Fish Sales, State Tests, and the Messy Middle of Turnaround

Middle school leadership is a strange profession. One minute you are analyzing subgroup data, discussing intervention structures, and trying to figure out how to move a school out of turnaround status. The next minute, you are making a school wide announcement that says:

“It has been brought to our attention that someone is selling fish. It is not okay to sell live animals at school. No students should be any selling items, including fish.”

And somehow, both moments matter equally.

Welcome to Middle School

We are living in the messy middle of school turnaround work. The part nobody glamorizes. The part that does not fit neatly into conference presentations or district reports. The part where real change is happening slowly, unevenly, and while someone is apparently running an unauthorized aquarium-based side business out of their backpack.

Last week we got one of the first indicators that what we are doing is working. Our AZELLA proficiency results came back. Thirty-five students reached proficiency.

Thirty-five

Now, if you work in a high-performing school, that number might not stop you in your tracks. But for us, it did. Last year, that number was ten.

We did not just improve. We more than tripled our number of proficient students.

And suddenly, all of the exhausting conversations, intervention planning, hallway duty, difficult meetings, reteaching, relationship building, and constant encouragement started to feel a little less invisible. It felt like proof.

Not proof that we have “arrived.” We have not. Not proof that turnaround work is complete. It is not. But proof that students are learning. Proof that effort matters. Proof that relationships matter. Proof that kids rise when adults refuse to quit on them.

Still, the celebration only lasts so long before the next challenge arrives. Attendance remains a daily battle. Staffing shortages continue to stretch everyone thin. Funding frustrations remain constant. We are still trying to build systems while simultaneously surviving inside them. Yes, somedays it really is a game of survival.

All while looking ahead to a coming school year with no counselor in a school where students are truly in crisis. A school year were my assistant principal and I, our tiny team of two, will continue to fight for our students and our teachers.

But Now, We Wait

We wait for state assessment scores. We wait to see whether the gains we think we are seeing are real. Whether the growth we feel in classrooms translates onto spreadsheets and accountability reports. Whether the state will recognize what we know is happening inside this building.

That waiting can feel brutal in turnaround work because so much of leadership becomes an act of belief before evidence fully arrives. You believe in students before scores improve. You believe in teachers before burnout lifts. You believe in systems before they are polished. You believe while simultaneously making announcements about fish sales.

That is the reality nobody explains about middle schools: they are chaotic, exhausting, hilarious, heartbreaking places filled with deeply human moments.

Middle school students are unique creatures. They are funny without trying to be.

They are capable of incredible kindness and unbelievable decision-making within the same five-minute span. They are ridiculous. They are struggling. They are celebrating. They are still figuring out who they are while the adults around them are trying to figure out how to help them get there safely.

Middle schools themselves reflect that same energy. They are loud. Messy. Emotional. Complicated. Beautiful. You can walk from a classroom where a student finally reads confidently out loud for the first time to a hallway where someone has spilled Takis and another student is asking if they can keep the fish they bought during lunch. Every single day feels like ten different realities existing simultaneously.

Yet somehow, underneath all of it, there is purpose.

I Cannot Imagine Doing Anything Else

I cannot imagine not showing up every morning for these students, even when the challenges feel endless and the time always feels too short. Underneath the attendance reports, staffing frustrations, discipline conversations, testing pressure, and state labels there are more than 500 kids who deserve adults willing to stay in the fight long enough to see them succeed. Even if, occasionally, that fight includes shutting down an underground fish market.