-year budget concept.

Legislators say a two-year budget gives the Governor too much power to move money around without legislative approval.  This is a valid concern, but this concern can be overcome by hammering out a new law regarding how the budget can be adjusted during the two-year cycle.  The argument about gubernatorial power is a smoke screen.  The annual budget battle gives Legislators an excuse to spend the majority of their time dividing up the spending pie.  The uncertainty this battle creates gives them cover.

“I really would have loved to address Iowa’s most pressing issues like education policy, economic development and public safety, but we just couldn’t in this tough year.  The budget consumes our time,” we are told by many elected representatives.

The problem is that every year is a tough budget year.  If Iowa could hammer out a biennial budget, legislators would be able (or forced to, depending on your point of view) to debate and pass legislation without having to be hassled with the budget.  Yep, they would have to take a look at the big picture and actually lead a little.  Instead, they prefer to paint a picture that they are fighting the ever-critical budget fight and their hands are tied from doing anything else.  That political cover goes away if the budget is dealt with every other year.

There are a hundred ways to get the two-year budget done.  The Governor might have to give up some of his power to move money between sessions and commit to an allowable growth formula for schools greater than 0.  The Legislature might have to set a budget and stick to it for once, and roll up their sleeves and legislate more and worry less about distributing the financial largess of tax dollars in an attempt to win political points.   All this takes is some creativity and willingness to do the job.  What am I thinking?  Both of those things are rarities on the Hill these days.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.