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The Best Job in the World: part two
NW: Which changes in schools have created the greatest need for reforms in principal training? Lewis: These days you have to be everything from a counselor to a psychologist to a pseudo-parent. You're getting a different population of kids — fetal alcohol kids, kids who are less likely to come from two-parent families. They've gone from mom to dad to grandmother to who knows what. The whole area of special education has mushroomed immensely. Everybody has a condition of some kind. We label it, have many meetings, and do a ton of paperwork to follow up. I'm hopeful that the criticism you mentioned, which I think does exist, is being addressed by the universities. I think a lot of times, the people in those programs have not been in the school setting for a while. I don't want to generalize, but often the reason that they like to teach at the university level is because they are research-based. They may not always translate that research into practice effectively. NW: Do you see a shortage of qualified candidates for the principalship? Lewis: There is a huge shortage right now. It's not only in the Northwest, it's nationwide. In fact, it's international. I recently was part of an International Confederation of Principals study tour. Sitting around the table at a meeting in South Africa last March were people from Africa, the Far East, Europe, and Canada, and we were all talking the same language: There aren't enough math teachers, there aren't enough science teachers, technology is lacking. They are all having difficulty finding people to get into the principalship. One of the things that used to attract people was money. These days, you would never want to compare a teaching salary with an administrator's salary on an hourly basis because of the hours you put in. If you did, you'd cry. You may make more money than a teacher, but you work an extra 20 or 30 days a year. The compensation as a draw is not there. Another issue for attracting secondary school principals is the night commitments. As a high school principal, you're probably going to have anywhere from 60 to 100 nights of activities during the school year. If you go to the FFA (Future Farmers of America) banquet, the drama people are mad at you because you weren't at their play. Or you go to a school board meeting, and the girl's basketball team wants to know why you weren't at their game. I don't think the night commitments are as great at the elementary level, just because you don't have all the peripheral cocurricular types of activities. On a day-to-day basis, being a high school principal is the most difficult job in a school district. NW: The best teachers often make the best principals. But the best teachers often don't want to leave the classroom because they like working with kids directly. Do you see talented teachers avoiding administration because they want the more immediate rewards of the classroom? Lewis: I'm always looking for potentially good candidates to become administrators. They are your good teachers. When you talk to them, you hear exactly that: "I wouldn't want your job for the world." NW: How do you answer that? Why should a really good teacher consider the principalship? Lewis: You get a different set of rewards. In the classroom, you may see the light come on with one child because you've done something that struck a chord with them. Administrators, on the other hand, will occasionally get a call from a parent who says, "You're doing a good job." Or a teacher will come in and say, "I really appreciate the direction you're taking us. You let us work with you." If you can create an atmosphere in a building where it's "us" — where everybody from the bus drivers to the custodians to the cooks to the secretaries to the teachers are all headed down the same path — you get a whole lot of pleasure and satisfaction just in working with your staff. It's a different set of satisfactions — always looking for new and better ideas. If you ever sit back and think you've arrived, you're wrong. It's a journey, not a destination. NW: That "us" idea is a big focus in school administration these days — working collaboratively with your team, with your teachers. How do you do that effectively and still provide leadership? Lewis: I try to be very open, very honest, very supportive of people who want to try innovative things — always combing the research and combing the ideas that are out there. I flood people with articles. I've got about six or seven teachers who work with me, and we brainstorm, we talk about it, and then we present it to everybody and let it sit. I feel like a farmer. You plant a lot of seeds and you keep sowing those seeds and they keep growing. Pretty soon it's time to harvest the good ones. When people have a direct investment in the decision, they will support it. You have to have an open door. As you work with the staff, you have to value what they're doing and what they're saying. They want to be listened to. We all want to be listened to.
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The New Principal Special Report:
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Date of Last Update: 9/28/01 
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