Summary
I was the new principal of Mingzhu Elementary School.
My first act in office was to give the parents absolute voting power.
Milk tea for the children? Every parent got a vote.
Seating arrangements? Unanimous parental approval required.
The teachers went pale.
The parents applauded until their palms turned red.
But halfway through the semester, every teacher had changed their WeChat status to match mine: “Vote! Sign! Unanimous consent!”
Six months later, the parent who’d made the most noise was on her knees outside the school gates, begging me to scrap the voting system.
I smiled.
They’d chosen this road. They could crawl to the end of it, but nobody was getting off early.