A Flightless Bird His Secretary Hopes Will Fly the Coop.

A Conversation Starter

Mike Flanagan's office in Wayne County, Mich., where he's the superintendent of the regional education service agency, contains a rather unusual ornament on a pedestal these days: an unartistic 2 1/2-foot-tall papier-mache pelican.

Flanagan will be responsible over the next year for the care and feeding of the statue, known as "The Bird," a wacky annual honor passed around among superintendents who belong to the Michigan Association of School Administrators. It's a 34-year-old tradition whose semi-secretive handoff takes place each winter at the AASA national conference. Criteria for bestowing the odd statuette appears to be minimal.

Barbara VanOtterloo, superintendent in Taylor, Mich., who in 1998 became the first woman to receive the dubious distinction, flipped The Bird to Flanagan at the AASA conference in New Orleans in February. He, in turn, will need to accompany his prize to San Francisco next March--none too soon for some.

"It looks like a really ugly stork," reports Flanagan's secretary. "Maybe it was used as a maternity store display in the '50s."

One Audience He Shunned

Motivational expert Wayne Dyer apparently wasn't one of the best-behaved youngsters in his school-age days. So when he spoke to a general session at AASA's 1999 national conference, Dyer admitted he never imagined he might one day address a huge room full of superintendents.

"I spent a good part of my life in your offices waiting for you to discipline me," said the author of Manifesting Your Destiny: The Nine Spiritual Principles for Getting Everything You Want.

Highest Priorities

If children were able to spend a day as the principal at their school, what would be their first order of business?

According to a recent survey of 8- to 12-year-olds at SeaWorld and Busch Gardens, these were the top choices:

* cancel all classes for the day (38 percent),

* let kids give the lessons to the teachers (27 percent),

* make sure teachers don't assign any homework for the day (18 percent),

* order pizza for everyone at lunch (10 percent) and

* send all bullies home for the day (7 percent).

Top 10 Commandments

Each year, AASA prints a commemorative T-shirt bearing an off-beat Top 10 list. This year's offering: "10 Commandments for School Administrators."

1. Thou shalt honor thy school board ... but keep thy resume current.

2. Thou shalt not covet thy neighboring district's tax base.

3. Thou shalt remember to duck, or get an assistant who can take a punch.

4. Thou shalt be responsible for everything, but have dominion over nothing.

5. Thou shalt support thy staff for they might stand by you.

6. Remember thy sabbatical and keep it wholly.

7. Thou shalt not steal, simply borrow good ideas.

8. Thou shalt remember who's in charge. (Say, who IS in charge?)

9. Honor thy students and their families.

10. Thou shalt not make commandments.

Honor on Your Chest

For the second successive year, Keith Spurgeon had one of his entries accepted for printing on AASA's commemorative T-shirt, which bore the "10 Commandments for School Administrators."

Spurgeon, who's his second superintendency in Mount Vernon, Ind., contributed Commandment No. 1: "Thou shalt honor thy school board ... but keep thy resume current."

He couldn't contain his joy upon hearing of the selection. "I have told my school board that for the second year in a row, I will be a nationally recognized superintendent!"

Center of Leadership

The 6,800-student Wallingford, Conn., School District hardly seems the sort of place to be the center of anything. Yet during the next year, that district will assume unusual importance in the educational administration field.

Wallingford, which is located outside of New Haven, is home to the elected leadership of both AASA and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Joseph Cirasuolo, Wallingford's superintendent, assumes the presidency of AASA on July 1. One of his assistant superintendents, LeRoy Hay, was installed in March as ASCD's president. Hay is a former superintendent and a former National Teacher of the Year.