The previous principal at my school had to scale it back, so she left to run a much smaller school. I now have a new principal at my school. I worked with him before, briefly; about 6-7 years ago. He is much younger than me, and was a teacher at the time. We were kinda of cool yet a bit indifferent towards each other. This dynamic may be due to the fact we really didn't work that closely together.
These days he is a married man with two small children and is "living out loud for Jesus, unashamed and determined to see His glory shine!" He has five years of teaching experience and about the same years of experience as an administrator.
I am curious to see how this all works out. He is taking on the largest Pre-K-8 school in the district with half of the student population identified as English Language Learners, and over 90% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Oh and our school has over 800 kids! Yup! It's one huge challenge to take on.
It concerns me that someone so young and relatively inexperienced as both a teacher and administrator was selected for this school. I would have placed an interim principal, moved this guy over for the experience, and done a complete search for an experienced principal from a school similar to my school.
Alas, the superintendent didn't ask me for my personal take on how things should be handled. With all this said, I will do my part to be a part of the solution. In life there is nothing permanent except change, and I will embrace this change.
2 comments:
The new "thing" is to place these barely experienced adults in positions like that hoping for innovation and end up burning out people who, given enough time to grow, could make major change. As far as the Jesus thing goes...okay, good-luck, I guess. A school with 800 kids should have 2 principals and two asst. principals just to get everything covered.
Interesting comment Ms. Renee. I have to say that within the past 4 years, I have seen several "young" principals either leave the district or take on a non-administrator job within the district. It usually occurred about two years after they tried being a principal.
I happen to believe that an older, more experienced person brings the patience and life experience needed in order to handle the job of principal.
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