Did Alanna get a handshake and thank you for putting the District on the road to rehabilitation? Not exactly. There is an old saying that is apropos. “No good deed goes unpunished.” In grade school Alanna would have been called a tattle tale. As a dissatisfied mother Alanna graduated to “whistle blower.”
Over the next few months she sent me emails every time she was rebuffed by the HR department for job postings she was in fact greatly overqualified to fill. She couldn’t even get the job as a test monitor despite having credentials almost the equal of Superintendent Gronseth, Both have Master’s Degrees.
The Human Resources Department turned its back on her. It was a stark contrast to the school system whose teachers had enfolded Alanna in their arms when her mother committed suicide. As far as the Human Resources Department was concerned it was Alanna Oswald that was dead.
Her pluck and bad luck and sense of humor marked Alanna as a special person. By November of last year I also told her that I’d love to see her on the School Board. She knew so much detail about how things got done far beyond the experience of most board members. Despite my eight years on the Board I was in awe of her.
Had Alanna been an eastern helicopter parent hovering over her child she would have been safer. She’d have had lots of company as other angry Eastern parents raised Cain. But Alanna was a western parent in the land of free and reduced lunches.
