Mrs. P. started today and I am looking forward to all that this change brings. I do feel very lucky that I get to be here when this is happening. There is a lot that needs to be learned and it is good to have her figuring things out with me around so I can glean some insight from her.We talked a lot about finances today (which is good since it is part of my homework, I like killing two birds with one stone).The principal's discretionary fund is money that principals can decide how to use since it doesn't fit in any other budget. It comes from vending machines and pictures mostly, and my finance professor said that money left at the end of the year that has not been spent from budgets can fall into that category as well.Mrs. P. likes to spend money twice. That is, she likes to find creative ways to pay for things and stretch every penny. She likes to give her teachers what they need, but tries to avoid saying things like, "You have to spend this money or you will lose it" because it creates an attitude of we-better-buy-this-even-if-we-don't-need-it-because-we-can! That is not a good attitude for people to have.

Mrs. P. moved her office around today, and mentioned the importance of changing physical things. It is easy for a principal to get things stuck how they have always been, and this is an opportunity for her to show that things will change. It doesn't mean that everything has to change, but as a principal, you really want to make sure that people know that you won't be the same as the person before. Also, it doesn't feel like it is your office until you move things around a bit. I moved my stuff around in my classroom three or four times before I was happy.Besides that, we met with another teacher that tracked the CSIP budget and talked about financial things. Obiviously, I won't give all the gory details here, but I will highlight some things that I learned.It is important to keep things organized and let those who need to know know, and make sure that everyone that needs to be involved is actually involved. The principal pretty much has the final say on everything, but can't do much without letting the Community School Improvement Plan (CSIP) Committee know what is being planned. Goals need to be made for the school each year, and those goals are what determines where you spend your money.The boy who was suspended the first day I was here has not had any home and hospital visits. The school was supposed to send someone to help him do schoolwork for two hours a week, but Mr. P. could not find anyone who could go and help him. When I talked to the District person about that, he was shocked that nothing had been done. The school (and the district) is in charge of making sure that he gets his visits, and is required to give him those visits. So, if he doesn't get the visits when he is not at school, they have to give them to him at some point. I don't know what to do if you don't have any teachers that are willing to do home and hospital for the kid.Have a Good Life.

Two big things happened today. First, I had to coordinate with about ten people for professional development days next week. Second, we got the test scores back.When you work with people, you are on a major slow-down. It takes so long to get anything done. One person called me back yesterday from all the people that I tried to contact. For me, that is very frustrating, because I don't like having things go unfinished. That will be one of my biggest struggles as a principal.With our test scores coming back, it is important that we know what we need to do to improve. The hard part is getting people to see and agree with what it is needed. In reality, it doesn't really matter what we do, and the teachers can do whatever they want, as long as the results happen.

I wrote a letter to the faculty today talking about what we will be doing when everyone comes back to school. I have included part of it below. It made Mrs. P. laugh when she read it, and there are a couple funny things in it. Mrs. P. said that I needed to sign it because if she did, the teachers wouldn't know if she was joking or not. Since I have been there for a while, most of the teachers know that I am a bit of a jokester.Dear Teachers,I hope you are having a great summer vacation, albeit short! We will be having our Professional Development days on the 17th and 18th of July.We will provide breakfast on the 17th from 8:00-8:30 am, and will start our meeting at 8:30. We will go until 4:00 pm, with an hour-long lunch break on your own. In the morning we will talk about the new math curriculum and the afternoon will be spent discussing think time.Friday’s times will be the same, with breakfast at 8:00 and lunch on your own. Mr. S. from the district will start his presentation at 8:30. After an hour break for lunch, we will talk about literacy and the big, bad, scary CRT SCORES of Doom! We will go until 4 pm.It will be a busy and fun two days. Mrs. P. is on assignment from the district for those two days, so it will be a party with me.Regular contract day begins the 21st, and faculty meeting will start at 8:00 am. Contract days are the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd. The building will be closed July 24th and 25th. Students begin school on the 28th!Back-to-school night will be on the 22nd of July, and the PTA will provide lunch that day.Enjoy the rest of your break!These welcome back letters are important. It can help set the tone for the year. It is important to make them aware of what will be going on. Just a little bit of openness helps them feel that you are on the same team.Have a Good Life.

One of the most important jobs in a school is the secretary. Those who know, know that she holds more power than anyone. Our finance class went to a high school yesterday and looked at the budgets they have. There are hundreds of thousands of dollars passing through that school every year, and the principal there stressed how important it is to have a good secretary. By the way, they pay $2000 a month to lease their copy machine, and that sounds like it is way too much.Our secretary at ES is so great! She makes every effort to do things correctly and really does a smash job. Whenever she does something that might be remotely questionable, she announces it. So, she says, "I am going to go put this on Mrs. P.'s desk, so she has it." I really don't think it is a big deal that she goes into Mrs. P.'s office before Mrs. P. gets here, or while she is gone. She has legitimate needs and goes in there when it is appropriate, and stays out if she doesn't need to be in there. What I am trying to say is that Mrs. S. is very transparent. She doesn't do anything that you don't know about. When it comes to making sure that your office is run correctly, you can count on her to be honest and transparent. She doesn't hide anything, so it makes it easy to trust her. You need to trust her. The principal at the high school could not stress that enough. It is too big a job to not have trust. And even though he trusts his secretary, he still knows where every single penny in his school goes. I really think that he is the most "aware" principal I have met.Have a Good Life.

We met the teachers that Mr. P. hired for our school today. There are five of them. They seem to be pretty sharp, and it was my most exciting day. It was fun to get to know them. Mrs. P. and I were both in a good mood, and it was fun to not stress about things that needed to be done.The office staff did a great job of being positive about the school and what goes on here, anyway. Our janitor, on the other hand, was full of negative comments. It is very frustrating. Having taught at a "hard" school, and realizing that the difficulty of the school is 90% due to how you think about it. The problem is that people will complain about things regardless of how good they really are. They will find any problem.People complain because it is easier to be upset about something than to find the good in a given situation.It is much easier to be negative than it is to be positive. But, if you aren't positive, your job/school/life will never be satisfying.I believe that it will be my job as principal to set a positive tone in my school. I tried really hard to communicate some positive things to the teachers, and I hope they can see that, and will be able to find the positive in the school. If you are positive, good things can happen.

At the end of each year, principals need to check-out of their schools. They turn in compliance documents, budgets, other documents, and talk about general and specific school business.I thought the meeting was kind of neat because we got to sit down with the Area Director and talk about the school in general. She was checking out of her old school, and basically checking in to her new school. The area director showed us results of a survey about the two schools. It was interesting to see where our school did worse than her old school. You could see that many of the problems we have been having here can be attributed to a few select problems.One of the problems that need to be fixed is the cleanliness of the school. The custodian is having a major power struggle with Mrs. P. We were able to talk to the janitor's district supervisor today, and learned that some of the problems stem from the person before our current custodian, who left halfway through the year. Previous custodian did not do much, but Mr. P. didn't care, and so the district guys couldn't put the pressure on him. Now, Mrs. P. does care, so they will be able to start talking to him more and getting things done better.I have realized that even though this school district has a bad name, the people that can actually do things (area director, custodial staff, computer/tech support, air handlers, and many others) are actually really great people, who care about success and helping others out. It has been good to see that.Have a Good Life.

Being in a year-round school brings with it a realization that the school is never closed. Right now, there are no teachers or students here, but there is still a lot to do.The school needs to be ready for teachers to come back, just two weeks after they left. There are some other people who have done internships and they have complained that there is nothing to do in their elementary schools. I think I got lucky to have two principals here that have kept me busy...more busy than I was as a teacher even. There is not much downtime, and even when there is, there is still plenty to do.Today, for example, I was thinking that it would be pretty slow with Mrs. P. gone to a district conference all week. Turns out, I was wrong. There is plenty for me to do. She left me a short list, but there was still a lot of preparation for the professional development days this week, as well as stuff that just comes up as the day goes on.It is pretty exciting though, because you are never bored. Working with people may be the hardest and best part about this job, though. It is frustrating when you have to deal with people who don't want (or even know how) to do their jobs, and then it is completely worth it when someone really does improve and become a better person. I hope that I can see more of the latter as I continue than of the former.Have a Good Life.

I must be getting excited for school to start in three weeks, because I had a dream about the first day. The best part was that I got a sub for that day because I have been too busy to do anything for my school this summer.Have a Good Life.

A couple months ago, I commented on how great it is when learning is frustrating. Well, it is still great, but sometimes it is not that great. As you may have noticed, I took off all the posts from my internship this summer. My principal made a good point, she said that I was privy to a lot of information and that I didn't realize how much trust I was given.I know that I make mistakes and that I am not perfect, but I sure don't like being told about it.The feelings that I experienced when she told me were very conflicted. I was sad, hurt, offended, suddenly aware of the weight of that job, and extremely grateful that she told me how she felt. It is not fun to be called out, but it is sometimes needed.Thank you Mrs. P. for a wonderful internship, and helping me learn something that was hard to swallow, but needed to be said.Have a Good Life.