[img]1|left|Ari Noonan||no_popup[/img]Turns out that when the five members of the School Board sat there flat-faced last night when Supt. Patti Jaffe declared her resignation, it was the second time they were hearing the news.
She had disclosed her intentions to them 90 minutes earlier during Closed Session.
“An extremely emotional moment,” were we told. “So many tears.”
Therefore, what?
No one else in the Board Room knew it was old news.
The best-selling volume, How Sensitive, Mature School Board Members Are to Conduct Themselves When Supers They Don’t Like Leave, offered 2½ dense pages of guidelines, all of which were ignored last night.
For the sake of class, they should have at least thanked her for 41 years of service.
The most elementary etiquette required each of them to say thank you even if certain among them – two or three – would have been forced to painfully stifle a cunning grin.
As you may know, those two or three Board members were so thrilled to get rid of her they were tempted to stuff the meeting and dash out to purchase an armload of lottery tickets on their luckiest day in months.
Every public person’s nightmare is to announce his or her departure only to suffer the humiliation of having all listeners react as if they are attending a seance in a foreign language.
Board members treated strangers striding to the commentary microphone with greater deference.
If Ms. Jaffe lives 40 more years, the ache of the moment only will subside, not vanish.
If they had been schoolchildren, they would have been punished.
Imagine visiting in a friend’s home, then suddenly bolting from your chair and streaking through the door to your car.
Without a word.
Five-year-olds are spanked for such rude behavior.
Hopefully, at the Feb. 28 meeting, the classiest among them will seek to make belated amends to Ms. Jaff.
