News-Record.com

I'll never forget my elementary school principal, Mr. France. He terrified me.

I was sent to his office twice, experiences that cured me of teenage rebelliousness before I turned 10. To this day, you could stop my heart for a second or two by saying, "Mr. France is here to see you, and he looks really steamed."

Even though he must be 85 by now.

Mr. France was a force to be reckoned with, a man of unquestioned authority. After all, he was the principal. And in my estimation at the time, that was a position of power next in line to the president and maybe the governor.

I've known a lot of principals since then, of course, and my perspective has changed. I learned over the years that principals aren't quite the public school potentates I thought, dispensing discipline to sniveling miscreants, feared and respected by all, answering to no one. Instead, they have many masters, they're constantly second-guessed and, sometimes, they're not all that sure of themselves.

Well, they're only human. And I certainly never thought of Mr. France as "only human."

Despite my more realistic view of principals, I still appreciate the job they do. It's one of the toughest I can imagine.

Principals are educators, but that really means it's their responsibility to provide an environment where teachers can teach and children can learn.

So, they have to make sure school is a safe place. It has to be orderly. It has to be clean, inside and out. The buses have to arrive and leave on schedule, with the right children on each one. Food must be prepared and served properly. Paperwork has to be done correctly. Funds must be exactly accounted for and spent effectively.

The principal hires and supervises the teachers, making sure they know their curriculum, follow school policies and get the material and administrative support they need to concentrate on their students.
The principal has to deal with the superintendent, board of education members, parents, volunteers, the media, the school's neighbors and community leaders -- all of whom may bring complaints, ask hard-to-answer questions and make unreasonable demands.

The principal has to know every student by name and as many parents as possible. He or she has to constantly visit classrooms, keep an eye on the hallways, watch the school grounds for suspicious activity, return phone calls promptly and be available when needed in the office. The principal must show up at every after-school event and attend all PTA meetings. And then there are seminars and central-office meetings that can't be missed.

Principals have to push relentlessly for academic improvement while making sure that teachers don't get burned out and children receive a well-rounded education that includes PE, the arts, field trips and cultural activities.

And, just when a principal finally gets everything working just right in a school and feels comfortable with the community, the faculty and the facility, he or she is transferred to another school and has to start all over again.

That person deserves a round of applause. Yet most of us rarely give a hand to the principal at our nearest school because, unless we have kids there, we probably don't know him or her -- not even a name.
Something's different since Mr. France's time. Then, principals were widely recognized and counted among the leading citizens of the city or town. That doesn't seem true today.

One reason is turnover. Principals seem to come and go so fast, either of their own accord or because the superintendent is continually reshuffling his deck of administrators. Once, a principal might spend 20 years at a school, but no more.

Many of them also tend to be young, even in their late 20s or early 30s. Even students might find it hard to muster up a sense of awe for an authority figure who's a decade younger than their parents.

But I think the real problem lies with the community. People without a direct interest in the schools tend to pay less attention to them and to the people who run them. They don't try to learn who the principal is. And that's a failing because the principal is a key figure in the lives of our community's children, and that makes him or her important to all of us.

Which leads me to a terrific event planned in High Point. It's a reception for all the principals of public schools in that city, sponsored by High Point City Council, the Guilford Education Alliance, High Point Chamber of Commerce and a dozen other organizations. It's scheduled for Aug. 22 at the Roy Culler Center, 600 North Hamilton St., 5:30-7:30 p.m.

That's a good first step. The next step should be for civic clubs and churches to invite these principals to speak to their organizations about what's going on in the schools and how volunteer groups can lend their support. Principals need partners.

I plan to attend, and I'm only sorry Mr. France won't be there.