Trego's Mountain Ear

I spent most of a year away from the school after I finished my term. I attended a couple of board meetings because I was asked – on one hand, there was, at the least, the appearance of an unlawful board meeting . . . unlawful because it appeared to violate Montana’s open meeting law. Several years ago, I had been pulled into an unlawful meeting, and two of those board members and the county superintendent of schools had called it. They had claimed it was an emergency meeting – but it did not meet the legislated definition of an emergency meeting. They met to demand the resignation of the board chair – Dave Scott – for conduct that both Suzy Rios (County Superintendent) and Mark Spehar (Board member) claimed was wrong – but my review of the law left me convinced that, at the most charitable, both were in error, and unwilling to admit it. So, with my time served, and the potential of them repeating their misconduct, I attended another couple of school board meetings.

At the first meeting, I listened as another former board member suggested the entire board should resign. Remembering how the two had, under the guidance of the county superintendent, called for Dave’s resignation – without legal grounds – I was somewhat amused. The thing is, if you are bothered when people suggest you have violated the law, the simple way to avoid it is not to violate the law. That becomes even more advisable when you have people around who watched you violate the law, and you claimed an untruthful basis for your unlawful conduct.

At the second meeting, as I looked at the commentary going on and read Nancy’s letter that she turned in, I realized that it looks like the school no longer operates on the Karpman Drama Triangle – that particular disfunction appears to have been replaced by an elderly Middle-School Mean Girls Clique.

Since not everyone is familiar with the Karpman Drama Triangle (or the Mean Girls Clique) I’ll go into a bit of detail. Karpman has written a 300 page book on variants of the Drama Triangle (he references it at https://www.karpmandramatriangle.com/ ) and goes into great detail on it. I’ll try to describe it in Eric Berne’s description of Little Red Riding Hood. There are three roles in the conflict – Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer. The neat thing is that the roles are pretty much interchangeable. Let’s talk about the Wolf – Little Red sees the Wolf as the persecutor to her role as the victim. Makes perfectly good sense – but the Wolf views himself as the Victim and the Woodsman as his Persecutor. Little Red sees the Woodsman as her rescuer. The nasty thing about this social game is that each player knows all three roles. I fought the Drama triangle for six years on the board .

The problem was, it was replaced by the Mean Girls. Rosalind Wiseman wrote Queen Bees and Wannabees in 2002, describing a pattern of behavior that, in a just world, would be outgrown by high school (her web page is https://rosalindwiseman.com/queen-bees-and-wannabes). She describes more roles in the clique – as I sat in the meeting, I recognized the Queen Bee, the Wannabee, the Targets and the Torn Bystanders. I didn’t have a situation where I could recognize all the players – but when you can spot the Queen Bee and the Wannabee, you have plenty to work from.

So there I am – asked to attend another school board meeting, and to watch the dominance games that reasonable people would have abandoned. So I add another link, to a lady who has written on Mean Girls in a business culture: https://succeedasyourownboss.com/7-management-tips-for-addressing-a-mean-girl-office-culture/ If you want more information on the Mean Girls and on the Karpman Triangle, by all means study it – the nice thing is that if you read up on these two dynamics, you will be able to recognize it when they play the games around you.

Education is a profession where these psych games tend to proliferate – but they’re not limited to education. In the first Mean Girls clique I encountered, the Queen Bee was a short male in the SCS office. Damned hard to recognize Mean Girl behavior in a predominately male office – but in retrospect, mighty fine training to realize that Mean Girls come in both sexes. I suppose he became a Mean Girl Wannabee in high school rather than develop a short man complex. Hard to say – I’m trained more in sociology and systems than psychology an disorders.

The good news is that this year Trego has 8 candidates competing for 3 board positions. With only two trustees continuing, three new members can, if they recognize the games that are being played, turn things around. Obviously, returning an incumbent is a poor idea. There are 5 candidates for the 3-year position, and four aren’t incumbent. At this stage, I would say would say that as long as you vote for a fresh face, you can’t go far wrong.

One of the candidates for the two-year term – Lee Engebraaten (my spelling may be in error) displayed his understanding by calling out the folks busting on the board. I figure he either came in from elsewhere or slept through Montana history class. Most of us learned that Montana’s first efforts at government began with a handful of Vigilantes getting together to hang the sheriff – and that Cornelius Hedges went from the Vigilantes to becoming Montana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction. Lee may be capable of learning – but I heard pomposity.

I’m kind of upbeat after attending those two meetings. I’ve spotted the Queen Bee and the Wannabee from their own comments – and I have hopes that with three new board members coming on, and the Mean Girls clique identified, Trego’s strengths will return.