r/Principals

High School. Suspended a student last week. It was reported he was vaping by another student in the bathroom and two teachers reported he appeared to be under the influence. I had reasonable suspicion to ask him to empty his pockets. He did, but refused to hand over the contents. I could see the top of his vape when he pulled everything out.

Mom has now lost her mind. Accusing me of everything from targeting to racism. Threatening to go to the board, police, superintendent etc., all while blasting me on FB. Calling my actions unconstitutional. Her baby doesn't lie according to her. All my documentation is in order and my boss is very supportive.

For some reason, I'm allowing this mom to bother me and questioning myself on how I handled it. I tell myself I don't care and to toughen up, but I'm allowing her to get under my skin. This is my 2nd year in administration.

Edit: I should add, that I'm not worried that I did anything inappropriate- I'm on solid ground and have full upper admin support.

I'm more curious how you keep this from rattling your confidence? It's exhausting battling parents like this.

A third of the teachers quit at my school and it’s likely our principal isn’t going to be a very positive reference for any of us. If your new applicant has 3 positive references but none of those references are from admin will you contact their listed supervisor? If their supervisor is negative how does this affect the likelihood of moving forward with hiring the applicant if they have green flags everywhere else?

Hello, my name is Zach Hein-Silva and I'm a doctoral candidate in the school psychology program at the University of Northern Colorado. I am collecting data for my dissertation, which aims to validate a measure of organizational cultural intelligence (OCQ) in school settings and understand how perspectives of school OCQ differ based on staff role (e.g., teacher, school counselor, administrator, etc.) and access to resources. If you are an administrator (principal, vice principal, superintendent, etc.) currently working in a preK-12 school in the United States, your participation in this study would be greatly appreciated! Participation would consist of responding to the survey linked below (about 10-15 minutes to complete). Through participating, you will have the opportunity to enter a raffle for a small gift card should you so choose.

Survey link: https://unco.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cIRLI7ML6GqkH0a

Thank you for all that you do and feel free to comment or message me if you have any questions!

(admin-approved)

So I have worked at my high school for the last 12 years teaching math (am the dept chair), and have taught math total 17 years in HS and community college.

The last two years test scores have been on the radar for math. They have gone down. Principal has talked to our dept weekly and almost every time it's the word "test scores have to go up". I understand this because the district will get on our principal is there are low test scores. I don't like it but I guess it is what it is.

We have changed curriculum and changed the way we taught.

Recently our star scores were not all that great and we have to wait for the PSAT data to come out sometime this Summer before we know how well our students scored percentile wise.

The problem is that there is no incentive or we can't do incentives for students to perform well.

Is this a problem in more areas in the nation right now with low test scores in HS math?

If you were me, would you move on? I don't want to be that guy that is looked down upon because our test scores aren't good. It seems like whatever we do, students are not motivated to do well because there is no punishment for doing poorly or a reward for doing well.

I am thinking of relocating to another state or changing the subject I teach in. I'm not sure my nervous system can handle another year of being told I'm not up to par due to student's test scores.

By the way, I was told "next year will likely be my last at the school" if test scores from this year's PSAT have not improved. My principal is not all bad and said some good things on my eval but that part kind of hit me.

On Friday, I received a certified letter from the parent requesting a no-contact arrangement involving the PTA president. The request includes asking that the PTA president not be present at meetings the parent attends. However, as PTA president, she is generally expected to attend PTA meetings.

The initial complaint involved alleged discrimination related to a disability. The PTA president responded to that complaint by email in a way that appeared to dismiss the parent’s concerns. There are now active state and federal investigations based on complaints filed by the parent. The PTA in a moment of anger responded to an official complaint saying that the parent is being difficult and that they are lying about being discriminated against. then the PTA president sent a school wide notification that a parent reported discrimination buy she doesn’t believe our school discriminates.

the parent also filed complaints with the state and OCR which are still pending. do I have to grant this no contact?

Is “anonymous feedback” really anonymous?

Sometimes I’m tempted to share concerns, however it always feels like I’m walking into a trap.

It's happened to over a dozen admin in my district in the last decade. Now it's me.

No write ups. No major issues in my evaluation. I've been at my school a while. I have strong relationships with staff and families. I am heartbroken, and so are many of them. District is moving me into a really good situation, honestly. So I can't even be mad about that. Just the fact that I wasn't even consulted is hurting me a lot. How do I move past that so I can be hopeful for the future?

Edit for more context: The problem I'm having is that they didn't consult me, AND this move does not align with my professional goals or personal values. So while I do think they feel it's in my best interest, I am having a hard time accepting it. I'm going to have to completely shift my goals in a way, and the misalignment with my values has sapped away all my passion for my career. I'm feeling so lost.

What are some time-consuming and/or repetitive tasks that you wish AI could do? Or, are there tasks that you’ve tried to offload to AI but it didn’t work and it frustrated you?

You can answer this as a somewhat reasonable “wish list” use – it doesn’t have to be rooted in what you think AI can do currently.

I’m thinking about pivoting to providing professional development on AI to administrators. Whatever anyone’s feelings about AI are, its integration into the education space is big news.

I rely heavily on the Hamilton soundtrack but when I really need a boost I start with “Right Hand Man”

Other favorites:

I got the power : SNAP
Squabble Up : Kendrick Lamar
Fight the Power: Public enemy
U.N.I.T.Y : Queen Latifah
Purple Hat : Sofi Tukker
I Know I can: NAS

Sometimes a little Wu Tang if things are really tough

If I need some personal development I’ll throw on the Daily Stoic with Ryan Holiday

Some days on the way home, I drive in silence 😌

So weird situation:

I applied at a school for both a teacher position and assistant principal position. I got offered to interview for both.

For the AP one I interviewed two Fridays ago. They liked me and asked me to do a follow up interview (Zoom) last Wednesday. I did it, and after it the director was so impressed she said that she noticed I applied to a couple of positions but I didn’t apply to the principal position at one of their school sites. She asked me why and that they “like to place people where they think they will fit in best.” She asked me for my personal number so she could explain the job position.

She called me about thirty minutes after my interview and told me the job role and wanted to know if I’d be interested in interviewing for it. I was enthusiastic about it. They were doing in person interviews the next day. Thursday morning I got the time slot and rushed from work when I could to do the interview. (I did the teacher interview on zoom before it) I think I did as well as I did in the other two ones.

So my heart sank this morning when I got a generic rejection email specifically for the AP position I initially interviewed for. I have not heard back about the principal or teacher one.

To me, why would they send a rejection letter first if they were going to offer me the other one? My sliver of hope has to do maybe it’s procedural since I interviewed for the AP one first.

I feel like I should respond and thank them, but I don’t know how to word it so it doesn’t sound like either a: I give up thinking I got any position or b. That I am fishing for answers.

I thought maybe I should wait 1 day to see if I get a response about the other two, but I also like this district and I don’t want them thinking I am ignoring them due to getting rejected.

Thoughts?

I’m an aspiring AP in California. I have 14 years of teaching experience. I interviewed last week and got called for 2nd interview. Super excited but I’m nervous! What can I expect? And who can I expect to be there?

Edit: I am in the Bay Area.

I have interviewed with many schools for an AP role and never made it past 1st rounds. Tomorrow morning, I'm going to a finalist interview with a campus from a neighboring school district. What should I expect? What do my odds look like from here?

Gonna keep this vague on purpose. I've been at a job for a long time and LOVE my school and the people I work with. However, I'm leaving to take a principal job at another school for career purposes. I realize from many people I trust that I need to expand my resume if I intend to take a super job one day. I am super excited to start a new chapter, but damn, it isn't easy to leave the place and people I've called home for so many years.

For background, I am an assistant principal in FL. I am uncomfortable with how things have gone this year and certain actions that have been retaliatory. Some of this is due to the fact that I interviewed for another position. This has resulted in excessive duties assigned, being told to reschedule a medical appointment so other admin can take personal days, tasks assigned to other admin dropped on me, etc.

I do not want to meet with my principal without another party present. In referencing FL law, I see that I can request a member of the local representation association be available. However, I feel this would hold bias toward the supervisor. What are my other options for another party? I looked into legal representation but in this instance it does not apply under what I can see.

I am still going to consult with my attorney but wanted to know any other options or scenarios prior to speaking with them.

This year an AP moved up to our P role. I am a teacher with my admin license who had some instructional coaching duties this year. I’ve been at my school for close to 2 decades.

From the first week of school my P had been telling me his plan to move me up to admin next year in the coaching role. We met weekly and this was a topic of conversation each week that he initiated.

A few months into the year, he announced that a colleague was becoming AP. This was truly a shock to me-the position was never posted, no one was interviewed, I had no idea this was happening despite meeting weekly and talking about future plans. The new AP and P have a social relationship outside of school. I have almost double the amount of years as she does in our school, and more experience in leadership roles and curriculum across multiple grades.

When I asked him why I wasn’t considered, he said he wasn’t confident I could do it at the time but now he was. This was baffling to me-I had held leadership roles in the past and had an extensive list of initiatives and programs that I started or helped get off the ground, in addition to tons of typical admin duties that I volunteered for or was asked to do.

Since the announcement of AP, I have barely seen him. He has pushed my weekly meetings onto the AP, and has gotten pretty cold/rude when he sees me. In meetings I am practically ignored whereas before he was singing my praises for the work I was doing.

Our position sheet recently came out and the role intended for me is listed as a teacher position, not an admin. At one point earlier in the year he mentioned moving me to admin over the summer or at the start of the year so he wouldn’t have to post it and have other people apply, but has since posted an admin position for a different area, so that posting positions doesn’t seem to be a concern.

I am unsure how to ask him for clarity on the position, but feel like I need to know what my role will be next year. It feels as if he was stringing me along thinking I would have an admin position next year so I wouldn’t ask questions about how he got the new AP into her position. It’s a truly shitty feeling and my confidence has taken a huge hit.

Principals and VPs hiring full time ADs, what do you look for a candidate to come in with? I know research is popular for an AP position but what kind of things would speak to a candidates’ prep for an AD?

What kind of question or responses are you looking for from them?

I've been involved in typing curriculum selection at the district level across two different districts and I want to document a pattern that repeats itself because I think it's fixable if enough people name it clearly.

The standard procurement process evaluates typing platforms on curriculum depth, standards alignment documentation, feature comprehensiveness, reporting granularity, and vendor support quality, all measured at a single point in time by a committee that includes curriculum directors, instructional technology staff, and administrators, and almost never includes the teachers who will use the platform daily or the IT staff who will support it on actual student devices.

The outcome of this process is predictable: the platform that presents best in a structured evaluation with polished documentation and a strong vendor demo wins the selection, and then three things happen in the first year that the evaluation didn't predict, teachers find the weekly overhead unsustainable and quietly stop using it, IT discovers device compatibility issues that weren't visible on the demo hardware, and the reporting that looked impressive in a presentation doesn't produce data that influences daily teaching decisions.

I ran a teacher-led pilot in my current district specifically to test whether different evaluators produce different outcomes, we ran typing .com alongside TypingClub and Nitro Type across three schools for six weeks with structured teacher surveys at week two and week six, the administrator-led evaluation the previous year had ranked the platforms differently than the teacher pilot did, the teacher pilot weighted dashboard readability, login friction, and device consistency above curriculum features, and those weights produced a different ranked outcome.

Context: 1st year teacher with a k-12 certification teaching elementary specials. They knew going into the job my preferred grade was highschool but that wasn’t available to me. Around dec principal asked if i wanted to continue in elementary, i said probably not. I re-interviewed anyways and was non renewed because she believed I would do better with secondary and I didn’t fit in well with the staff.

We had a very nice conversation which was her saying she wants the best for me and she can tell i’m not passionate about elementary. All true.

I applied for a secondary job in the district and got told no, I asked her why she thinks and she completely switched up and said that I should stop trying to find a job in the district, that I’m blacklisted from two schools (she didn’t use that word but ) , I “burned all my bridges”, and that there is rumors that about me going around that I “have trouble teaching black kids” which literally almost made me throw up hearing it as I work in a very diverse school and love all my kids. I actually grew up in a really small southern white town with no diversity and have really appreciated the ability to learn about other cultures and be around diversity in an inner city school. She said that she doesn’t agree with this, but it’s already been spread and the damage is done and I should get out. I feel this was completely inappropriate, toxic, and unprofessional. Why did she tell me this? I can’t tell if she’s on my side or if she believes it too and wants me out. Do I even ask for clarification?

I’m wanting to ask

I need some clarification. What I was told is very serious and upsetfing

- In reference to the comment that I may have a “problem with Black students,” I would like to understand what specific behaviors or situations that concern is based on, as that is very serious to me and I want to make sure I understand it correctly.

•	What specific factors led to the recommendation that I consider finding a position in another district?

•	Are there specific staff members, situations, or interactions that have led to the idea that I may have “burned bridges” within the district?

•	Can you clarify the source of the concerns being referenced? For example, was this based on direct feedback, HR communication, or informal conversations?

•	Is there direct feedback from the high school regarding my candidacy or reputation, or is this based on broader perceptions within the district?

•	What situations or concerns would have led to discussion about my employment prospects or placement?

•	Are there specific concerns that would impact my eligibility or competitiveness for other teaching positions within the district?