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SEATTLE, Washington — One midwinter morning, as fat, wet snowflakes plop halfheartedly on Queen Anne Hill, moms and dads gather in the John Hay Elementary School library for the Tuesday Tour — a weekly event in January and February. In their weather-defying gear of Gore-Tex and fleece, they're dressed for the serious business of "school shopping." All over Seattle, parents are traveling slick streets under brooding skies in an earnest quest for the best blend of curriculum and caring personnel. A striking woman in an ankle-length skirt, black blazer with beaded cuffs, and chunky necklace strides into the library, and mingles informally with the parents of next fall's kindergartners. "Are you a kindergarten teacher?" one mother asks her. "No," Joanne Testa-Cross replies cheerfully. "I'm the principal." To the mom's embarrassed apology, she gives a reassuring smile. Testa-Cross shows off her school like a Realtor displaying a prize property or a vendor unveiling a hot new line of goods. Once upon a time, neighborhood schools could count on a captive population of children. No more. Many districts have, like Seattle, moved to open enrollment, where kids can choose any school they like. Private schools, home schools, charter schools, and magnet schools are siphoning off still more students. Schools are competing hard. And principals are on the hot seat. "Marketing and PR are a huge part of what school leaders do these days," Testa-Cross observes after the tour. "We are very mindful that parents are our customers." In this superheated environment, "external relations" are chewing up increasing chunks of principals' time. A 1995 study by the Association of Washington School Principals found that nearly 85 percent of principals are "spending more time and energy on issues of public relations and in making presentations to the community," researchers Bradley Portin, Jianping Shen, and Richard Williams report. They also found that "client satisfaction" carries a lot of weight in schools these days. More than 90 percent of the principals surveyed said parents now figure more prominently in their decisionmaking. The need to package schools and sell them to the public is just one of the many ways the principalship is morphing. School improvement trends over the last decade are radically reshaping the schoolhouse's top job. Today's principals have new tasks in their in-boxes, new priorities on their agendas, and new relationships with everyone from the superintendent to the custodian. They collaborate more. They listen more. They devote more time to mixing with kids and working with teachers than to shuffling through papers and refining procedures. Bus schedules and leaky faucets go to the bottom of the stack, while the real mission of school leadership — hammering out a workable vision for teaching and learning — gets top billing. All of this is happening under a microscope. Intense scrutiny — not only from the central district office, but from lawmakers, reporters, and local watchdog groups — is cranking up the stress levels for principals. The job demands are expanding precisely as the pool of school leaders is shrinking. Experts predict a dire shortage in the next decade as aging principals retire and baby-boom-echo enrollments swell. Many districts in the Northwest and, indeed, around the world, already are scrambling to find able administrators. Suddenly, school leadership is on everyone's radar screen. "In recent months," Education Week's Lynn Olson wrote in January, "a broad consensus has emerged across education, governmental, and philanthropic groups on an urgent need to address what many see as a scarcity of strong leadership in public education." In its ongoing series examining school leadership, the newspaper leaves no doubt about leaders' front-row seat in the school reform movement: "Study after study shows that a critical factor in determining whether schools succeed or fail is the quality and stability of their leadership."
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The New Principal Special Report:
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Date of Last Update: 9/28/01 
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