Kristin Phillips - For the Love of Learning: A Year in the Life of a School Principal

I wish I had a Mrs. Phillips back when I was a young rapscallion.

Jesse Thistle, #1 bestselling author of From the Ashes

Kristin Phillips

For the Love of Learning

A Year in the Life of a School Principal

For my three children

THROUGHOUT THE BOOK I WILL take you through a year in my life as a principal. I have taken the liberty to pull teachers, students, and families from a wide range of experiences, and have meshed characters together and changed names and details to protect peoples privacy. Some timelines have also been adjusted. But all of the stories are real, as are all of the decisions I made. Some I am proud of and others I would do differently if I could now.

ITS A TUESDAY IN FEBRUARY , 2:45 P.M. Forty-five minutes left until the bell and I am stepping through slushy puddles in my high heels down the junior hallway. Boots are strewn all over the floor and student paintings decorate the walls. A few are hanging by one last piece of sticky tape. I absentmindedly try to tack them back to the wall, but they fall despite my efforts. I decide that isnt my problem right now.

Ive had a call from room 4 to come and deal with Olivia, who is refusing to do any work and has rejected all requests to leave the classroom and come to the office. Peter, her teacher, has a heart of gold, but it has been like this all month and he is fed up. I open the door and sure enough, there is Olivia, her red hair a mess of tangles. She is wearing the same orange polyester skirt and green sweatshirt she wears every day. On her feet are high-top running shoes, laces undone. For grade 6, Olivia is a big girl, as tall as me and already developed. Room 4 is our class for learning-disabled students. Olivia has a diagnosed learning disability but also a whole host of other issues. No one can quite get a handle on her behaviours: anxiety, ADHD, autism? There is no diagnosis but right now that doesnt matter. Peter needs support. I go over to Olivias desk and whisper, Hey, Olivia, why dont you come to my office for a bit? You can colour.

Lalalalalalala, she singsongs loudly.

I close my eyes briefly and take a breath. I do not want a confrontation this late in the day. My feet hurt; I might be getting too old for high heels, but I am not ready to admit defeat. I havent eaten lunch. I dont think Ive been to the bathroom since morning announcements. Due to frigid February winds, we have had three days of indoor recesses and nerves are frayed. There is a staff meeting tonight and although Im tempted to cancel, I wont.

Olivia, you need to come to my office. The day is almost done. Its almost home time.

Fine! And she rushes out the door and down the hall. Battle averted. I hope she is really headed towards my office. As I make my way down the hall, an announcement is made: Mrs. Phillips, line one. Why do I only get calls when I am as far from my office as I can be? Just then my vice-principal, Adam, passes me at a clip, sopping wet.

Whats going on? I ask, not breaking stride.

Toilet in the boys washroom is spurting water everywhere and Vince [the custodian] stepped out for coffee.

Okay. Glad youve got it. And I smile. This is definitely not my problem. On my way back to my office to check on Olivia, there is another page for a phone call on line one, which means it must be Max, my superintendent, calling. My secretary, Joan, wouldnt have bothered to announce the call twice if it werent. Sawyer, a grade 5 student, stops me and asks if we can play backgammon today.

Sorry, kiddo, I know it is our day, but it will have to be another day. He frowns and stomps back to class. Sawyer needs some TLC and we play backgammon at the end of the day on Tuesdays. I hope this cancellation of our time together wont cause another outburst before the end of the day.

Close to my office now I see Kim, an educational assistant, following Myles down the hall. Myles, a kindergarten student with some anger management issues, is barreling away from her. We share a look of exasperation and camaraderieKims got this. I get to my office and Joan says Max called.

Wants you to call him back ASAP. I tried paging you twice, but I can see you were busy. And she glances towards my office with a knowing look. I gather Olivia has made it and I sneak a peek in. She is sitting at the table colouring. I let her be for the time being and take a moment to visit the washroom.

Some days I wonderI chose this job? I could have stayed a teacher. I loved teaching. Why did I want to become a principal? Today I cant really remember. There are no plans when you are a principal. I remember the excitement of my first day as a vice-principal.

I was ready. My pencils were sharpened. I had new pink high heels and a suitsomething I would never have worn as a grade 1 teacher. I was nervous but trying to hide it. Everyone around me seemed to have something important to do, while I had no idea what I was going to do all day. So I sat there at my desk, waiting. Nothing happened. I left my office and started wandering around. I walked into the staff room and the conversation stopped. I smiled awkwardly and reintroduced myself but there was silence. Whatever the topic of conversation had been, it quickly changed to the weather. I walked down the hall and a classroom door shut at the sound of my heels on the floor. The next classroom door was open and I entered. A hush fell over the room and all thirty pairs of eyes, teachers and students, turned to stare at me. I smiled and left. I wasnt one of the gang anymore. I went back to my clean desk and sharpened pencils and wondered, now what? Since the age of five, for thirty-six years, my life had been organized into forty-minute blocks of time with clear objectives and tasks, whether I was the student or the teacher. I was in uncharted territory. I was scared.

By ten thirty I had figured it out. I didnt have to do anything. The job came to me in a never-ending flow of problems. Kids were sent to the office for misbehaving. Teachers timetables didnt work and two classes ended up in the same English class for period 3. Parents were calling that their kids were unhappy about their class placement. The secretary wanted to know how we were going to spend the fundraising money. Human Resources called to ask about the teacher opening. The janitor came by to explain why the toilets werent working and that Id need to make an announcement that the boys downstairs washroom was closed. The maintenance guy wanted to know where to plant the new tree! He made me traipse about the yard in my new heels. This was leadership? This is what I had signed up for?

The job of principal is complex and multifaceted. You take the courses about transformational versus transactional leadership and then you are called to the kindergarten room to deal with the kid who has had a rather disastrous accident, having not made it to the washroom in time, and you cant believe the mess. Its in between his toes! You take the courses about how to inspire teachers and then you are called to the muddy playground in November on the day that you only have heels and no boots because Shelly has got herself stuck in the mud of the soccer field and cant get out. You have read all the legislation on policies and procedures, but no one mentioned that you would have mittens drying on the heater in your office because you worked in a disadvantaged area and doled out mittens every recess.