Robert Takes on More and Catches some Thieves

After I left the Bloomington Area Vocational Center (AVC), Robert Meeker continued on his mission to make microcomputers the basis for business education at AVC.  He knew that Bloomington High School (BHS) was the most essential high school to success at AVC . For that to work he had to eliminate the animosity which long existed between the faculty and administration of Bloomington High School and the faculty of the Area Vocational Center.

He worked diligently on this while I was with him. Every effort was made to make sure the BHS administration knew that we were not a competitor to BHS, but we were a colleague and collaborator.

Although he was managing the massive Adult Education program (7000 students), the AVC, and the Regional Vocational System ( 3 AVC's and 20+ high schools), he volunteered to become an assistant principal for BHS and lead person in the business department. With this assignment, he could directly affect the relationship between the faculty members. He also encouraged AVC staff to take on roles with extracurricular activities at BHS. With the role as assistant principal came athletic game supervision at BHS. Where he found the time I will never know.

Robert’s leadership in the business department was transforming. A faculty determined to teach proper typing and shorthand skills was convinced to teach the skills needed in computer keyboarding. Instruction with software replaced drills and timed tests. Ability to solve problems was developed as  practicing technique was de-emphasized.

The typing labs became computer labs. The business classes moved from bookkeeping to spreadsheet management. Semi-skilled work in typing information became skilled work in using databases, word processing and other software.

While all of this was going on the, the new AVC course in Robotics which began with one of the grants we wrote, was growing rapidly. There was a new drafting lab using auto-CAD. In addition, there was an increasing demand for skills in network development and wiring, so a new course was developed. He expanded to the arts and supported a new Mac lab in the art program. Robert initiated or directly supported all of these into courses at both AVC and BHS.

With all of this technology came some negative consequences. BHS became a target of thieves. Robert related below several stories of theses adventures.

            The year we got the graphic arts classroom up to date with 16 new Mac’s someone broke in and stole them.  The insurance paid for replacements, but they did not come with the original software and we had to fight with Apple to get them to give it to us.    Lots of fun, lots of headaches, retirements, and very different programs and applications based on the kind of classroom that needed the technology.  It was certainly a fun ride, even with the frustrations. 

Another time the thieves broke into BHS/AVC.  They had a semi pulled up behind the auto shop with plans to clean out several labs.  But by then we had a pretty good alarm system.  It didn’t make any noise it just notified the police.  They showed up in force pretty quickly and caught the bad guys in the act.  

Another time they (the police)showed up and felt pretty sure something wasn’t right.  So they turned loose a couple German Shepherds.  After getting some school administration and maintenance people there to turn on the lights etc.the police went in and got the bad guys.  One was in a broom closet keeping the door between himself and the dog.  The other guy was on the roof after crawling out the upper story window and hiding behind a vent unit.  Unfortunately for him, the dog kept him on point until the officers came to corral him. 

While all of this activity was going on, I was serving as principal at Irving. I missed most of it, except for an occasional lunch with Robert. His personal efforts were extremely successful. However, it did not fulfill his long term goal of a central office position as business manager. So seven years after I left AVC for Irving School, Robert left District 87 for the position of Business Manager for Clinton Public Schools. He had a tremendous impact for his time in Bloomington. Fortunately for all of us, he wasn’t quite finished.