I wrote this article a few years ago when I was an assistant principal. I am currently serving on the NASSP A.P. task force. I thought I would re-post this article to shine the light on one of the most challenging positions in education. I hope you enjoy!
One of the most important roles in a school is that of the assistant principal. (Disclaimer: I am currently an assistant principal, so these may be a bit biased!). The duties of the assistant principal are wide ranging and quickly changing. The job has always entailed student discipline and supervision as well as other managerial tasks such as bus duty, scheduling, event coverage, “key keeper” and so on. However, assistant principals are asked to delve more and more into curriculum and improving student achievement.
Most assistant principals welcome this new requirement. I have never pulled into the school parking lot excited about bus duty or making sure all of the doors are locked during an emergency drill. I am quite certain most of my colleagues feel the same way. I am an assistant principal so I can impact students. I want to increase student achievement and allow each and every child to be the best they can be. I want to be an instructional leader. I want to gather and analyze data to improve instruction. I want to build relationships with kids so they have another person looking after them and encouraging them through the tough times we call school. I want to work with other adults collaboratively in the best interest of kids.
Many, if not all, assistant principals do these things. We know it is expected of us and we enjoy doing it. We know it is in the best interest of the students. However, many assistant principals struggle to find a way to balance the time demands of being an instructional leader and a manager.
I do not always want to do bus duty. I do not particularly want to sort the bins of testing materials for the state assessment. However, I know these are parts of my job and I always complete them with the most diligence and professionalism. All of this presents an issue. How can an assistant principal use the time afforded to “manage” the school and still be the instructional leader that he/she wants to be?
The National Association of Secondary Schools Principals recently selected 15 administrators for a task force on the assistant principalship. I was honored to be one of those selected. We will be spending a lot of time on defining the role of the assistant principal. I am truly excited to be part of the task force and eagerly look forward to working with colleagues from across the nation.
Assistant principals were stretched on time before the accountability aged rolled in. Taking care of the nuts and bolts of school operation takes a tremendous amount of time. What are some of the ways an assistant principal can complete both managerial type duties with more instructional focused ones?
I have worked directly with 9 or 10 different assistant principals during my time as a school administrator. All of us have aspirations to be a building principal. Two of them have already been promoted to lead their own school. We realize that to prepare ourselves for our future role, we need to be the strongest instructional leaders. Handling referrals are one thing, but if we are ever to be entrusted to run our own school, we know we have to stand out from the crowd. We decided to develop procedures to give ourselves time for the instructional duties we wanted to perform.
At my last high school we made a fundamental change to how we handled student discipline. Previously, we were each assigned a part of the alphabet and if one of our students received a referral, we handled it. We often found ourselves in the office for a good part of the day. One of my colleagues came up with a great plan. Our school was rather large and there were 5 assistant principals. Instead of handling student discipline via the alphabet we created a schedule that allowed us to be out of the office for 3 full days a week (sometimes even 4 days!). Two administrators were assigned to discipline each day. When you had discipline duty, you were often handling referrals all day. This kept you tied to the office, but it created much more time during a given week to observe classes, work with data, and do the things we really want to do. A positive unintended side effect was that referrals were handled much quicker as well.
At my current middle school we have 3 assistant principals. We handle student referrals for our grade level. I have tried to implement a few procedures to use my time as efficiently as possible. I always make it a point to handle referrals as quickly as possible. I think the teachers enjoy this and it is better for the students. If a student misbehaves in class and three days later I ask why they did what they did, I will usually get a look of confusion. Maybe they are trying to get out of trouble, but three days to a middle school child is similar to how I feel watching my beloved Dolphins this year (for the non-football fans, the Dolphins are 0-11!).
I try to schedule a time each day to handle student discipline issues. The 7th grade students attend their elective classes the last two periods of the day. I generally handle referrals during this time. It keeps them in their core classes as much as possible. However, I am a true believer in the benefits of the arts, so I am not so sure this is the best plan possible. Of course, some incidents require immediate attention and these are handled as they arise. At my school, most of the incidents seem to occur outside of class. I make an attempt to be as visible as possible during class change. Hopefully, this is preventing some incidents before they occur.
If you surveyed assistant principals, I think the number one issue would be finding time to be an instructional leader in light of our other responsibilities. I would also predict that these instructional duties are why just about all of us chose this profession. I hope serving on the task force will allow me to learn from others on how they manage their time.
