A Hectic Day in the Life of a Teaching Principal

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A Hectic Day in the Life of a
Teaching Principal

by Hector M. Earle

During my 31 years as a teacher/principal I had my busy days, too many to count. But there was one particularly busy one I shall never forget. I swear that it was the busiest day of my life; a day when every possible issue came up. It was during my early days as principal at Ridgewood Academy, a K – 6 school in Stoneville, NL where I spent 24 years.

I knew it was going to be a bad day when I arrived at school late having forgotten I was on supervision. I had been up late the night before, finishing administrative tasks and working on day plans for my homeroom class of grades 5/6 and two other classes. That year I taught most of the curriculum to my class, plus a number of subjects in grade 3.

I was late because I had been trying to get a substitute for one of my teachers who called at the last moment with a bad case of stomach flu. After phoning about half a dozen subs, I finally found an emergency supply teacher. I arrived at the school at 8:00 a.m., and let in the first group of bus students at 8:10. I rushed to my office to get the handbell and got preoccupied with numerous messages on my desk. Among them was a message from the janitor who had run out of a cleaning supply, and an “are you aware” message about a faulty furnace and a broken pencil sharpener. There were two other messages from parents. One was, “Could you tell so and so he or she has to go to such and such a place for dinner,” and another one, “Are you aware that there’s head lice at the school?”

After running out to let in the second group of bus students and listening to the dozen or so incidents on the bus, I rushed to contact the health nurse before the first bell. In between phone calls, teachers were coming with concerns that required my immediate attention. One was a leaky ceiling in the Kindergarten room. The final morning bell rang and I almost got the door closed to my classroom when the bus driver brought me a list of names of delinquent bus students. I politely assured him I would attend to it soon.

My Reading class had hardly begun when I heard the first of countless phone calls. I let the phone ring in hope that there was someone in the staffroom to answer it. These were the days when I had no secretary and no time in my schedule for administrative tasks.

A knock came on my door; it was one of my teachers informing me the nurse was on the phone demanding my immediate attention. After asking the teacher to keep an eye on my class, I spent about ten minutes on the phone going over strategies to deal with the head lice problem. When I arrived back to class I found that I had “lost” the students and had to start all over again to set the scene where we had left off. It took a while before they were in the reading mood again. I remembered that this was the day the milkman came and I was hoping he wouldn’t arrive until recess. I was not so lucky, and before long I was out of class unlocking the canteen door and signing invoices. Then the meter man arrived looking for the key to the furnace room. I made it until recess with no more interruptions.

I dismissed my class and rushed out to ring the bell. During recess supervision, I was walking the corridors trying to keep an eye on the students and attending to their needs while also reading the many notes and reminders from the Board office. Some demanded my immediate attention. Next thing I knew I was summoned to the staff room with a phone call from a lady in Ontario who had a fantastic book promotion. After listening to the usual sales pitch, I politely told her our school had no money for such expensive books. By the time I arrived back in the corridor, recess had ended.

The first period after recess was Math. I was heavily involved with 3-digit multiplication with the grade 6s and geometric solids with the grade 5s when another knock was heard on the door. The Hostess man had arrived with the week’s supply of chips. After the usual, “Okay class, you know where we are, I’ll be back in a minute,” routine, I left them once again to process the chip order, then went back to finish teaching the math concepts and to attend to individual needs. I was so focused on that day’s lesson I went overtime and the lunch bell needed ringing and there was an announcement that I had to make over the intercom. Meanwhile, I was supposed to be at the door, lining up the students before leading them out to the bus to go home for lunch. I did all three in record time (I was in good shape in those days).

During lunch, I was on the phone returning parents’ calls, calling back the Board office, listening to a concern about something that had happened in another teacher’s class and planning a staff meeting scheduled for that afternoon. Before I knew it, lunch period was almost over and I had forgotten to eat. I dropped by the post office to pick up the mail. While quickly eating my lunch, I read my mail and separated the good from the junk.

The afternoon supervision started by getting everybody from the bus to the school and my normal walk-about before the first afternoon bell. The afternoon saw me teaching the grade 3 and 4 classes, while another teacher taught my grade 5/6 class. I got about halfway through the study of Labrador City in Social Studies when I was interrupted by two parents who wanted to meet me right away about Teacher Appreciation Week. I politely told them I was in class and perhaps we could meet some other time. But before I knew it we were heavily involved in a debate over procedures and I had reached the point of no return (most administrators can relate to this). I resorted to my backup plan and put on a video of Labrador City and arranged for a teacher to oversee my students. The 20-minute meeting in my office with the parents left me somewhat drained. However, I had to quickly recover because my next Health class required me to be in the gym to demonstrate exercise moves in our unit on “How to Keep Fit.” My last class was Gym with the grade 5s and 6s. I’m sure it was something in the water that day because they yelled and screamed the whole period and treated the game like it was the NBA finals. I was glad I had a couple of aspirin in my pocket.

The last leg of the afternoon supervision required me to line everybody up and lead the first group out to the bus. Ten minutes later, the last bus arrived and I had to repeat the routine with the second group.

The pace speeded up another notch as I rushed to get the staff meeting material together. I hastily arranged the agenda and the appropriate materials at each teacher’s usual place around the staff room table. We had to deal with a number of problematic issues for which my staff looked to me for answers. I added another one under “other items”—the confirmed head lice cases. I braced myself for a long session. Before I got through the minutes from the last meeting, the phone rang again. It was one of our parent School Committee members wanting to know if the School Committee meeting was going ahead that night. Being the acting chairperson of our School Committee (the former chairperson had resigned), I assured her that the meeting was still on for 7:30 in the school library. In between the lively debates over the many items on the staff meeting agenda, other School Committee members called either to confirm the time of the meeting or inform me they couldn’t attend. After about a 2-hour meeting, I rushed home for a quick supper and went back to school to finalize the agenda for our committee meeting.

During the meeting preparations, the janitor came to remind me about the faulty furnace and we spent half an hour discussing the seriousness of the problem. Around 7:30, only four members showed up for the meeting and I was disappointed because I had very important items on the agenda. Besides, I had enough pages photocopied for ten members to fill nearly half their binders. The main issue of the position of chairperson was still unresolved. I volunteered to remain on as chair until a suitable candidate was found. The meeting ended with many issues unresolved.

After the committee meeting, I went to my class to prepare my lesson plans for the next day. This required searching for materials to enhance my lessons. Resources were scarce in those days and it took me some time to find what was needed. After my lesson plans were completed, I went to my office to outline my “To Do List” for the next day. The list was long and included a number of unfinished items from my previous list.

It was late when I got home. My fifteen-year-old daughter was at the table doing homework. I spent an hour helping her with her research project. My wife informed me that I had to return a call from a parent about a situation with her son on the bus (oh no! I had forgotten to deal with the names the bus driver gave me that morning). I had no energy left to even reach for the receiver, let alone talk. I elected to wait until the next day.

Needless to say I was awake all night reliving the entire events of the day and praying to God to never allow another day like this one to come my way.