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Welcome to ANI in the Air, talk about Tuesday, where I talk about something related to Sudbury School.
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So today was the returning staff elections, which is basically where the whole school votes on each of the staff members and decides whether they want those staff members to come back or not.
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So it seemed appropriate to talk about staff stuff today.
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So what exactly does a staff do at Sudbury School?
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Are we teachers? Are we administrators? Are we PR people? Are we what?
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Are we just lazy lie abouts who don't do anything? What is it that staff do?
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Well, basically, we're a little bit of all of those things.
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The whatever the school community needs, that's kind of what the staff is tasked with making sure that, you know, in some sense or other, it's available.
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It's not the case that staff have to do all the work to make things, you know, happen.
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But we are here as a support mechanism to make sure that happens.
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You know, and it can be very easy to think of. OK, so if my kid wants to do this, then they talk to a staff and it's like, well, no, that's not quite right.
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It's, you know, more like they do some kind of corporation thing.
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They go to school meeting and they ask for stuff. And then, you know, there are certain aspects where an adult needs to do something, such as using a credit card to buy something or at least provide a credit card number for them to buy it.
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So that's when they step in. But, you know, we can also just be there as to advise and help and whatever.
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But largely it's supposed to be driven by whoever's interest in doing it.
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There are things where, you know, adult presence is absolutely required.
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We, you know, we want to have adults on campus to deal with problems that arise, particularly external threats.
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But also when someone falls and gets hurt or whatever, things happen.
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You know, the adult presence is helpful. It's more of a background thing.
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It's not adults driving it. It's not the classical teacher in front of the classroom telling people what to do.
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Certainly never that.
2:31
Although to say as some of our rules to make sure that things in the school function as they should, for example, JC or school meeting, you know, well, then by we mostly I mean me as gavel clerk will go around and tell people and that they need to serve and they need to be present or whatever.
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And, you know, they go out and do it to what extent that would be filled in if we weren't doing it.
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I don't know. Students have certainly been like JC clerk and school meeting clerk and stepping up to those roles.
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But, you know, their task is not to run the school. Their task is to run their lives, which may involve temporarily running the school.
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But more often than not, it doesn't. It involves whatever it is they do during the day.
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Staff are tasked with doing lots of administrative stuff. Anything that, you know, needs to be done.
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Immunization records, talking with the state finance and stuff, doing admissions, talking with parents, whatever.
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You know, keeping the lights on. We were buying the building. We did a lot of work for doing that.
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Like we're the ones that make sure that the big stuff happens.
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It's on us to make sure the building is clean and locked up at the end of the day and opened up in the beginning of the day and all of these things.
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So that's, you know, large part.
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We're also just adult role models. Again, it's kind of mostly more of a background thing.
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It's not like us sitting in conversations with various groups of students.
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There might be some students we talk with more regularly than others simply because they're the ones who sit around us and talk to us.
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You know, but mostly the other ones just see us when we're doing our things, going about our business.
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See how we act and how, you know, our diligence and our work ethic. And, you know, that's something that we give.
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It's not exactly a teacher role, but it is sort of imparting, you know, who we are into the community at large.
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And it's reflected in various ways by students who see and appreciate that kind of due diligence and work ethic.
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So, yeah, I think staff also are generally like a constant source of inspiration for being a part of the community, of wanting to be here.
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You know, it's important that staff want to be here, that we convey that there's a lot of forces that want to pull the school apart.
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You know, people questioning themselves or whatever.
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And it's good to have these solid rocks of adults to make sure that it, you know, works out well.
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So that's some of the things that staff do.
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We bring who we are here and that, you know, becomes part of the fabric of the community.
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But for the most part, we're here to keep the lights on, the school going and make sure everyone feels safe.
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So every year, the exception of that one pandemic year, we have a, you know, returning staff election where we decide whether the staff who are currently present are the staff who want to be present next year.
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Staff give speeches, they answer questions, and then they then there's a vote.
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Staff are included in the vote, but obviously there's a lot more students and staff, but it's always interesting to see.
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So that's all for now. Have a good one. I will see you when I see you.