Thanksgiving - My Administration

 Every November, I use this blog to express my gratitude for those people in my past who have formed the educator I am today.  These have mostly been teachers I had in middle and high school.  I am continually thankful for formative people, but this year, I want to express my gratitude for the people who are currently in my educational life.  I will do this in three posts because I am thankful for my current administration, the parents of my students, and the colleagues with whom I share my daily life.  This post will be about the administration of GRACE Christian School.

I think the job of school principal is fairly misunderstood.  Most of us only remember the experience we had as children, when we were afraid to be sent to the principal's office; but that's about it.  The job of principal is much, much more than discipline, however.  They do so much that people don't consider.

School administrators create school culture.  They hire teachers that will fit with the school philosophy and with other teachers.  They send messages in a variety of ways, from emails to meetings.  They set the tone in every faculty meeting.  Whether they are strictly authoritarian, focused on compliance or they are very collaborative, focused on relationships; they communicate that with the way they make decisions.  My principal and head of school are great at setting a tone of confident leadership.  They ask for our input, and they truly listen.  Here are a few examples from the pandemic.  We began the year last year knowing it would be difficult to return to in-person learning pre-vaccine.  The public cannot know how social distancing affected EVERY part of the day.  It's not just a matter of positioning desks farther apart.  It especially influenced the less structured settings, like lunch.  This meant a lot more duties for teachers.  I went from having lunch duty a couple of months per year to having it every other month.  Initially, we had posted double the people on morning door duties because we wanted someone next to the temperature scanners.  About a month into school, we had a meeting to reassess.  While there was nothing that could be done about lunch, we were able to cut back on the morning duty because temperature scanning had become a normal matter which no longer required a person to be posted.  Our administrators immediately redesigned the duty list to reduce the pressure.  In February, we had a meeting to discuss remote learning.  Because administrators have all been teachers, they have always had their own experience to base their perspective on.  Hybrid was different.  For the first time, administrators had not done what their teachers were doing.  They came into the meeting with plans to include remote learning going forward, but when teachers expressed what this model was doing to us, they truly listened and changed course.  There were two immediate changes to address the biggest frustrations, but they also slowed their plans to have virtual instruction in the future.  They continued to solicit input, and we found a method that could serve students without overburdening teachers.  The pandemic isn't the only time when our administration has been supportive, but it has created more opportunities for us to recognize it; so here is one more.  Our head of school called a "snow day" last year when there was no prediction of snow because he recognized the need we had for rest.  Last week, we had another one when he extended the Veterans' Day observation Thursday to Friday as well.  The tone they set is one of love and support.  

School administrators make the decisions I don't want to make, and they have to take the heat for it.  In our return to school, administrators had more decisions to make than ever (and it's not like they had a small number of decisions to make before).  It seems there is nothing more controversial than masks, so when a message goes out about how we will handle that, their inbox is filled with replies from people who don't think we should be wearing them at all as well as those who wish we could figure out how to keep them on even while eating.  No matter what decision is made, there will be people who don't like it.  While they solicit input, they have to ultimately make a decision and confidently stick with it.  Few people tell you when they agree with you, but everyone tells you when they don't.  

Administrators carry the weight of the school.  From the day-to-day decisions to the big themes of the year, they are the guiding hand.  When things are going well, we all get to share in the celebration, but when something is wrong, they are the shoulders on which we lean.  When a school experiences a tragedy, they care for the students as well as the staff while experiencing their own emotions.  They are the ones with crying teachers in their office.  They are the ones making the decisions we are prone to criticize.  They are the public face of the school to parents.  They feel it all.  

I spend a lot of time on Twitter, reading what other teachers post.  Many are struggling with administrators who, not only don't understand, they don't care to understand.  They are dealing with leaders who have political ambitions or care only about test scores (even in a pandemic).  They have administrators who say, "We care about you" but don't show it.  I am grateful to have leaders who pray for and with us, find ways to give us a rest when they can, and lead with empathy and love.  Thank you to Eric Bradley (head of school), Mandy Gill (upper school principal), Blake Hickman and Daniel Servi (deans of students), leaders at the lower school campus, and the rest of our leadership team.