servant leadership in the public school system

Earlier I mentioned that it is report card time for those of us in the elementary school system here in Ontario.
We have new report cards this year.  No major changes in layout--more space for learning skills at the beginning of the report instead of the ned--but rather substantial changes in style:  more student/task specific, "parent-friendly" language.

In my board, like many boards, we use a web-based software engine to write them.  We have used this interface for about 5 years now.  Some minor updates needed to be made for the new reports--something the vendor apparently took care of....But they dropped the ball and there has been nothing but problems....

But that's not what is on my mind right now, servant leadership is....
In an effort to help us (teachers) change some of the language we use on report cards we have been provided with a list of other "qualifiers" and "descriptors" to use to describe student's academic progress.

"Servant Leadership" was on of the things on our list.
Oh, the irony.  To lead by serving those under you, or around you.
I love my board of education--the hypocrits.

Apparently servant leadership is supposed to be important in our classrooms, something we should try to instill in them.  As as children learn by example, by observation others, I doubt they will pick this up in the school system.  My "superiors" are certainly not leading by serving me.  Arbitrary deadlines. Refusal to acknowledge/recognize the personal, time, and financial sacrifices that we staff make....

That brings me back to the report card engine issues.

During negotiations for our current contract, we fought for and won PA days for report card writing.  The board did not want to give this to us, but finally conceded.  They argued that the days were unnecessary, since they felt we have ample time to write report cards during our school day, during our preps (40min/day).  Apparently, they felt that teachers who wrote report cards at home during the evenings, and on weekends were "choosing" to do this....????

So our Friday Report Card writing day came...The system crashed as every teacher tried to login and write.  No one managed to get anything done.  So our board extended the report card deadline from a Friday to the following Monday, to allow us the weekend to write them.  Apparently they do recognize that we use our own personal (family) time to write report cards... The board admin talks a lot about issues with our students--mainly to do with lack of help from parents at home....Well, I am too busy writing report cards to interact with my children....

Great Servant Leadership!