February 10,2006




I’ve been thinking about recently resigned Brooklyn Tech principal Lee McCaskill and the way he got into trouble. There’s probably a lesson there for all of us.

McCaskill was convinced to resign rather than to be disciplined over enrolling his elementary school daughter in a Brooklyn school under a false address. We learned that it was possible to legally enroll her for about $5000 a year. Lee and his wife both work for the New York school system but live in New Jersey. Lee’ salary was $125,000. I’ll assume his wife makes at least $50,000 if she is a teacher. Over $200,000 a year and he sacrifices his job by trying to save $5000. It sounds a little like Martha Stewart.

It’s clear the system was looking for a way to get him out of Brooklyn Tech but what made him get involved in such an obvious charade? Apparently most of his staff knew he was using a false address for the enrollment.

Here’s my take. Principals work very hard, spend long hours at the job, and never feel adequately compensated. We feel we give the system more than we get acknowledged for, and in moments of despair think of the teachers who beat the kids out of the building hours before we can think of leaving.

Every once in awhile something comes up where we feel that we deserrve to have the system pay, in compensation for our “going beyond.” The most innocent one I can think of is making a personal long distance call on the school phone as compensation for all the calls we made on our home phone. Another is bringing home some art supplies for the kids. In both cases I’ll give us a pass.

Unfortunately I can hear Lee McCaskill saying” With all I give to this system I’m not paying for my kid to have to go to school here.” Maybe he thought the school sytem would see it that way as well, and maybe if they had wanted to keep him, they would have let it go. But it seems Les had burned too many bridges already and now it’s cost him not only the $19,441, but his job as well.

The biggest perk of being a principal is being in charge, and for that we have a responsibility to always follow the letter of the law.

I’ll be interested to see if Lee McCaskill becomes a principal in New Jersey, and whether there are any reprecussions for his wife.

Murph Shapiro