Kudos To (Some) Principals

Flowers for our principals. The good ones anyways.

That’s the title of chapter 11 of my book, and I think it’s an appropriate time to spotlight the chapter as this is National Principals Month, which celebrates the dedication and leadership these people bring to their schools.

I’ve worked for good principals and bad. Good principals make teachers better and make us want to do everything we’re told and then some. Bad ones make them worse and eventually move on to another school. I think you’ll understand what I mean after reading this chapter excerpt:  

I could never be a principal. Like Laura (my principal in Alaska), I want to be liked. And the fact is a principal, like all organizational heads, is going to be disliked at some point by someone(s). It comes with the job. As a habit, teachers bitch about administration. That’s just what we do. A principal’s decisions aren’t going to please everyone, so teachers complain. A principal must ultimately ignore that and make unemotional decisions.

Everywhere I’ve worked, there’s at least one or two teachers who need to be fired. Really bad at their job and don’t care. I wouldn’t have the heart to do it, even though it made perfect sense. And then there’s teachers who care about their students but let them walk all over them. I wouldn’t be willing to tell them they aren’t good at their job.

A principal must be willing to do this.

A principal needs to know how to speak to different crowds. You can’t talk to students the same way you talk to teachers. You can’t talk to teachers the same way you talk to parents. You can’t talk to parents the way you talk to your bosses. That’s too much juggling for me.

And don’t have something crazy happen at your school – a lunchroom brawl, a shooting, a sexual abuse scandal, a student commits suicide because he was bullied. All that shit will be on social media in no time flat, and the first person the media’s going to hold accountable is the principal, not teachers.

I’ll pass.

I’d be terrible at the job. I’d be uncomfortable addressing the staff in meetings. There’s always at least one teacher who loves second-guessing principals in these meetings, in front of their teaching peers. I wouldn’t react well to that. I can talk to a group of kids, no problem. Talking to adults would make me nervous.

Principals work throughout the summer. I use mine to recuperate from the 10-month marathon madness that is a school year. And only after those two summer months have passed am I ready to have at it once again.

Principals have my admiration. And sympathy. Except the bad ones.

Teachers, you know the type. It’s bad enough they micromanage. But they micromanage the wrong stuff. They send their goons out after you, the Teacher Police I call them, the assistant principal or people with made-up jobs like personalized learning coordinator or Multi-Tiered System of Supports manager, henchmen who show up unannounced to your classroom to make sure you have your learning standards posted on the whiteboard for the students to see. Or your mini-lesson or the new one I love, the students’ Success Criteria.

Are they serious?

Everywhere I’ve worked, there’s at least one or two teachers who need to be fired. Really bad at their job and don’t care. I wouldn’t have the heart to do it, even though it made perfect sense. And then there’s teachers who care about their students but let them walk all over them. I wouldn’t be willing to tell them they aren’t good at their job.

A principal must be willing to do this.

A principal needs to know how to speak to different crowds. You can’t talk to students the same way you talk to teachers. You can’t talk to teachers the same way you talk to parents. You can’t talk to parents the way you talk to your bosses. That’s too much juggling for me.

And don’t have something crazy happen at your school – a lunchroom brawl, a shooting, a sexual abuse scandal, a student commits suicide because he was bullied. All that shit will be on social media in no time flat, and the first person the media’s going to hold accountable is the principal, not teachers.

I’ll pass.

I’d be terrible at the job. I’d be uncomfortable addressing the staff in meetings. There’s always at least one teacher who loves second-guessing principals in these meetings, in front of their teaching peers. I wouldn’t react well to that. I can talk to a group of kids, no problem. Talking to adults would make me nervous.

Principals work throughout the summer. I use mine to recuperate from the 10-month marathon madness that is a school year. And only after those two summer months have passed am I ready to have at it once again.

Principals have my admiration. And sympathy. Except the bad ones.

Teachers, you know the type. It’s bad enough they micromanage. But they micromanage the wrong stuff. They send their goons out after you, the Teacher Police I call them, the assistant principal or people with made-up jobs like personalized learning coordinator or Multi-Tiered System of Supports manager, henchmen who show up unannounced to your classroom to make sure you have your learning standards posted on the whiteboard for the students to see. Or your mini-lesson or the new one I love, the students’ Success Criteria.

Are they serious?

Laura wasn’t that way. She never badgered you about Success Criteria, Exit Tickets, Mini-Lessons and such. If she thought you were doing your job, she left you the hell alone.

She left me the hell alone. And she didn’t send the Teacher Police after anyone.

Oh, how I wish all principals followed her lead.