Best Principal I Ever “Trained”

Dr. Michael Shaffer Associate Clinical Professor Director of MAE in Ed Leadership and Building Level Licensure Program Ball State University

I am going to lay it right here on the table at the outset, “trained” is in quotes for a reason. This principal was one of my interns through the BSU Masters in Ed Leadership program, but I didn’t teach her in any of her other courses, so the amount of training I did in a real teaching kind of way was limited. I was an urban principal in a large district, she was in a smaller district teaching middle school language arts when she went through her internship.

The district for whom I was working was trying to fill two final AP jobs and we were fresh out of applicants. I mentioned to my boss that she had done well in her internship, and he told me to get her to submit an application that day. He called her in for an interview, and that was when something I had never seen happen before, happened. He hired her on the spot.

Before she even had a chance to call me and tell me about the interview, he called me and said, “Shaffer, I hope she is as good as you say, because I just hired her, AND... since I have not filled the Assistant Principal position in your school, she’s coming your way!”

Fortunately, I had been totally honest about her talent and abilities because now she was my responsibility. I called to tell her the news. “When can I start?” she said, and we were off to the races! In my first conversation with the new AP, I relayed to her my “philosophy” of how we should work together – she would have some major responsibilities in attendance and discipline but that I didn’t want her to become bogged down with just those two things because those were not the only jobs she would need to know as a principal.

“My job, as I see it, is to teach you everything I know about being a principal (which will take about five minutes),” I said, “and to brag on the things you do really well so that when a principal opening comes up in the district, the Central office will think of you first!

I will never forget the first day with kids. We were making the rounds through the first grade hallway, and there, just down the hall, was a small brown pile of something. “Is that what I think it is?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied, “some poor little first grader literally just had the poop scared out of them on the first day. Not that unusual. You call Dave (the janitor), and I will guard it so that no one steps in it until he gets here.” Once that obstacle was cleared, we were ready for anything else the year could throw our way!

This new AP was a fast learner, recognized the areas in which she needed extra skills and training, and went to work in learning them. She devoted herself to really learning elementary literacy and made that a priority. I recognized that it was not going to take much in the way of advice from me to help her become a talented principal. One thing I always tried to do was that any time a major decision came up, I not only involved her in the process, but also explained to her how I came to the decision, and why I was thinking the way I was. Other times I would ask her why she thought I made the decisions I made. She rarely missed the reasons.

The district was starting a new walk-through protocol, and my supervisor told me that I should have the AP accompany me on a number of classroom “snapshot” short visits and then discuss in the hallway immediately after observing to determine what we both had seen in the visited classroom. I imagined the process of aligning our walk-throughs to get similar results would take between ten and twenty co-visits. We tried one together, and our results recorded on the walkthrough app were identical. We did two more, and achieved the same result. Just like that, she was ready! That year, we did 1,500 classroom walk-throughs between us.

The most important thing was that every single day a new principal was growing out of an Assistant Principal who was not only encouraged to learn on the job but given the opportunity to experiment, to grow through doing new things. Other Assistant Principals even questioned her, “Why do you get to do all the things you are doing as an AP?”

“Because Doc believes it is his job to prepare me to become a principal, so he wants me to experience everything there is to know about being a principal,” she replied.

The great news is that it worked! I left the next school year to take an Assistant Supt job and she transferred to a Title I school to gain that experience, and her next move was to the highest poverty, lowest performing school in the district which she turned around from an F to an A in three years’ time, transforming not only the academics but also the faculty and staff culture!

It’s been twelve years this summer since we started working together, and I could not be more proud of the great work she has done. I am purposely avoiding mentioning her name, because this story is not mine alone.

Great principals like she has become happen when we who love this career take the time and make the effort to share what we have learned with “the younger generation.”

And so to this principal I am writing about, You know who you are, and I will always be proud of the work you are doing because you are an incredibly better principal than I ever was. Rock on, we need more just like you!