As a recently retired High School Principal, I've had some time to reflect on my career. I've come to the conclusion that there were a few items that my professors in graduate school left out of my preparation to become a principal. Had they included these items, my first couple of years as a principal might have gone a little better. I've selected 5 items that come to mind.
1. Treat School Board Politics like Poison Ivy - Getting involved in School Board politics is a no win situation. It may be very flattering to have a board member ask your opinion. They may even seek out your advice. But sooner or later this will get back to your Superintendent and that won't be good. Remember, your superintendent works at the pleasure of the school board. He or she should be the person that the board member seeks out for educational matters. You never want to be perceived as undercutting your boss. Any interactions between yourself and a board member should be reported to your immediate supervisor as soon as possible.
2. Home Court Advantage - Sooner rather than later your going to have to speak to a surly parent, a difficult student, or a problematic teacher. These meetings will generally take place in your office and here in lies the home court advantage. Think about the last time you were in your doctors office. What items were on the wall? Diplomas and professional certificates of accomplishment. Were there reference books and professional journals? What about a family picture or two? Your office should be a reflection of your accomplishments and successes, both professional and personal. You can be certain that visitors to your office will inspect these items in an effort to size up whom they are dealing with. I have disarmed many a reluctant visitor to my office long before the conversation began.
3. Paperwork, Friend or Foe - With little effort you can drown in paperwork or keep it at a manageable level. To the extent possible paperwork should be handled before or after the regular school day. That way you can concentrate on the instructional activities in school and not be trapped in your office under a pile of paper. Memos and directives from central office should be looked at once and then handed back to your secretary for followup or filing. Your secretary should preview your mail and remove extraneous material. If possible set aside a period of time during your school day to handle correspondence with your secretary. If you are fortuneate enough to have a secretary who takes dictation or the technology to have someone else type up your correspondence, make use of it. Keep a collection of model correspondence. There is little reason to start from scratch every time you have to write a letter of recommendation or a grant proposal.
4. Keep your Parents Association Closer - Parents can be a source of support for your school or a constant thorn in your side. It all depends on how your approach the situation. When I was appointed to head one of the largest high schools in NYC one of the first things I did was to create a small office for my parents association (P.T.A.) adjacent to the main office in the school. It was furnished with a small desk, a few chairs, a telephone and most importantly, a small sign identifying the room as the P.T.A. office. My only requests to my P.T.A. President was that the office be manned as much as possible and that no parent wander through the school without an escort. The changes that occurred was nothing short of a miracle. If I needed to get information out to my community in a hurry, all I had to do was walk down the hall and speak to one of my P.T.A. representatives. If parents new to my community came to visit our school I directed them to the P.T.A. representative who took them on a tour of our school. Students knowing that parents were in the building behaved much better on a daily basis. If we were having difficulty reaching out to one of our families, our P.T.A. helped out.
5. Intrinsic Rewards are Better than Cash - When you think about it, what type of extra incentives do we have as Principals to maximize the performance of our faculty and staff. Given the rigid contracts and union work rules, we really have very little in our arsenal to reward those who have gone the extra mile. Following a very heavy mid week snow storm I arrived at my school after spending several hours in transit. Half of my teachers had called in sick and many others were coming in late. The students that arrived were ushered into the auditorium and cafeteria until we could work out an adequate schedule. As my brave staff continued to arrive I greeted each and everyone of them and thanked them for braving the elements and coming to work. After we got the school day organized I proceeded to create a paper "Snowbird Award" for my staff and hand signed each and every copy. By the end of the day the awards were in the mailboxes of the staff members who had come to work on that snowy day. I heard many positve comments from my staff regarding this recognition of their dedication
