Entry #9: "There's no such thing for
a principal as 'easing back into a routine.'"

It's a nice feeling to discover in subtle ways that perceptions of what your school is truly all about have changed for the better.

This past week, Champaign's three middle school principals did our "dog and pony" show for the current fifth graders across the district's 11 elementary schools. We set up a schedule to jointly meet with all of the fifth graders to begin to calm their butterflies about coming to middle school. Since we have no true, elementary feeder schools, this has been a great way to reach everyone. It gets a bit tiring by the end of the week, but the kids are so attentive and appreciative that we seem to quickly forget the monotony of the presentation routine.

Four years ago when we began doing this (two of us had just begun our current principalships), fifth graders would ask us questions that typically focused on school climate issues: rumors of fights all the time, personal items being stolen, and the like. Whereas those perceptions were blown out of proportion, the reality of the situation was that continuous administrative turnover in two of the three middle schools -- mine included -- didn't exactly help create a consistent set of expectations that were aggressively enforced.

This time around the student questions tended to revolve more around the typical concerns one would expect a fifth grader would be anxious about: learning locker combinations, being late to class, homework, and changing into PE uniforms, to name several. Next week we'll do our best to calm parents' butterflies when we host our fifth grade orientation programs. Needless to say, our experience tends to be that anxiety runs a lot higher with the fifth grade parents than it does with the fifth graders themselves!

My elementary school visits consumed most of my mornings during first week back from the holiday break, so my afternoon schedules were jammed. I caught up on students who I am personally mentoring: a seventh grader we retained last year who was once again failing all of her core subject areas after first quarter; a sixth-grade special education student with potentially explosive behavioral concerns; and another seventh grader who should be a straight-A student but who is just "going through the motions" for some reason.

And then there's Tyerice. Remember him? He's the young man we accelerated into eighth grade this year from sixth grade (he'd repeated first grade). He got off to a great start through first quarter, both academically and behaviorally. Since then, some concerns have started to surface about Tyerice.

Don't misunderstand me -- I'm not looking back on my decision to accelerate him. One of his grades had dropped to an F, but he managed to bring it back up to a passing grade with the help of basketball eligibility requirements. It's his attitude that concerns me. Whether it's a staff member asking him more than once to remove his hat in the building, or someone having to make sure he leaves the school premises at the end of the day when he has no reason to be in the building, he gets "testy" with school staff. It was my turn on Friday. He even got a scowl on his face when I asked him to head on home after school. Has his head gotten too big for him? After all, he has been not only a school and district success story for African American students, but a young person who has been well publicized in the community press. He's a star on the eighth grade basketball team and is very popular among his peers. Maybe there's something happening at home.

I'm trying to remind myself that Tyerice is still just a kid. On one hand he can demonstrate maturity beyond his years; on the other hand, he's as vulnerable to peer pressure both at school and in his neighborhood that can lead to bad choices. I just hope when basketball season is over in a month or so, and he senses along with other eighth graders that they're in the "home stretch" of their final middle school semester, that the bottom doesn't drop out. I may need to add more "touch bases" with Tyerice to my daily calendar.

Then, of course, my Type A personality has left me feeling guilty that I wasn't able to get into some classrooms this past week or to stay in closer touch with my staff -- especially checking in with them on how their holiday breaks were. You just hope, pray, and trust that your staff understands the many different "looks" that a principal's day can take. There is no such thing for a principal, at least in my mind, as "easing back into a routine." No matter how caught-up you think you are, there's always a plateful of something else waiting for you.

I guess that's why someone gave me some interesting reading material as a holiday gift: Tom Wheeler's book, "Leadership Lessons from the Civil War." Frankly, I was kind of looking forward to Dave Pelz' new golf book, "The Short Game Bible." The golfer in me likes to think that I can learn as much about managing adversity from bunkers and unplayable lies as I can from the decisions of generals and presidents. Well, at least it's a great way to try to justify all the time I spend on the golf course when I can get free!


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