I have been very deeply honored to be selected as the NE Iowa Seconday Principal of the Year. Many people have contributed to the success of MFL MarMac HS. I have had the privilege of working with very many wonderful people. I want to thank them all for having had the opportunity to be a part of our accomplishments. Part of the application process for Seconday Principal of the Year for the state of Iowa was to write an essay. Following is what I wrote for that essay:
The job of being a secondary Principal is a very lonely job. It is also a job that causes the Principal to wear too many “hats”. The multitude of roles that a Principal must take on is enormous, time consuming, and exhausting. Most HS Principals that I know work countless hours, many times from sunup to past sundown and on weekends. These are some of the roles that a HS Principal must play: 1) Attendance and disciplinarian; 2) Master schedule and individual schedule builder; 3) Director of PSEO, concurrent classes and Sr. Year Plus; 4) Iowa Core Curriculum manager; 5) Prepare for site and equity visits; 6) Activities director; 7) Organizer of scholarships and graduation; 8) Director of the budget; 9) Manager of grades; 10) Personnel director in charge of hiring and firing. This needs to change. The Principal must be the instructional leader of the school. All of the above get in the way of planning for quality professional development, classroom visits and developing good conversations about what good teaching looks like. Some of this load needs to be delegated. All of these roles taken on by one individual are too much. It can be overwhelming.
We are seeing a change in the role of the teachers. We are moving from a lecture based instruction to a more student based, inquiry based and project based instruction. The teacher role is changing from the “Sage on the Stage” to more of a facilitator of project based learning. The Principal needs to follow this lead. We need to move from being a lonely generalist in charge of all of the above to more of a facilitator. We need to move from managing from crisis to crisis to being a leader for your school. All decisions at a school need to be based on what is best for the students. The busy work and paperwork often times get in the way of this focus on the students.
We need to develop teacher/leaders that we can trust to delegate some of the many “hats” of this job. If you develop the right climate, teacher/leaders will be ready, willing and able to take on these roles. Two things happen when you do this. The obvious result is more time to be focused on being the instructional leader of your school. A less obvious, but very powerful result is that teachers see how difficult it is to do some of these jobs. You need to be ready to support them and anticipate the problems that arise, but give them the autonomy to make decisions.
Using the building leadership team to build this trusting relationship can be very powerful. Good teachers want to be leaders. They want to take on responsibility. Above all, they want to do what is best for the students. They also have some very keen and insightful ideas on how to make the environment and instruction better for the students.
I was a teacher for twenty five years before I became a Principal. I was very frustrated by “top down” management. I had ideas on how to make the school better. I loved the classroom, but became a Principal so that I could actually have more affect on the whole school rather than only the 25 students in my class. Keeping this in mind, the leadership team and participatory management have lead to many ideas that I alone could not have come up with. We have created an environment where teachers can express ideas and are given the freedom to follow through on these ideas. Teachers have created and lead the way on many initiatives. It is very gratifying to step back and let this happen.
The many “hats” of this job can be very frustrating, but also is one of the things that I like about the job. No day is just like the day before. It is never a boring job.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Chapters
I have a list (somewhere) with the titles of the 10 chapters in this book. I have not been able to find this list for 3 years. I know it is somewhere!
Don't Take It Personal
I have threatened to write a book when I retire. This blog will be the start of this book.
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