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110 degrees magazine - Index

110 degrees magazine - magazine - Index

I served as district superintendent for the next 15 years without a
contract. I would never have signed one but government officials
finally said they wouldn’t give money to a school district without a
superintendent working under contract.
For two decades we staff and teachers of the Brentwood Union
School District formed a strong team bound together by affection
and respect for one another, and by a commitment to serve the
students under our care. We were one of the three districts that
never joined a union because all of us — administrators, teachers, and
staff — considered ourselves to be colleagues. I would never take a
raise unless the teachers got one. I took care of them before taking
care of myself. And they knew it.
I retired in 1994 and at my retirement party Superintendent
Doug Adams blindsided me by announcing at the end of his
speech, “By the way, the next school will be named William
Bristow Middle School.” It took me years to grudgingly accept the
fact that the school board hadn’t made an error in judgment in
according me the honor.
STRANGE LOVE STORY
Just before I assumed my duties as superintendent the outgoing
superintendent performed the most noble act of his professional
career, in my opinion, by hiring a scion of an ancient Byron family,
Patty Mantelli, as the school’s new P.E. teacher.
I had been involved in the hiring process and conducted what
must surely be the strangest job interview in the history of the school
district. When Patty asked me, “When and where do you want to
meet?” I told her, “After classes in the ball field behind the school.”
32 www.110mag.com September/October 2008
I was trying to kill two birds with one stone because I was playing
right field on an adult league softball team. I conducted the interview
during the intervals when the opposing team was on the field
and I wasn’t up to bat.
To make the interview even more bizarre, during one of the early
innings I made a dive for a fly ball that I should have let go, landed
on my stomach in a ditch full of water, and conducted the remaining
portions of the interview while dripping wet.
Patty nearly missed her first day of teaching because school opening
was scheduled that year for Monday, September 1.
“I can’t come to work on Monday,” she told me. “It’s the first day
of dove season and I haven’t missed opening day since I was eight
years old.”
“Well, what time can you start hunting?” I asked.
“Ten minutes before sunrise,” she said.
“That’s 5:45. Class doesn’t start until 9:30. Start hunting at 5:45
and be in class for the opening bell.”
After she left I discovered that my admin, Mary Reese, who had been
listening to the exchange, was positively weeping with laughter.
“This one’s different, isn’t she?” I asked her.
Mary, still wiping tears from her eyes, responded. “I’ve known
Patty Mantelli for years! She’s certainly different.”
On September 1 st Patty was at her desk by the 9:30 a.m. bell,
having already bagged her limit of doves. Every year after that,
when the opening day of dove season came around, Mary Reese
would remind me again: “She beat you, didn’t she Bill?”
Once she was able to do so, Patty snagged a position on the
Calendar Committee so she could make absolutely sure that