Think reality TV is all about fierce competitions and love connections and broken friendships and all the ensuing angst? The networks couldn’t possibly be interested in anything as boring as school administration or school board meetings… right?
Not so. Tru TV (formerly Court TV) will debut its new reality series “The Principal's Office,” which tracks the daily lives of several school administrators, on Aug. 21.
Roger Caitlin, the TV critic for the Hartford Courant, reports that the first episode will feature Jessie Ballenger, an assistant principal at Danbury High School in Danbury, Conn., busting a freshman who sneaks off campus to have lunch at a friend’s house.
But don’t expect to see any of the more mundane tasks of the job, Caitlin adds.
The show "has a light touch to it, like ‘Parking Wars,’ the series about Philly meter maids. It's like ‘Cops’ but with curriculum specialists. But really all they seem to do (in the opening episode anyway) is dole out discipline,” he writes.
Tru TV may have spotted a trend. The Miami Herald recently reported that the number of South Floridians tuning in to the local public-access channel to watch the Miami-Dade school board meetings live has doubled since February—to some 19,000 on any given hour.
In recent weeks, viewers have seen the board members heatedly discuss whether to fire Superintendent Rudy Crew, lay off hundreds of employees, spar over nepotism rules, and form alliances and rivalries akin to the original "Survivor" reality series. Occasionally, a rowdy speaker or audience member gets hauled off by security.
Unfortunately, the programming doesn’t seem to be helping the school board’s image, according to viewers quoted by the Herald:
“The meetings are like a train wreck,” says Mario Artecona, executive director of the Miami Business Forum and a regular viewer. “You know it’s going to be a mess, but you can’t look away.”
Adds Justin Koren, a middle school teacher, “It can be addicting to watch scandal after scandal for 12 continuous hours without commercials. That is, until you realize the entertainment is at the expense of our children.”
Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor