Owlnotes.com

I am an elementary school principal for Hudsonville Public Schools in southwest Michigan.

We are a Pre-K (pre-kindergarten) through fifth grade school with roughly 360 students. We have a before-school and after-school daycare program, and we also house the school district's Mildly Cognitively Impaired Program. Most of the teachers in my building are non-tenured, which means they have four years of experience or less in our school district. The majority of the teachers are between 25 to 35 years of age, although we do have some teachers in their 40's and 50's, as well.

We have really worked hard on the climate within our building. We want to make our school a positive and rewarding environment for both the students and faculty. Prior to coming to this building, the climate wasn't all that it could or should have been. However, over the last few years it has been great. We have set goals for our building, such as student achievement goals, to go where we need to with our curriculum. Our goals of building a positive climate with our students and staff have been very successful. That positive climate has made this a great place to work.

I oversee everything that happens in my school. I am responsible for curriculum, introducing new education initiatives, student discipline, all scheduling, teacher and parent relations, staff evaluations, standardized test scores and anything else that happens within my building. I am responsible to our school district and the Board of Education in making sure the education process, from the students to the teachers, is efficient, effective and safe. Fortunately, I have the help of the teachers in my school and a great support staff that make my job much more manageable. I also serve on several committees within the school district and across the state.

This job is 100 percent about interpersonal skills. Relating to students, parents, teachers and administrators, knowing how to read situations and understanding behaviors are all key skills for someone in my position to possess. Some of the hardest challenges I face relate to issues between faculty members. Difficulties arise when someone approaches me with information regarding another staff member. I would rather two people work out their own differences with each other, but sometimes I have to act as the mediator. When situations come up, I have to recognize that there are always two sides to every story and catalogue when people are telling me things. I have to be able to read where they are coming from and think about what kind of person they are, and then decide the appropriate approach to handle the situation. There are over 45 staff members in my school, so it is important for me to gauge each problem, as well as to know how and when to interact with those involved in finding the appropriate resolution.

On the other hand, my school has a lot of students who have special needs or are cognitively impaired, such as those with Down's syndrome. They present a different set of challenges, because I don't have all the training in the world to know what I can expect from children that are cognitively impaired, to know exactly what to do in every circumstance. However, I do find these situations very rewarding. It's really fun to work with those kids and to feel like you are making a difference in their lives.

It's a huge part, although maybe not in the way you would think. It's all about building relationships with parents you see in the hallway, at meetings, at events and in the community. My contact information is available for all of the parents, and they are able to contact me directly. Some even just stop by unannounced. Typically, parents should try to contact their child's teacher first, but I am always available. Interacting with parents and making connections is a huge part of what I do, because they trust their most valuable possessions to me and the school. I want them to feel good about that.

It's your classic story. I knew from early on that I had the desire and gift to work with kids. I also knew that teaching would provide me with that opportunity.

I attended Hope College in western Michigan and received my degree and certification in elementary education. I also received a degree in language arts to teach kindergarten through eighth grade. My first job out of college was as a sixth grade language arts teacher in a middle school, where I taught for five years. During this time, I also coached seventh and eighth grade track and field, and received a master's degree in general education. Typically, educators who earn master's degrees receive pay increases, so it is very common for teachers to go to graduate school. Coaching track and accepting other leadership roles within the school and the district opened me up to the idea of getting involved in school administration.

Through my leadership experiences and through the grooming by some mentors, I decided to pursue the administration path, and I obtained a master's degree in education leadership. When a position opened up for an elementary school principal in the same school district where I was teaching, I applied for and eventually accepted it. I remained at that school for two years before deciding to leave to become the principal of my current school.

I don't know if I would say my path is typical of others, at least in terms of how fast it all happened. The entire time I have been a principal, I have always been the youngest one in any of the schools in the district. When I began working here, I was the youngest principal in my district's history. I think the steps I took to get here were typical, just not the length of time.

If you want to get into administration, it is a good idea to get involved with committees and in leadership roles within your school and school district. This not only allows you to network and interact with individuals, but it also gets you noticed. Because of my leadership experiences and contributions, I was approached about becoming a principal. When I decided that it was something that I wanted to do, I was connected with a few mentors who guided me and assisted in my preparation for the transition from teacher to administrator.

Not at all. In fact, I would say that a very small percentage of educators have any desire to pursue a position in administration. A role in administration doesn't necessarily fit the characteristics you might associate with a teacher. I always knew that I had a mind for the other side, the "business" side. For me, this is the perfect fit, but I don't think that's true for most teachers.

I get to school at 7:45 a.m. and leave around 5 p.m. The first thing I do is check my e-mail and voicemail. Then, as the teachers and students arrive, I walk around the building and check in with the classes and see what's going on. There's always something. I can't make it half way down the hallway without somebody needing help or wanting an answer to something. After the morning is underway, I'll go back to my office and finish checking and replying to messages or work on other items, like building schedules. Building scheduling is arranging when certain classes go to art class, music class or gym. It's arranging planning time for teachers and school assemblies. I work with various scheduling items on a daily basis.

At lunchtime, I am in the cafeteria making sure things are in order and that students are released back to their teachers at the appropriate time. I also have student issues to handle, various meetings, field trips and so on that occur on any given day. Interacting with 400 different people each day brings a lot of variety to my job. You would be amazed at how many different things come up throughout one day, and you have to be able to handle them all.

Another part of my job that I think is very important is that I purposely spend most of my time outside of my office, walking around the school, being in the classrooms and being an available resource to students and staff.

In our school district, I have the autonomy to run my building the way I choose. Obviously, schools and school districts have their differences and it really depends on the superintendent, who you report to, and the structure of the district. As far as being responsible for everything that takes place in my building, I'd say that's the same for any other principal, here in Michigan or across the country.

I always bring work home with me. With the various daily issues that can pop up and require my attention, I still have things that need to be accomplished when I am ready to go home. I am at school around 45-50 hours per week, and I put in roughly another five to seven hours at home.

The annual salary range for a principal in this area of Michigan is probably between $80,000 and $100,000. Compared to other parts of the country, educators in Michigan are well-paid. For example, when I interviewed for a teaching job out of college, the difference between a job in North Carolina and one here in Michigan was $7,000. We also have a great benefits package. The health insurance I have for my family is extremely good. It is nice to know that if anything happened to me or my family, health-wise, we have a great insurance plan.

In our education system, you have to work 30 years before you can retire. However, when I first started teaching, I exercised the option of buying out my last five years. Now I could retire after 25 years, which would make me 47 years old at retirement, but I know I will work longer than that.

In terms of retirement benefits, those of us in the public school system in Michigan are required to pay a certain percent of our salary into the Michigan Investment Plan, or MIP, which is for our retirement. We also have the option of a 403(b), which is the school's version of a 401(k). If those two options are utilized, it is my understanding that roughly 70 percent of my salary from the last three years of working will be provided to me each year of my retirement. Additionally, my family will still receive the health insurance benefits that we have now. The retirement benefits I will be eligible for are a huge perk in my profession.

I feel like my salary provides well for our family. It allows my wife to stay at home with our two kids, and has provided us with the type of lifestyle we want. We don't live extravagantly by any means, but we have a new home, buy what we want for our kids and can take vacations if we choose. I have time off over the holidays, spring break and summer to be with my family. It's an ideal situation for us.

My job completely affects my social life. I very much feel like a public figure, such as a church leader, in that I am held accountable for everything that I say and everything I do, when others are around. For example, when I am at a restaurant, I have to be aware of who might be there and what I am doing or talking about. Even when I want to have a drink with my wife or friends, I have to think about where I am and if it would be appropriate. It is a little different for me now that I do not live in the same school district where I work, but I don't really feel like my personal life is very personal. At the same time, because of the responsibilities that go along with being a principal, I think it's a good thing. It was definitely one of the major shifts in advancing from being a teacher to a principal, the realization that everything I do matters.

My job stability is very high. Of course, unforeseeable changes can occur, but as long as I do a good job, there is really no reason that I couldn't be at this school for another 25 years. That's very nice in an unpredictable economy and job market.

Obtaining the master's degrees that I needed took a lot of time, and I earned them while I was teaching full-time. I had to go to school four nights a week for two years. Thankfully, most of that was done before my wife and I had kids.

As I said earlier, I am held to a certain level of accountability in what I say and do both inside and outside of my school. That's not to say that I would act any differently if I was in any other position, but sometimes it would be nice to go out with my wife or a group of my friends without that being the first thing on my mind.

I make a comfortable living, but I suppose if I were in the business world, my income potential would be greater. I don't receive bonuses or financial incentives. But I do get to do what I've always wanted in working with kids and making a difference, so I guess that is an easy trade-off.

There have been significant changes; in fact there are a lot of books that have come out recently about all of the changes. We now have the No Child Left Behind Act, which, for better or worse, really upped the ante and made education much more about bottom-line thinking than it has ever been. Schools now get report cards based on national test scores, and funding is based on those reports. It has almost introduced a consumer-shopping mentality among parents as they search for schools based on standardized test scores. It has basically brought competition and money into the education system. Each child is now worth a certain amount of dollars in terms of government funding, and there is fierce competition for those government funds.

Another important change is that in the past, principals could just be the managers of their buildings, making sure everything ran smoothly. Now we have to be the instructional leaders who are pushing new educational initiatives or ways of making things better in order to increase our test scores.

Overall, technology has brought about beneficial changes for the education system. I think technology continues to make my job easier, but it does have drawbacks. There are more things I can do from home or in terms of sending information back and forth. I can send an e-mail that goes out to my entire staff if I need to address something, as opposed to scheduling a meeting or running off paper copies of a memo. Technology has made the communication process much easier. It has also made things more difficult by making me so accessible to everyone, and it creates more work for me. Also, it can be very difficult to read tone in an e-mail from a staff member or a parent. I never email parents back. If a parent emails me, I will call him or her back, because I don't want to make an error in misreading tone or urgency.

The advice that I was given, and that I always keep in the front of my mind, is to make sure that in any decision you make, you do what is best for the kids. It's incredibly simple, but very important. It helps me to be bold in times when I need to confront my staff in their evaluations, because I owe that to the students. That simple advice helps to keep things simple and clear.

What I have learned through my experience, and continue to learn, is to keep things in perspective. Issues will come up or test scores may not always meet my expectations, but as long as I keep working hard and continually strive for improvement, everything will be fine. I don't get as hung up on things as I did during my first year as a principal. I no longer have those ups and downs.

First and foremost, you absolutely have to be a "people person." I touched on that earlier. There is so much interaction with people in the school and in the community that you must have strong interpersonal skills. You also have to be organized. I am a super-organized person and it can still be overwhelming for me at times. I really don't know how anyone could do this job the way it should be done without placing a high priority on organization. If you are working in a school, you must have a heart for kids and have a tremendous amount of patience; not just with the students, but with faculty as well. When situations come up, people look to you for solutions and reassurance, so you must keep an even temperament. Along with that, you have to be an empathetic person that understands, or tries to understand other people’s perspectives, because it will get you so much further with people. What it comes down to for me in determining or evaluating the qualities of a teacher or a principal is pretty simple. Would I be comfortable putting my kid in a certain teacher's classroom, or a certain principal's school?

First, I don't know how you could be successful in this position without having taught in a classroom or having worked in the education system. I don't think you could just come from the outside world and understand what this job requires. Secondly, look for leadership opportunities within the school or district. If you determine that it is the direction you want to pursue, then you need to get the appropriate master's degree. It is important to make connections and contacts along the way. Lastly, you need to put your name out there and let the right people know you are interested. If you are getting involved in leadership roles and networking, you might get approached, but you still need to put yourself out there.