The Role of Principal

2/24/07

The Role of Principal

When I first began my education at UTEP, I had decided to take a Ed leadership class to see if this path interested me. I took a Supervision class with Dr. Livingston - it was very enlightening. I had the opportunity to see education from the opposite side and began to understand that the real motivator, change-agent, driver of the bus is the principal. The principal has to do what it takes to get the job done to impact student achievement. In that class, new administrators came to speak with us and one, in particular, impressed me. He said he was asked by his Superintendent to describe in one word what his role was to the school and he answered: Servant. That word has stuck with me throughout my career at UTEP. It was obvious, through his demeanor that he believed what he said and at the time I was a bit skeptical. As I’ve progressed, though, I’ve seen evidence that the principal is a servant - the issue lies with who is being served and why. I would like to believe it is always the student but that is not always the case. In fact, a principal has to serve many before ultimately serving the learner.

I also had the opportunity to sit with the assistant principal and discuss several scenarios. Again, I am still struggling a little bit with thinking about how to deal with certain issues but the AP continues to reassure me and tells me that it takes experience and time to come up with solutions. I appreciate that he does offer suggestions on how to deal with the issues that he confronts me with. Some advice that he offered was to make sure I return phone calls the same day if possible but do not take longer than 48 hours and when necessary make a decision and stand by it. Also, he continues to encourage me to use as many resources on the campus as possible when I am faced with a problem or situation to help me better deal with it.

Internship Experience

Week four of my internship has offered me great opportunities to learn about TAKS, Special Education and Site Based Management. Most importantly, I was able to sit with administrative staff to discuss issues about these topics that have given me great insight into how these topics affect a school from an administrators point of view and from that of an elementary campus perspective.

Once again, last weekend, I pondered the upcoming week. I worried about hours that I might not be able to accumulate. But as the week went on, I did manage to gain the estimated hours needed to attain my goal of 80 for the entire semester.

With all of this said and done, I started out the new week with high hopes, some doubts, but with much enthusiasm. I am ready to take that next step and I am eager to pursue an assistant principal position, as soon as possible. I know that I have much to learn, but with the experience I have picked up in my prior career in business, all that I have acquired in my years of teaching and all that I have and will continue to pick up in this excellent program, I know I will be successful.

This week I felt that I made progress on my internship.

This week I had the opportunity to work an entire day as an assistant principal. One of the assistant principals had a meeting to attend off campus, and I was asked to help the administration with the regular school day. My classes were covered by a substitute and my UTEP intern. This was one of the most enlightening experiences of my internship.

It seems I am continually experiencing the negative aspects of administration, but this has not changed my motivation to seek a principalship certificate. On the contrary, this has only reaffirmed what my plans for the future are, and that is to continue to stay in education to help make a difference in the lives of our students.

A lot went on last week but nothing much this week (feast and famine).

Opportunities for Internship

Dr. Cortez,

I will be presenting at the 2007 Texas Teachers Forum March 4th-6th. In association with this presentation, I have been asked to solicit input from my colleagues on the following issues:

1) What are some of the specific student motivation strategies that highly effective teachers use and how might such teachers help others learn to more effectively motivate students? How might technology be integrated to enhance student motivation?

2) In what ways do effective teachers work with families and communities to ensure student success? What role can technology play in facilitating this connection? How can teacher preparation programs better develop these skills in prospective teachers?

Could you please forward these questions to my classmates...I am very interested in their responses. They can email me at or or call me at 915-276-5293.

Thank you,

Renee King

TAKS

Throughout the week, I was given a few more responsibilities. As TAKS week approaches, I will continue to work on related projects. For example, regarding Third, Fourth and Fifth grades, I was asked to continue working on TAKS issues. I was given a new list regarding students who need to be organized according to their special need: Dyslexia for bundling (small group accommodations during TAKS tests); Special Education students who will take the SDAA; and other students who will be tested in varied ways, according to their IEP’s in place. My main task was to create rosters of students, per grade level and teacher and to transfer this information to rosters that would assist the special education team in keeping track of the students they will have to accommodate during this testing period. In so doing, I worked with the counselors, special education teachers and our Dyslexia teacher in an attempt to provide them with the information they will need before next Tuesday. The project is ongoing and I will continue to work with varied stakeholders. I was given much freedom in how I attacked this task and I decided to use a master list, described in prior weeks for another related project, to help pull rosters for all teachers in these grade levels so that the transfer of information on to sub rosters for the special educational team would be conducted in a more efficient manner. Overall, I managed to put together the rosters for all teachers and created highlighted rosters, which indicate which student, will test when, where and with whom (also utilizing much information given to me by my assistant principal). This task will be ongoing; I’m sure, as TAKS tests in April are just around the corner. Overall, the fact that I am working in the administrative offices, interacting with administrative and support staff in an attempt to successfully accomplish these tasks has helped me to gain new confidence. My background in business has helped me greatly and it is nice to be back in that business-based atmosphere, while simultaneously working for a worthy cause – education for all children.

I was asked to assist the G.I. from our campus to cover the CBuilding, as a floater. Well, things quickly turned around for me. He was pulled away to assist with some curriculum problem, and I was left to manage the TAKS questions that surfaced. The majority of the personnel there were teachers. I honestly don't know how I turned out to be in charge. I have worked with the TEKS/TAKS for approximately 11 years now, so it was not all new to me. Yet, as the building coordinator for the day at the spurt of the moment, alarmed me some. Teachers were asking me lots of questions about the procedures. I was able to answer most of their questions without a problem. But the one question that I was not sure of, was if the students were able to go back and forth into the different areas of the Reading test. There were different responses from the English teachers that were present. Therefore, I was not sure what call to make at the moment.
I wanted to make the right call, because I did not want to jeopardize any test results. Then two senior teachers matched their suggestions. They indicated that the students could not use the dictionary in the editing part. They indicated, once the students select to work on the essay part, without having done the editing part, they automatically forfeit the opportunity to use the dictionary. I went with it, and to make sure that I had made the right call, I verified the information with the Lit Leader and the TAKS Coordinator. It did get a little stressful occasionally, as teachers needed covers for their breaks and bathroom trips. I had to go from one teacher to another, because we ended up with several substitutes. Subs are not allowed to be in the classrooms as test administrators. We had three certified teachers that had to cover several teachers.
Then, as the designated test time is about to end, you can always tell. Students start to get restless and almost every student wants to go to the bathroom. I feel for them, I mean sitting in the same room for five hours, can get to anybody. Yet, getting the students in and out of the bathrooms, without talking to others, is a challenge. Finding out that important people are on the campus does not help matters any. We had Mr. Bobby Ortega and other main office personnel visit our campus. So, of course, you want to make sure that everybody in the building is alert and doing the best job possible. Thank God, things ended well. The overflow students (students not finished with exam) were escorted to the auxiliary gym, and the rest of the students get to relax, until the bell rings. Then again, preparing for the bell to ring takes some synchronizing. We do the synchronizing with radios. We make sure the students are set in the right buildings. After this TAKS day ended, I was very pleased. Yet, we have to do it all again in April.

With this week’s activities, I was witness to that side of a principalship. During the TAKS test, I shadowed the Assistant Principal who is the TAKS administrator in my school. The procedures and details that need to be addressed are surprising. As unusual, we had to train each teacher on test administration, however, new strict policies now include cell phone usage and active monitoring. Serving TEA to the best of our abilities, we read the scripts for training teachers, outlining the procedures for the day. It seemed childish but I was astonished by the teachers that did not follow the procedures as we monitored the halls. Hall monitors even had to be given a training that included signing that they would not be using cell phones and would be escorting children to the restroom.

After TAKS testing the real work comes.

That Tuesday after school, I helped in sorting booklets from different teachers and counting to verify that none were missing. Because there were small groupings implemented for that particular day, there were test booklets allotted to different highly qualified personnel. The chaos within my assistant principal’s office was amazing! There were booklets handed in clear baskets, envelopes and some that she had obtained by hand.

I was one of the last teachers to sign off on my booklets and scantron sheets, she had to count and verify numbers and so did I. After that I stayed and sorted all of the booklets and scantron sheets. For this particular day all we did was sort booklets and scantron sheets using the teacher’s classroom list, we verified that everything was there and finally put the list on top of the stack. We did this for each teacher’s group and grade level that tested.

The next day, we counted scantron sheets and banded them by either English or Spanish and accounted for each in each grade level. We also had to fill out a scantron sheet for each grade level’s number of English and Spanish scantron sheets. Additionally we bubbled other scantron sheets for teacher groups to acknowledge whose group of students belonged to whom.

After all of this, we boxed the scantrons, booklets and labeled the boxes. My Assistant principal told me that she had to return all of these items to central office where they would be accounted for again but they needed to be finished on this day because she was expected the next day with everything at hand. On Thursday afternoon I stopped at her office to see how everything had gone and she said that after all of our work, the people at central had merely dumped everything out and sorted booklets and scantrons by number. This means we did a lot of work for nothing due to the fact that we sorted booklets by teachers instead of by number.

I asked her for permission to go with her the next time she has to return test items because I wanted to see the process for myself and she said yes. I am hoping for an insight on how this is done. She also stated that the next time we do this there will be many things that we will do differently to avoid the extra time we took. This is her first year as an assistant principal so I am learning the process along with her.

Assisting the Counselor with TAKS/SDAA testing was interesting because I could see how easy it is for teachers to get in trouble over testing. The Counselor was told that two teachers last year were terminated because of mistakes made during testing. I learned that you cannot assume that teachers understand what they need to do when attending the meeting and signing the oath a few days prior to the test, but they also need to be reminded of the DETAILS on the day of the test.

This week was a bit physically and emotionally trying for me. Of course with being a teacher in a TAKS grade I had to deal with the stress of TAKS day with the students, and I stayed behind for two days to help my AP pack and bundle up the tests until late at night. I learned a lot about how detailed and organized you have to be especially when dealing with the security issues of the TAKS test. I took this responsibility as if I was the one who would be held accountable if something was done incorrectly. I learned that it is very important to be aware of policies and procedures, or at least have them handy and close by, and to double check everything that you do. The problem that I am undergoing at this time unfortunately( and I did not expect this), was the transitioning from teacher at my own school to an administrator's role.

I got a rude awakening on Friday. I am trying to learn from it, but emotionally I feel trapped and a little bit betrayed. Here is what happened. On TAKS day, we had monitors come down from the district to make sure that all security measures were being followed. I had just come back from taking my students to the bathroom before I was going to administer the test when one of my students came rushing up to me to tell me that someone was about to rip down the bulletins that I had hanging in the hallway. Of course I went out into the hallway ( full teacher mode) to see what was going on. I noticed some of the parent volunteers in our wing of the hallway tearing down bulletins with students work and all. I had already covered up all of my bulletins that had anything to do with Reading and only a math shape project was left showing. The volunteers told me that they were instructed by my AP and the counselor to tear down all bulletin boards since there was no time to cover them up.

I had already noticed that a few teachers were already upset at the destruction of projects that had been worked on by themselves and their students. I told the volunteers that they were not going to tear down my bulletins that I had worked hard on especially when it had nothing do with reading or writing. ( sorry this is so long). I told them that I had black butcher paper right in my room, and I can quickly cover them up-so I did.

A few hours later when I had taken my students for another bathroom break, I had passed my Principal talking to one of the teachers who was upset and telling her about how her bulletins were just ripped down and destroyed. I paused to see what explanation would be given. The principal told her that the moniter had told them to cover the bulletins, but she did not tell anyone to just rip them down. The teacher told my Principal that the AP and the counselor had told the volunteers that they should be ripped down. I told my Principal that I managed to get to mine just in time, and was able to cover them up. She said good because it was a shame that this had to happen and someone must have panicked.

At the end of the day, some of us were talking about what happened with the bulletin boards and I told them that I had managed to cover mine up just in time. I was told that the counselor was the one that was making sure that everything was ripped down, but I told them well the day is over and done and I am sure the moniters can put at least the butcher papers back up.