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The principal’s day is full of surprises. With solid training and years of experience, most principals are well equipped to handle those surprises. But what surprises do principals feel ill prepared to handle? Which course do they wish their school district or a local university would offer? Included: Principals suggest ten courses! Which courses would you like to see?

When you started you career as a principal, did you feel fully prepared? If you did not, what surprises did you face in those first years? What elements of the job do you still feel ill quipped to handle? That’s the question we posed this month to our Principal Files principals. We asked them to complete the following statement:

I wish I had a course in ______ because ______.

 

On a typical day, principals have to deal with a wide variety of problems related to students, teachers, the curriculum, and even the school building. “I wish I had taken an HVAC for Dummies course,” said principal Jeff Castle, referring to building issues related to heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.

“Some of my teachers’ greatest problems occur when their air conditioning is not working properly,” explained Castle, who is principal at Collins Lane Elementary School in Frankfort, Kentucky. “When that happens, we are at the mercy of our district’s maintenance department.”

Sweating or chilled students and teachers can be a big problem for many principals. Other principals, such as Laura Crochet, recently retired, felt their principal preparation should have included a practical course in dealing with money issues. “I wish I had a course in finance,” Crochet told Education World. “I wound up managing a half-million dollar budget with no specific training in accounting or budgeting.”

“Each year we encounter hundreds of situations -- including disciplinary events, academic problems, students not getting along with one another or teachers…” said principal Brian Hazeltine.

“Getting parents involved is crucial to finding a successful solution to any of those problems, but learning how to win their confidence and how to present difficult situations to parents has taken years of experience,” added Hazeltine, who is principal at Airdrie Koinonia Christian School, Airdrie, Alberta (Canada). “A course that addressed some of those practical issues and instructed principals in practical ways to involve parents in working together with the school would have been very helpful.”

Kathleen Hill agreed. “Nobody told me that parents would be in my office screaming, manipulating, begging, crying, and demanding,” Hill told Education World. At first, she didn’t feel prepared to handle those situations, to calm those parents. “The frustrating part was that 20 minutes after they left the office, I had one of those ‘I should have said…’ moments,” added Hill. Exposure to a course about dealing with parents would have helped Hill be better prepared to think on her feet when parents responded in negative ways.

Of course that isn’t the majority of parents, added Hill, a former principal who was recently appointed curriculum coordinator for the Inter-Lakes School District in New Hampshire. “I have dealt with many kind parents and parents who are unhappy but who are able to talk to me in an appropriate manner,” she said.

Many principals, especially at the secondary level, get their start as assistant principals, and most assistant principals have student discipline among their primary responsibilities. Tony Pallija spent eight years as an assistant principal. “Back when I started, nobody told the truth about what assistant principals really do,” Pallija told Education World. “Even today I see some assistant principal candidates who think curriculum will be their main focus.

“Each masters program has a little different twist when it comes to training AP’s,” said Pallija, who today is principal at North Canton (Ohio) Hoover High School. Many schools offer internships to expose future administrators to what principals and AP’s do for real, and school principals can also step in and help relieve some stress from their AP’s, he said. “I don’t think anyone can really feel good about doing discipline all day for eight years.”

It seems that much of principals’ training focuses on handling mainstream students and everyday situations. Some principals feel it’s the “special” issues that don’t come up every day that cause the biggest problems.

“We just had one of our students die of a high fever, and everybody is concerned,” said principal Larry Davis of Doctors Inlet Elementary School in Middleburg, Florida. But that is not the first experience with ill-timed tragedies that Davis has had to handle. “We had a 12-year-old student commit suicide last year and another 12-year-old paralyzed from the neck down in a jet-ski accident. We had a parent killed in Afghanistan and two children who are dealing with life-threatening cancers.

“A course in handling stress related issues like those would be a benefit,” added Davis. “We must be strong for the children, but we must grieve too… I know the resources for handling issues like these are around us, but we are not instructed about them in college courses.”

Principal Les Potter has more than 30 years experience in education. “When I started in education in 1970, special education was brand new to educators. Schools weren’t built with the needs of special education students -- such as smaller classrooms and accessibility -- in mind.”

Potter, principal at Silver Sands Middle School in Port Orange, Florida, feels the need for regular instruction related to changes in special education laws and procedures. “We have 30 core teachers teaching nearly 1,400 students in grades 6 to 8, but we have an additional 40 special education adults working with just over 300 special education students,” Potter explained.

“Staying current with special education as laws change and paperwork mounts is a full-time job for a school administrator,” Potter added. “Principals need better and up-to-date information for the good of our special students.”

“I wish I had a course in data-driven decision making,” said principal Jim Clark of T.R. Simmons Elementary School in Jasper, Alabama. “It would help me understand the new disaggregated data that came along with this year’s achievement test scores.”

Alabama uses the Stanford 9 Achievement Tests and results are reported broken down by race, sex, and economic level (based on students who receive free lunch and those who receive reduced-rate lunch), Clark explained. “This data is published in newspapers across the state, and it will be sent home to parents in a school report card,” said Clark. “This provides the public with unprecedented detail about student performance.”

With practice, the teachers at Simmons Elementary are getting pretty good at looking at a variety of data and drawing conclusions from it, Clark reports, but when the idea was first introduced it was something totally new for which many school leaders and teachers were ill prepared. “Being data driven means always being in the process of change,” added Clark.

When Lucie Boyadjian first took the helm of a school, she was not prepared to handle teachers who used the teachers contract to protect themselves from extra responsibilities. “I wish I had a course in labor relations, because I never realized how nitpicky some teachers might get,” Boyadjian, principal at Glen Oaks School in Hickory Hills, Illinois, told Education World. “I have had union reps come in to see me because some teachers did not like the way I worded something in my staff bulletin. Or, if the buses were running late, some would complain that staying on would have them in school past their contracted time.

“Needless to say,” Boyadjian added, “most of the complainers are gone, and including teachers in all the decisions we make has helped curb negativism and unjustified criticism. That has helped create a positive and nurturing environment for everybody.”

Principal Betty Peltier would sign up immediately for a course in time management. “Over the years, through OJT (on-the-job training), I have learned a few tricks to help make my day more productive. In spite of the OJT, I still find myself at school at 6 o’clock each evening and taking work home with me . . . and I am a very organized person,” said Peltier, who is principal at Southdown Elementary School in Houma, Louisiana.

“The more tricks I learn about handling the volume of paperwork the more able I am to cope,” Peltier added.  

Article by Gary Hopkins
Education World®
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