Being a new assistant principal has to be among the biggest challenges in school leadership. It can feel thankless, like the time I had to call the parent of a child who had made racist comments and aggressive actions toward another child after school on the way home. As typical as that kind of issue sadly is, what made it worse was calling the parents of the offender and being met with equally racist rhetoric and a lecture about how white people were being disenfranchised ….
That was nearly three decades ago, not yesterday. My favorite answer for an aspiring principal who asks (and many do ask), “When do you know when you’re ready to be a principal?” is so simple, it may surprise you: You know you’re ready to be a principal when you hang up the phone with a parent after telling them their child was disciplined for (fill in the blank) and they thank you.
I refer to this previous article, explaining school leaders can successfully balance competing demands from passionate educators and defensive parents by anchoring disciplinary decisions in objective principles rather than emotional conflicts, all while coming across supportive and understanding to both sides.
I was a new administrator then and didn’t have advice from someone else, so I am glad I can share now with emerging and current school leaders. We will always have moments when we will face what feels like an onslaught of challenges during which we have to sit squarely in the middle. We are, after all quite literally, middle management. Yet there are ways to throw off the scent of those wishing us harm, and still keep our balance while we work to help students thrive.
‘What Are You Gonna Do About It?’
Another experience that remains firmly in my memory illustrates the importance of managing my own reactions and how fortunate I was to get it right that time by chance, which is something I follow now with intent. This was years ago as a young new assistant principal. I had just been faced with issuing a fair amount of discipline that warranted me suspending not one but a number of students for issues that surfaced on a Friday. I am not someone who had or ever will enjoy suspending children, and I know the negative consequences that go beyond school. Yet at this time and with our school’s code of conduct calling for it, I had no other choice.
Mind you, I’m grateful to have come up with programs since then through research, trial, and error that have become recognized as ways to help children, especially those at-risk. Programs such as schoolhouse adjustments, which helped me drastically reduce suspensions. And Middle to Littles, which helped at-risk children find a unique way to be positively recognized and for it to be cool to care.
But before I had those ideas firmly in place, I had to survive with preexisting traditional methods.
Returning to school the following Monday following the suspensions, I was outside greeting students when there seemed to be a strange vibe. Soon, a young man approached me and said rather confusingly, “What are you gonna do about that?” I turned to him and asked, “Do about what?” As middle schoolers would be expected to do, he turned and said, “Never mind!”
I made my way over to where there seemed to be an unusual amount of attention–a three-foot-high curb, which served as a base for a tree bed and a spot popular with skateboarders, who often used skater wax (that custodians had to clean off regularly) to slide across at night and on weekends. The curb was an ideal height to make a jump and slide, so we were used to seeing wax there.
But this time was different. This time, a skater had drawn with the wax words I cannot quote here about my wife….
The student asked again, “What are you going to do about that?” To which I replied in the blink of an eye, “Nothing, it doesn’t matter, it’s not true.” I walked away smiling, hiding my real emotions inside. As the bell rang and students entered the building, I immediately went to the head custodian and asked him to remove the wording.
Later, I learned that the students were expecting a reaction that would have entertained them. Me, upset, yelling, demanding, etc. That’s because a prior assistant principal would put his hands in his hair and scream with outrage. I didn’t know at the time whether my reaction was effective leadership sense or just plain logical.
I later learned that my response was smart on-the-fly leadership instinct. I didn’t give the expected attention/outrage to the incident, which rendered it anticlimactic. A broken clock is correct twice a day, and I got it right at that moment! Yet it helped me remember that many micro moments call for quick thinking on your feet if you are to be any good at leading.
Leaders are tested as middle managers, by parents questioning our decisions, teachers complaining about our decisions, and yes, skaters laying offensive words across the curb about your wife.
Were they trying to hurt me? Of course, but by not showing any injury, it wasn’t fun anymore. I never saw skater wax with anything about me, or my wife, again. It was just one of those lessons I learned. The “never let them see you sweat, because everyone is watching the person in charge,” kind of a lesson.
