Much has been written or talked about in the news of late about what
the classroom teacher is/not doing to educate our children. But very little has
been said about the ineffective principals that remain in failing
schools year after year with no improvement in test scores. For too
long…ineffective principals have been blaming their staff/faculty for their lack
of leadership, goals, vision, and failure to improve test scores. The classroom
teacher is the most visible person in your child's life at school, but it is the
principal who is responsible for providing a high- quality education for all
students there.
An ineffective principal is very detrimental to a school’s progress.
Instead of leading, many try to bully classroom teachers by threatening to place
them on a PDP (Professional Development Plan) or write them up about something
that’s frivolous in mature. What is so ironic about being placed on a PDP by an
ineffective principal is that they are…many times, are on a PDP also. Teachers
don’t respond to this type of maltreatment well because it leads to low morale,
high teacher turnovers, transfers, or teachers leaving the profession
altogether. And when the school’s environment is dysfunctional…the children
suffer, parents suffer, teachers suffer, and community suffers.
How do you know if your child’s principal is providing the kind of
leadership that it takes to make a great school? There are seven warning signs
parents need to look for when visiting their child’s school.
1. The principal has no overall vision for the
school. She doesn't have a sense of what kind of school community she
and the staff are trying to establish or what values the whole school should
uphold.
2. There is no plan to address academic achievement and the
schools' test scores continue to decline. Although principals can't
take all the blame for declining test scores, they should have clear goals for
school-wide academic improvement that they communicate to staff and students,
and ways to measure improvement against the goals. They should include staff and
parents in the goal-setting process.
3. The principal spends all her time in her office pushing
papers. He/she delegates discipline decisions and dealing with parents
to the school secretary. You never see him/her in classrooms, hallways, and
lunchroom or on the playground. He/she doesn't know students' names and doesn't
interact with them.
4. The principal is seldom there. He/she spends
much of his time away from the school in meetings or at conferences.
5. The principal does not return your phone calls.
If you have tried to contact her several times and he/she does not respond, you
should be concerned. If you do make contact, but he/she doesn't provide you with
any possible solution, you have a problem.
6. The principal tells everyone what he or she wants to
hear. He/she says "yes" to everyone but doesn't take
action.
7. The principal shows favoritism. It is obvious
that certain teachers, students or parents have the ear of the principal but
others do not.
Parents have the right to contact the principal when there is a concern
about their child's academic achievement or discipline within the classroom.
But, you should first contact your child's teacher. If you are not satisfied
with the teacher's response, you should contact the principal. It is always
better to try to work out problems with the teacher first. If you have a concern
about a school-wide discipline problem or the school's philosophy, you should
contact the principal.
Parents should contact the superintendent if the principal does
not return your phone calls or if you are dissatisfied with the response of the
principal. If you have concerns about the principal's leadership abilities and
you can clearly document those concerns, you should contact the superintendent.
If several parents feel the same way, make an appointment as a group to visit
the superintendent. There is always greater power in numbers!
In closing, effective principals don't make excuses for why
their schools can't succeed. Instead they make it their top priority to figure
out how their schools can excel, and do everything they can to make that
happen.
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