The Dragon Calls the Principal

The word Maryvale scares most of my Phoenix neighbors.  Hell.  A lot of them won't even send their children to the neighborhood public schools where my kids go.  Maybe being in the Navy me made less touchy about that.  When black and Mexican guys are part of the crew watching your butt when the bullets are flying around, you're a little less touchy about whose kid sits next to your little Mary in class. 

The world is full of a lot of basically good kids.  A few are self-starters, like my Mary.  Most, like my Jimmy (little guy in the middle), need some direction.  Some of the kids need a lot of direction. 







A few of them need a smack upside the head from the principal.  Towards the end of my son's middle school basketball season, we made the trip to Maryvale.  The game went well and the Maryvale players were good sports even though they lost the game.   The young ladies were another matter.  The Maryvale girls took exception to the Madison No. 1 girls cheering vigorously for the Madison boys.   The Maryvale girls, shouting profanities, followed the Madison boys and girls out to the bus.  There was no security anywhere in sight to stop this.   They kept up the profanities led by a tall black girl.  When the bus drove by them pulling out of the lot, the girls starting throwing rocks. 

I had promised my wife not to get involved with this stuff anymore, so I just stood and watched.   Finally I shouted at the girls and told them I'd be calling their principal in the morning.  At least I made it out of the parking lot without them throwing rocks at me.

In the morning I sent a strongly worded email to the principal, the president of the governing board, and their superintendent and our superintendent.   The leader of the pack was suspended from school.  The other girls were dropped from the cheer squad.   In the spring when we visited for baseball and softball, there was plenty of school security around.   The girls were still yapping at one another.  The boys played with respect.