You took the break. Maybe it was a long weekend. Maybe it was spring break or even a full summer. You needed it — that part was real. And for a while, it worked. You felt something loosening on day two or three. By the end you felt like yourself again, or at least closer…
There is a version of school leadership that runs on competence. The principal who knows the systems, manages the people, handles the crises, navigates the district. They are good at this. They may have been good at it for a long time. And they have long since stopped knowing why. Not why in the inspirational…
You know the kind of day I mean. Not a hard day — principals have those constantly and they have learned to navigate them. The other kind. The kind where something happened that required every leadership resource you had, and by the time the building cleared and you locked the door you felt scraped out….
The parent who calls the district instead of you first. The complaint letter that copied your superintendent and three board members. The social media post about your school that surfaced on a Friday evening and was shared forty-seven times by Monday morning. The parent who arrived at the front office demanding to speak with you…
Formal documentation of a teacher’s performance or conduct is one of the most legally consequential things a principal does. It is also one of the most commonly done badly — not because principals are careless, but because most of them were never taught what good documentation actually requires. They learned on the job, often in…
It is 9:47pm. You are not at school. But you are thinking about the conversation with the teacher you need to have tomorrow, the parent email that came in at 6pm that you have drafted a response to three times and deleted, and the district memo that arrived this afternoon that will require you to…
I have been in those rooms. The hallway after the conference session when the professional context has finally loosened enough for the real conversations to start. The hotel bar at the end of the administrator gathering when the formal agenda has released everyone and the actual agenda — the honest one — begins. The parking…
Going all in on this job is something I have done and something I am genuinely glad I did. I want to say that clearly before I say anything else — because the honest accounting of what all-in costs and what it means when the all-in finally runs out is not a disavowal of the…
I have said results, not excuses for the full span of my career in education. To staff who needed direct accountability. To students who needed a specific standard held. To myself on the mornings when the principal I intended to be was harder to access than the demands of the day required. And I want…
I want to say the true thing plainly before I say anything else: the principalship nearly broke me. Not in a single event with a clear date. In the way that things break over time when sustained weight is applied to a structure that was not adequately supported at the points where the load was…