Visions of JoAnna
Feb. 5th, 2018 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dedalus_1947We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight,
Ask himself if it’s him or them that’s insane.
Louise, she’s all right, she’s just near.
She’s delicate and seems like the mirror.
But she makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna’s not here.
The ghost of ‘lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place.
(Visions of Johanna: Bob Dylan – 1966)
About 15 years ago, after a particularly annoying morning presentation at a Principals’ Meeting, JoAnna Kunes and I decided to extend the 10-minute break time to finish our coffee and chat. We were both principals of neighboring middle schools at the time, and we were regular companions at these monthly meetings. Sitting side by side in a hall or auditorium, we could pass notes to each other, make side comments about the speaker or presentation, and occasionally discuss a school issue of special interest. On this occasion we took advantage of the break to fill each other in on family and personal developments. When I told her of an upcoming high school reunion, mentioning that I was still in close contact with three friends from that time, it spurred her to tell me a tale that I have never forgotten.
She said there was one particular boy she befriended in high school, maintaining contact with him through college and even a few years after. During the many years since losing touch with him, she would periodically remember and think about this boy – now man – and wonder how he was doing. What career did he pick? Had he married? Did he have a family? Was he still living in California or had he moved away? These questions and her speculations about him were usually prompted by thoughts of high school, college, and her own youth. She did this for many years, thinking that one day they would inevitably meet again. Then one day, while in a doctor’s office paging through a magazine, she read a story of a tragic and mysterious boating accident that resulted in the death of a young executive and his wife at sea. The doomed mariner was identified as her friend from high school and college. What shocked JoAnna most, she said, was not so much the sad news of two young lives cut short – but the fact that she was only learning of these deaths ten years after they occurred. Up until the moment she read the magazine article, her friend had been real. He had been vibrantly alive, living his life, and dreaming his dreams, in her thoughts, memories, and speculations about him. But it fact, he had ceased to exist long before. Time, distance, and separation had kept him alive only in her imagination, but now he was truly gone, and she felt the loss. This story came back to me a few months ago, when I learned that my old friend JoAnna had died in Scottsdale, Arizona, on November 19.
JoAnna occupies a prominent place in my personal gallery of brilliant women who were guides, mentors, and friends in the Los Angeles School District. I first met her in the Senior High School Division of LAUSD in 1984. She was the “Expulsion Lady” at the time, the administrator in charge of the Student Disciplinary Office for high schools. We had a nodding acquaintance at first that grew with the increasing support and encouragement of my own director, Joyce Peyton, who headed the Priority Staffing Program for high schools. JoAnna and Joyce were colleagues and part of a generation of female high school assistant principals that coalesced into a Movement to confront and challenge the “Old Boys Club” mentality of secondary educational leadership in the District. This male bias had created a self-sustaining, informal mechanism whereby better-qualified female assistant principals, and administrative deans, were systematically blocked from the position of principal in high schools and junior high schools. A Principals’ Meeting at Senior High School Division at that time was made up of a roomful of men, with only one or two women. Yet all the instructional advisers working at the Division realized that the quality instructional programs in high schools were being directed and improved by the leadership of their female assistant principals. I’ve come to believe that these women, in their respective administrative organizations, developed a common understanding to identify, nurture, and promote teachers, advisers, and other sub-administrators who showed instructional leadership and talent, regardless of sex. This unifying mission created an informal “sisterhood” of sorts, aimed at communicating, sharing information, and providing mutual support. A group of these women would eventually sue the District on its promotional practices and win a consent degree that finally opened the door to a large influx of female principals at the junior and senior high school level.
After a year of working in the Senior High School Division as an instructional adviser, Joyce encouraged me to apply for the position of Administrative Dean and go through the District’s promotional process. She also praised and recommended my qualifications and talents to other Division directors, asking for their support of my candidacy. This web of support was instrumental in my selection and assignment to Granada Hills High School as Administrative Dean in 1985. It was on the eve of my leaving the Division that JoAnna assumed her position as professional guide and counselor, a role she maintained for the rest of my career.
JoAnna pulled me aside one afternoon, and for an hour or more briefed me on what to expect and how to best maneuver the mechanisms of leadership and influence at Granada Hills. It remains to this day the most concise, penetrating, and insightful briefing on personnel, school culture, and administrative management I’ve ever received. When she left me, after wishing me luck, I sat in stunned silence for a long time, processing the kindness by this act of unsolicited confidence and support for a person she knew only slightly at the time.
As large as the District is in size, it always allowed people to create smaller communities of friends and colleagues through its regional divisions, administrative organizations, and meetings. In the years that followed my first school assignment, JoAnna’s career and mine often intersected as fellow administrators at high schools, and middle schools. Yet it was as a “Friend of JoAnna (FOJ)” that I made more and more intimate personal and professional connections in the District. If I happened to mention her name to principals or assistant principals who knew her, I was immediately welcomed and trusted. There was an assumption that JoAnna did not suffer fools or incompetents, and if she valued your friendship, you were in a special category that merited trust and confidence. A friend could count on JoAnna for counsel, help, and sympathy. She was the first person I called when I was assigned to my first principalship at El Sereno Middle School in 1992. I called to ask her to be “my person” – the trusted friend and colleague I could always count on for honest and confidential advice and support. Of all the principals I’d served with and known, she was the only one I could depend on for that kind of help and solace.
My best days as principal were at the monthly Principals Meeting where we would sit, side-by-side, listening, joking, sharing stories and achievements, and laughing – laughing over the absurdity of the impossible nature of our jobs. JoAnna loved to laugh and tell stories – usually long ones. On one District-sponsored bus trip to observe middle schools in San Diego, she regaled me with non-stop commentary, stories, and opinions about everything that came to her mind as we traveled there and back – and I listened, spellbound, for the entire two-way journey. We never judged each other – even when we disagreed. Once I matured as a principal, I became more and more cautious over financial and personnel matters, but I secretly envied her boldness. JoAnna was sometimes audacious and cavalier with her “creative accounting” methods and professional courtesies. The education and welfare of her students always came first, but she sometimes bent budgetary rules and guidelines to promote them and provide them with enrichment opportunities. She would also do a favor for a good friend – even if it meant taking a chance on hiring a supposedly weak teacher other principals would avoid. I sometimes shook my head in wonderment at her antics, which she would shamelessly describe to me – but they always worked out, and she ran a great school.
Middle School Principal meetings became flat and colorless affairs after JoAnna retired in 2006. No other colleague could replace her exuberant, animated style and wit during these meetings. With no one to keep me alert and critical of the presentations or reports being made, I pretended interest by writing stories and essays during the meetings, which I eventually posted on my blog. In the ensuing years, I’d hear how she was doing from mutual friends, and on a couple of occasions she surprised me with a visit while doing some District consulting work for John Liechty’s Beyond the Bell After School Program. But those sightings became less and less, and over the years we eventually lost touch.
For awhile, I wished I had never learned of JoAnna’s death, nor read the tender obituary written by her son. I would prefer thinking of her as vibrant and alive, visiting old friends in Palms Springs, or Calpine, California, or playing a piano duet with her son Mike. I could continue believing that our paths would cross again, and she would fill me in on the things she had done, or the trips she had taken. Time and distance would keep her suspended in this state, and I could continue pretending that we would see each other again. Yet I soon realized that by doing so, I ran the risk of feeling that double loss that JoAnna described to me when she related the story of her high school and college friend: his actual death, and then the death of the memories and speculations that had kept him seemingly alive for 10 more. I suppose that was the lesson of her story. Ignorance of a person’s death deludes us for a time, but the loss will be a two-fold pain when the truth is learned. So, I decided on keeping JoAnna present in my memories, my visions of her throughout the years we worked together, and in the stories of the times we laughed and talked together.
Ask himself if it’s him or them that’s insane.
Louise, she’s all right, she’s just near.
She’s delicate and seems like the mirror.
But she makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna’s not here.
The ghost of ‘lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place.
(Visions of Johanna: Bob Dylan – 1966)
About 15 years ago, after a particularly annoying morning presentation at a Principals’ Meeting, JoAnna Kunes and I decided to extend the 10-minute break time to finish our coffee and chat. We were both principals of neighboring middle schools at the time, and we were regular companions at these monthly meetings. Sitting side by side in a hall or auditorium, we could pass notes to each other, make side comments about the speaker or presentation, and occasionally discuss a school issue of special interest. On this occasion we took advantage of the break to fill each other in on family and personal developments. When I told her of an upcoming high school reunion, mentioning that I was still in close contact with three friends from that time, it spurred her to tell me a tale that I have never forgotten.
She said there was one particular boy she befriended in high school, maintaining contact with him through college and even a few years after. During the many years since losing touch with him, she would periodically remember and think about this boy – now man – and wonder how he was doing. What career did he pick? Had he married? Did he have a family? Was he still living in California or had he moved away? These questions and her speculations about him were usually prompted by thoughts of high school, college, and her own youth. She did this for many years, thinking that one day they would inevitably meet again. Then one day, while in a doctor’s office paging through a magazine, she read a story of a tragic and mysterious boating accident that resulted in the death of a young executive and his wife at sea. The doomed mariner was identified as her friend from high school and college. What shocked JoAnna most, she said, was not so much the sad news of two young lives cut short – but the fact that she was only learning of these deaths ten years after they occurred. Up until the moment she read the magazine article, her friend had been real. He had been vibrantly alive, living his life, and dreaming his dreams, in her thoughts, memories, and speculations about him. But it fact, he had ceased to exist long before. Time, distance, and separation had kept him alive only in her imagination, but now he was truly gone, and she felt the loss. This story came back to me a few months ago, when I learned that my old friend JoAnna had died in Scottsdale, Arizona, on November 19.
JoAnna occupies a prominent place in my personal gallery of brilliant women who were guides, mentors, and friends in the Los Angeles School District. I first met her in the Senior High School Division of LAUSD in 1984. She was the “Expulsion Lady” at the time, the administrator in charge of the Student Disciplinary Office for high schools. We had a nodding acquaintance at first that grew with the increasing support and encouragement of my own director, Joyce Peyton, who headed the Priority Staffing Program for high schools. JoAnna and Joyce were colleagues and part of a generation of female high school assistant principals that coalesced into a Movement to confront and challenge the “Old Boys Club” mentality of secondary educational leadership in the District. This male bias had created a self-sustaining, informal mechanism whereby better-qualified female assistant principals, and administrative deans, were systematically blocked from the position of principal in high schools and junior high schools. A Principals’ Meeting at Senior High School Division at that time was made up of a roomful of men, with only one or two women. Yet all the instructional advisers working at the Division realized that the quality instructional programs in high schools were being directed and improved by the leadership of their female assistant principals. I’ve come to believe that these women, in their respective administrative organizations, developed a common understanding to identify, nurture, and promote teachers, advisers, and other sub-administrators who showed instructional leadership and talent, regardless of sex. This unifying mission created an informal “sisterhood” of sorts, aimed at communicating, sharing information, and providing mutual support. A group of these women would eventually sue the District on its promotional practices and win a consent degree that finally opened the door to a large influx of female principals at the junior and senior high school level.
After a year of working in the Senior High School Division as an instructional adviser, Joyce encouraged me to apply for the position of Administrative Dean and go through the District’s promotional process. She also praised and recommended my qualifications and talents to other Division directors, asking for their support of my candidacy. This web of support was instrumental in my selection and assignment to Granada Hills High School as Administrative Dean in 1985. It was on the eve of my leaving the Division that JoAnna assumed her position as professional guide and counselor, a role she maintained for the rest of my career.
JoAnna pulled me aside one afternoon, and for an hour or more briefed me on what to expect and how to best maneuver the mechanisms of leadership and influence at Granada Hills. It remains to this day the most concise, penetrating, and insightful briefing on personnel, school culture, and administrative management I’ve ever received. When she left me, after wishing me luck, I sat in stunned silence for a long time, processing the kindness by this act of unsolicited confidence and support for a person she knew only slightly at the time.
As large as the District is in size, it always allowed people to create smaller communities of friends and colleagues through its regional divisions, administrative organizations, and meetings. In the years that followed my first school assignment, JoAnna’s career and mine often intersected as fellow administrators at high schools, and middle schools. Yet it was as a “Friend of JoAnna (FOJ)” that I made more and more intimate personal and professional connections in the District. If I happened to mention her name to principals or assistant principals who knew her, I was immediately welcomed and trusted. There was an assumption that JoAnna did not suffer fools or incompetents, and if she valued your friendship, you were in a special category that merited trust and confidence. A friend could count on JoAnna for counsel, help, and sympathy. She was the first person I called when I was assigned to my first principalship at El Sereno Middle School in 1992. I called to ask her to be “my person” – the trusted friend and colleague I could always count on for honest and confidential advice and support. Of all the principals I’d served with and known, she was the only one I could depend on for that kind of help and solace.
My best days as principal were at the monthly Principals Meeting where we would sit, side-by-side, listening, joking, sharing stories and achievements, and laughing – laughing over the absurdity of the impossible nature of our jobs. JoAnna loved to laugh and tell stories – usually long ones. On one District-sponsored bus trip to observe middle schools in San Diego, she regaled me with non-stop commentary, stories, and opinions about everything that came to her mind as we traveled there and back – and I listened, spellbound, for the entire two-way journey. We never judged each other – even when we disagreed. Once I matured as a principal, I became more and more cautious over financial and personnel matters, but I secretly envied her boldness. JoAnna was sometimes audacious and cavalier with her “creative accounting” methods and professional courtesies. The education and welfare of her students always came first, but she sometimes bent budgetary rules and guidelines to promote them and provide them with enrichment opportunities. She would also do a favor for a good friend – even if it meant taking a chance on hiring a supposedly weak teacher other principals would avoid. I sometimes shook my head in wonderment at her antics, which she would shamelessly describe to me – but they always worked out, and she ran a great school.
Middle School Principal meetings became flat and colorless affairs after JoAnna retired in 2006. No other colleague could replace her exuberant, animated style and wit during these meetings. With no one to keep me alert and critical of the presentations or reports being made, I pretended interest by writing stories and essays during the meetings, which I eventually posted on my blog. In the ensuing years, I’d hear how she was doing from mutual friends, and on a couple of occasions she surprised me with a visit while doing some District consulting work for John Liechty’s Beyond the Bell After School Program. But those sightings became less and less, and over the years we eventually lost touch.
For awhile, I wished I had never learned of JoAnna’s death, nor read the tender obituary written by her son. I would prefer thinking of her as vibrant and alive, visiting old friends in Palms Springs, or Calpine, California, or playing a piano duet with her son Mike. I could continue believing that our paths would cross again, and she would fill me in on the things she had done, or the trips she had taken. Time and distance would keep her suspended in this state, and I could continue pretending that we would see each other again. Yet I soon realized that by doing so, I ran the risk of feeling that double loss that JoAnna described to me when she related the story of her high school and college friend: his actual death, and then the death of the memories and speculations that had kept him seemingly alive for 10 more. I suppose that was the lesson of her story. Ignorance of a person’s death deludes us for a time, but the loss will be a two-fold pain when the truth is learned. So, I decided on keeping JoAnna present in my memories, my visions of her throughout the years we worked together, and in the stories of the times we laughed and talked together.
