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The Best Job in the World: part fourNW: Can you talk about the differences between running an elementary school and running a secondary school? Lewis: When you talk to your elementary colleagues, having a good day means they've received a lot of hugs. When you talk to a high school principal, a good day means no violence and minimal disruptive behavior. The younger the kids, the more chance you have to shape and influence them. To my friends who are thinking about going into administration, I say, "Being an elementary principal is where you have the opportunity to make the biggest difference." At that level, you have a great deal of opportunity to change kids and influence them. At the middle school level, it lessens a little bit, but you've still got that window. At the high school level, it's a tough battle. The train is already moving and you can't do a lot to derail it. High schools are the most difficult places to institute change. NW: Why is that? Lewis: There are many reasons, including tradition, a feeling of "We've always done it that way," and often resistance to change by staff. Some high school teachers see themselves mainly as curriculum specialists-content experts. They focus more on subject matter than on kids. But when you observe high school teachers, you'll notice that the most successful ones talk about kids more than they talk about curriculum. The real successful high school teachers are student magnets. They just draw kids to them. And it's because they care about the student as a person, they want to do what they can, plus they're great teachers. NW: Do you find yourself juggling managerial kinds of tasks against instructional leadership? Lewis: All the time — from the second you walk in in the morning until you go home at night. We're addressing this right now. There's a great new book from AASA (American Association of School Administrators) called Total Leaders. It's a synthesis of a lot of research on school leadership. We have an administrative study group, and once a week we'll get together and talk about a chapter. The book talks about the balancing that has to happen. You can't just be a manager, and you can't just be a visionary. You have to do both, especially in the smaller schools like this one, where I'm the only administrator in this building. If a student gets in trouble, I have to deal with him. You juggle that constantly. Another very good book is called Who Moved My Cheese? In that book, "cheese" is what you have, what you're used to, your comfort zone. The book is about change and how we go about change. It's about 100 pages long, and it takes you an hour to read. We've used it as a staff development tool. In fact, Gerald Tirozzi, NASSP Executive Director, bought it for all our board members. We spent time at our board meetings discussing it. It's written by Ken Blanchard, one of the authors of The One-Minute Manager. NW: I would think it would be very easy to get sucked into doing managerial things all the time, because they're always in your face. Lewis: Always there. Parents drop into the school unannounced all the time and expect you to be there and accessible to them. Would you go to your dentist and walk in the door and say, "I'm here. Would you mind cleaning my teeth?" I don't think you'd do that. But you want to accommodate them. You work with them. It's just one more ball to juggle. About the time you think you're getting someplace, you'll get a 50-page federal or state report you have to do. If there's a fault or a weakness in the principalship, it's that you have to do those managerial kinds of things. You can't put those tasks aside. They have to be done. That's why administrators are at schools on weekends and vacations. NW: Do you ever regret going in to this field? Lewis: Never. I think I've got the best job in the world. And I've thought that about every school I've been in. What energizes you and keeps you going are the students. You're having a bad day, just go sit in the classroom and watch the teaching and learning that takes place. NW: Would it be ideal for a school if there could be a manager who could deal with all the paperwork and the bureaucratic stuff and then the principal could just be the instructional leader and visionary and work with teachers? Lewis: That's a fantasy. It's not going to happen. Again, you have to balance, prioritize. It used to be that people saw the assistant principalship as a hammer-as the person who did all those managerial tasks. But I never viewed it that way. When I was at Hillsboro, I had three assistant principals, and I viewed that position as a training ground for them. I didn't want them just to be the arm of the law. They needed to have a background in working with curriculum, working with departments. They needed to have a background in finance, how to build a budget, what all the legal ramifications were. So we rotated assignments. There are days when I'll have four or five things I need to get done, and suddenly the day will be over and I haven't done one of them. You have to then ask yourself, "Which of these can I take home, or which ones can I deal with tomorrow?" It's the returning the phone calls and those kinds of things. That's a very good interview question, by the way. When applicants for any position come in, you give them an in-basket of activities — eight or nine things that need to be done-and ask them, "How are you going to prioritize those tasks?" That's gives you a real sense of their approach to the job.
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The New Principal Special Report:
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Date of Last Update: 9/28/01 
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