Reflections from the 2017 Principal of the Year Program

By -
Being a school principal in America can be a thankless job, and one that is ever-evolving. What would happen if you brought together some of the best, most influential school principals in our country to talk about how they leverage their strengths and resources to stay focused on transformational leadership in their schools on behalf of their students? I had the opportunity to be part of such a group. As the 2017 New Hampshire award winner, I have been honored to have spent the last few days in Washington, DC with 52 other State Principal of the Year Award winners at the 2017 Principals Institute, a program sponsored by the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP).


Speaking on behalf of my fellow state principals of the year, I can tell you that we are a very humble bunch. We don’t generally like the spotlight to be on us, although we enjoyed the opportunity to spend an evening this week at a spectacular awards ceremony hosted by NASSP where United States Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos took time out of her busy schedule to personally congratulate us on our professional efforts. When asked what we believe led to our selection for our state awards, most of us gave surprisingly simple answers. We listen. We put students first. We are endless cheerleaders for our schools and our school communities. We love what we do. Finally, we truly believe that we are making a positive impact on our communities in ways big and small, each and every day. My award is a tribute to the many educators at Sanborn Regional High School in Kingston, NH that work with me, laser-focused on redesigning our school to be one that is personalized, student-centered, and competency-based. My family will tell you that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, I see myself as an endless cheerleader for my school, my students, and of course, my staff. I see my role as a school leader as the person who can make connections and leverage resources for our school community so that our staff can help our students realize their potential. Ask any of my fellow state principals of the year and they will tell you they follow the same philosophy. All of us represent the thousands and thousands of school principals across our country who believe this as well.
On Tuesday September 26, our group got to do what we do best - we took the spotlight off of ourselves and instead focused it on advocacy work for public education. You can follow our efforts as a group on Twitter at #PrincipalsAdvocate or #POY2017. Over the course of the day, we conducted private meetings with many members of the United States Senate and Congress. Here are the highlights of what we focused our discussions on that day:
  • We promoted the importance of support for the Dream Act of 2017 (H.R. 3440/S. 1615). This bill provides a permanent solution and multiple pathways to citizenship for children in our schools who need this opportunity.
  • We endorsed the Public Dollars for Public Schools Act, a bill which would support taxpayer dollars for public education by barring individuals from receiving federal charitable tax deductions for contributions to voucher nonprofits that were already reimbursed with a state tuition tax credit.




We strongly believed that as representatives of school principals from coast to coast who live and work, day in and day out on the front lines of education with our teachers, we know what is best for all of our students and the future health and welfare of our country. We weren’t afraid to make our voices heard that day on Capitol Hill.


Finally, as a culmination to our experience, NASSP announced the three of us who are finalists for the honor of 2018 National Principal of the Year. The winner will be announced as a surprise ceremony at their school sometime during the month of October, an event to coincide with National Principals Month.
Congratulations to the following 2018 National Principal of the Year finalists:
  1. Jack Baldermann, Principal of Westmont High School in Westmont, IL, a school that was one of 500 nationwide chosen in 2015 by Newsweek Magazine for “Beating the Odds” because All African American and Latino students have graduated on time, four years in a row, and the number of underrepresented AP Scholars has increased by over 700 percent.
  1. Dr. Akil Ross, Principal of Chapin High School in Chapin, SC, an instructional leader who led his school to recognition as a South Carolina Palmetto's Finest Award recipient in 2015 for improving the school’s graduation rate to 96 percent.
  1. Tommy Welch, Principal of Meadowcreek High School in Norcross, GA, a school that under Welch’s leadership took one of Georgia’s largest and lowest performing, yet most diverse, urban schools and raised the graduation rate from 47 to 73 percent.


As the 2017 Principals Institute draws to a close, we will return to our school communities later this week re-energized, refocused, and rededicated to the fundamental reason we each got into education and took positions as principals in the first place: to make a difference for students, each and every day. They inspire us to do what we do. We feed off their energy, their drive, and their enthusiasm. We are, and shall forever be, their cheerleaders and advocates.

This article was written originally for MultiBriefs Education.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Speech to the NHS Inductees on Scholarship

By -
Image
Tonight, I will be speaking to you about scholarship, one of the four pillars of the National Honor Society. Scholarship is one of those words that we all can identify with, but it isn’t that easy to define. Dictionaries often define it to mean “academic achievement, learning; or the qualities of a scholar.” The qualities of a scholar --- well my ninth grade English teacher Mr. Tomallo never would have allowed me to use the word I was trying to define in the definition, so I have to dig deeper. What is a scholar? Again I turn to the dictionary, and I find the following: “A scholar is a learned person, someone who attends school or studies with a teacher.” I’m still not satisfied with this result. It seems the online dictionaries that Google has offered me are not helping me summarize what should be an easy-definable concept, scholarship. Perhaps I will need to research some examples of scholarship to help us better understand the concept.   In preparation for this speech I d
Read more

Does Your School Facility Need a Makeover?

By -
Image
Does your school facility need a makeover? According to this 2012 report by the National Center for Education Statistics, 53% of American schools are due for such an upgrade. Upgrades can be done in ways to fit almost any school budget. The key for school principals is to stretch the financial resources they have to provide the biggest rate of return possible to enhance student learning and overall school culture.   At a recent visit to my child’s middle school, the principal took me on a tour of recent upgrades made to their front entrance lobby. The building, built quickly and cheaply in the 1970’s has long since reached the status of obsolete in our community, yet we as a voting community just aren’t ready to support a project to build a new middle school. Like so many other principals from coast to coast in this situation, the principal had to look for small ways to make facility upgrades that would have a big impact. The lobby project was this kind of a project. Much to
Read more

My Speech to the NHS Inductees on Character

By -
Image
Character is perhaps the most abstract of the four National Honor Society pillars, and that perhaps makes it the most difficult to quantify and speak about. Most of us would say that we know good character when we see it. We identify with examples of strong character. Consider this situation: Four friends from out of state are passing through Kingston on their way to a vacation in the White Mountains. Their names are Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer. Yes, for those of you who recognize this story I am talking about the 4 main characters from the television series Seinfeld and this is the famous “final episode.” They witness a robbery in broad daylight. The robber has his hand in his pocket, and the victim shouts that the man has a gun. As soon as the robber runs away, a Kingston policeman appears on the scene; but instead of pursuing the robber, he arrests Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer for having violated the "Good Samaritan" law. Since the four of them spent
Read more