90s37 Responsibility

I have heard critics says things like all elementary principals have to do is stand in the hall and pat children on the head as they pass by. Some have the notion that we have nothing to do or if we do its not important.

The truth is elementary principals are overwhelmed with things to do and when they think they may have a chance to catch up ten new things pop up. Responsibilities include the entire grounds and the structure. I usually walked the building inside and out daily looking for anything that might be a problem. I walked the parameter of the grounds weekly.

Teacher observations, student behavior, parent issues, personnel issues and paperwork fill up the rest of the day.

October 9, 1998 - I have started my observations of teachers. I am observing them as they administer the Checkpoint Assessment and the DRA with hopes that I will better understand them and even do some of them myself. I am also working on my goal of helping all of us better understand the relationship between the strategies, skills, lesson objectives and benchmarks and how it all fits together. I have met with two of the teams and will meet with the other soon. I am also reinforcing this by having the teacher make the connection as part of the evaluation process.

Things continue to go well at Longfellow. We have lost another student and will pick up two on Monday so maybe the trend will change now. I hope so! I still have parent concerns about class size and did get some ratio to hire two hours more of associate time.

The Strategy 2 committee has made some tentative recommendations that include considering having some elementary administrators serve more than one building and cutting back on the days administrators work. Neither sounds good to me but I doubt if they are interested in my opinion.

October 19, 1998 - Tomorrow is a parent/teacher conference day. All continues to go well at Longfellow this year. We really deserved a good year after last year and I am very grateful that we are having one. I had two students last week that stabbed each other with pencils after what started as a friendly sword fight? I suspended both of them for the rest of the day and then gave each a day of in-school suspension. We have a strict no tolerance policy about that sort of thing and sometimes it seems a little harsh to some. We had ITBS last week and have make-ups this week.

October 20, 1998 - Today is a parent/teacher conference day. It has been quiet so far. The PTA had a potato/chili supper last night and a book fair today. There were about 150 people there last night and it was a successful event. I am up for evaluation this year and so this journal will be part of it. We have to do a self-evaluation, seek input from the school community and also do a portfolio. I can see that it will be very time consuming. I hope it yields valuable information.