Under RttT, a lot of money and effort is focused on leadership. You may have read about it mostly in the NewsJournal coverage when they review the Partnership Zones, the Vision 2015 conference and/or some of the other Partners like Vision Network. All of these are high profile entities, schools trying to find strong leadership, and/or the worst of bad scenario’s in our state which draw a lot of the attention and potentially overshadow all other efforts and/or challenges. Are we just trying to get the worst schools out of a deep hole? Where are the leaders in our state who are setting a higher bar than before – not just trying to keep pace?
As parents in the BSD, what do you expect from our educational leadership and more specifically, your child’s school principal? When you were growing up and attending school, this role probably looked very different as the demands today are numerous.
But here is what I expect of a principal as a parent:
o Friendly Leadership
o Responsible Delegator
o Knowledgeable Politician
o Effective Administrator
Yet, I’m not sure if that is the direction I am witnessing as a parent. Some days it is hard to measure. In the local media, there are examples of recruitment of younger leaders, principals who are more and more responsible for monitoring and evaluating teachers in the classrooms, and/or talks about all of the administrative functions and accountability of principals to meet the “Standards” of today. And let’s not forget about “disciplinarian” and “policeman” functions of principals when things go wrong anywhere in the building and on the grounds.
I’m not sure yet if I have a “vision” for the ideal principal or what I think one should look like in about 10 years time. But I do hope that they evolve from what they are today – as some days, I’m expecting more than I am getting. Is that just me as one parent in the mix or are there other parents in our district looking for more as well?
Please let me hear your thoughts on the topic.
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