There is a version of my career that I have told in professional contexts for years. I have told it in conference presentations and hiring conversations and the introductions to professional development sessions and the conversations with aspiring administrators who wanted to understand what the principalship actually required. That version was accurate. It was not…
Part of our complete guide: How to Become a Principal. You have the credential. You have the experience. Your resume shows leadership roles and measurable outcomes and the right combination of instructional and operational evidence. You have been a finalist twice and have not gotten the offer. And you are trying to figure out what…
Part of our complete guide: How to Become a Principal. You are doing the visible work of the transition. You are building your leadership experience — the committee chairs, the grade level leadership, the PD facilitation, the district work that gets your name in front of the people who make hiring decisions. Your resume is…
Part of our complete guide: How to Become a Principal. You are not asking this question because you are having doubts about your commitment. You are asking it because you are serious enough about the decision to want an honest answer before you make it — not the answer that is designed to get you…
Part of our complete guide: How to Become a Principal. You are thinking about making the move. You have been running the math in your head — not the noble version of the math, not the version you say out loud in a principal interview when you talk about your passion for student outcomes. The…
Part of our complete guide: How to Become a Principal. The word networking makes most educators uncomfortable. It sounds like something that happens in hotel ballrooms at conferences, with business cards and elevator pitches and conversations that are obviously about what you can get from the other person. Most teachers and APs — people who…
It’s 1:14am and you are wide awake, replaying a conversation that happened at 2pm yesterday. Not replaying it productively — you’re not problem-solving or planning what you’ll say next. You’re just running it. The parent’s tone. The exact words you chose. Whether you should have said something different. Whether your silence in that one moment…
It’s 3:15pm. A teacher just knocked on your door with a question that, two months ago, you would have answered in thirty seconds. Today you stare at them for a beat too long. The answer is in there somewhere. You just cannot get to it. You feel something between exhausted and irritable, and you don’t…
The principal is the institution’s primary carrier. Every significant problem in the building eventually moves toward the person at the top of the building’s hierarchy — because that person has the authority to address it, the accountability for whether it was addressed, and the specific positional visibility that makes them the logical destination for everything…
The strategic plan says equity. The budget communicates something more specific about which schools the commitment to equity extends to in practice. The mission statement says teachers are the most valued professionals in the system. The working conditions those teachers navigate on a daily basis communicate a different institutional priority. The superintendent’s message to principals…