Very rarely do I have what anyone might reasonably describe as a good news story to report when it comes to education, which is why when I woke to this morning’s news I was thunderstruck. I still can’t entirely work out the why of it all but I knew that this was something very special indeed. Maybe not a good news story but certainly esoteric enough to warrant some attention.
It may be a sly, satirical commentary on how the perpetrator in question views the state of education, it may be the last sorry twitches of a professional in utter freefall or it may be a rabid pervert giving a full throated roar of intent. To backtrack, earlier this week, the Kenilworth School Superintendent in New Jersey, Thomas Tramaglini was arrested after a sting operation by the local police. His crime, consistently pooping on or near the school running track and football field. By consistently it means literally every day.
This is a man who earns $150,000 a year in his role, a role that almost certainly will be lost after this rather mucky acting out. He is currently on paid administrative leave whilst he mounts his defence against the various charges which include, lewdness, littering and defecating in public, given the police caught him in the act he may have a job to prove that another phantom pooper is the real villain of the piece and this is all an unfortunate misunderstanding. Moreover, once could be written off as an accident, being overwhelmed or similar but it may stretch the jury’s credulity to assume the same accident could befall the poopetrator on a daily basis. This is an astonishing and calculated act of pettiness, and given he was arrested at 5.50 in the morning he really had to commit and put in the hours. It’s hard to know whether to be impressed or just feel sad.
So there it is, not quite news but not really gossip either, just a weird story the equivalent of which would be to catch one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors hunkering down next to the hopscotch but on a Friday before a 3 day weekend, isn’t that better than to consider the funding crisis?
