The Freshman Principal – (Mentors are important for everyone- who’s yours and who do you mentor?)

With 40 percent of U.S. school
principals reaching retirement
age in the next decade, the
increasing complexity and
pressures of the job, and a
growing student population,
school districts are seeking
new ways to attract and retain
effective administrators. One
solution has been to provide
mentors.

by Diane Curtis GLEF.org

"The job encompasses so much that it’s impossible to write down in a job
description all the things principals need to do," says Paul Young, president-elect
of the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) and a
five-time mentor principal at West Elementary School in Lancaster, Ohio. "The
only way for a good transition is to show them the ropes."

Just as the sink-or-swim method often delays mastery of the job for teachers, it
can also impede the success and job satisfaction of principals. Recognizing the
need for a sympathetic ear and the voice of experience, many principals are
seeking mentors on their own since the number of formal mentor programs is still
relatively small.

"The principalship is a pretty lonely job," says Young. "Voices stop when you
walk into the teachers’ lounge — in not all cases, obviously, but in many. The only
person you can talk to freely without any fear of retaliation is another principal."

Albuquerque’s Paid Mentorships

Cynthia Bazner finished her first year as a principal at
Mark Twain Elementary School in Albuquerque, New
Mexico, in June. She peppered her mentor, Kirtland
Elementary School Principal Peter Espinosa, with
questions about the budget, how to effectively observe
and evaluate staff, protocol in emergencies, and a host
of subjects, confident that Espinosa, a trusted former
boss, would be frank and discreet.

Albuquerque Public Schools "is a big bureaucracy," says Bazner. "Sometimes
those people don’t get back to you for three or four days. Your mentor is
somebody who will drop everything they’re doing and get back to you
immediately."

Most of Bazner’s and Espinosa’s consultations were by phone, but they also
chatted when they met at district functions or at social gatherings or professional
development seminars arranged, with the help of local businesses, by Carl
Weingartner, retired principal and coordinator of Albuquerque’s seven-year-old
principal mentor program, Extra Support for Principals (ESP).

Albuquerque is fairly unusual in providing a formal mentor program in which
principals receive a $1,000 stipend for a school year of mentoring. Neither
Weingartner, who relies on common sense in advising mentors, nor Espinosa
wants the program to get too formal, though. Two of its strengths, they both say,
are that it is voluntary and that a special trust is built up between the new and old
principals. Still, Weingartner emphasizes, the formality of a stipend allows new
principals to query their mentors without fear that they are being pests, and it
allows an administrator to "look mentors in the eye and say, ‘You’re supposed to
be there for them.’" "I don’t know how anybody can do this without a mentor,"
Bazner says.

Online Mentoring

First-year Principal Barbara Martin enjoyed a very
unusual mentorship when the NAESP selected her to
pose problems she encountered during the 2001-2002
school year to members of the association on an online
chat room. She was rewarded with answers that
reflected years of accumulated wisdom on subjects
ranging from retention and parent-teacher conferences
to unmotivated teachers and Year of the Reader
projects.

One of Martin’s first concerns was getting her staff at North Elementary School in
Holts Summit, Missouri, to accept changes she was interested in making. "The
mistake first-year principals make is to try to change too much too fast," one
veteran principal responded. "After 39 years of experience, I have found that if
you select one change which is most important to you and focus on that, your
chance of being successful is greatly enhanced."

She also wanted advice on the principal’s role in parent-teacher conferences. "I
usually sit with all the teachers individually before conferences and ask if there
are any tricky ones or if the teachers want me to sit in on any," replied one
online mentor. "What I have been doing for the past couple of years during
parent-teacher conferences," replied another online correspondent, "is making
myself available in a central area. … I have the recent assessment/testing data
with me and I encourage parents to sit with me."

"I had a great first year," says Martin. "I chalk that up to the advice I had online,
and I had great mentors here [in the school district]. … You don’t need to
reinvent the wheel if you can learn from other people’s mistakes."

Highs and Lows of the Principalship

Young cites four important skills that new principals
need to learn: delegation, time management, ability to
see the "big picture," and dealing with all kinds of
people. Such skills will help principals cope with what
has grown into a highly complex and sometimes
frustrating job.

Eager new principals who begin with big plans for immediately revamping
instruction and turning the school into a first-class academic institution find that
their dreams often take second place to a host of less pleasant endeavors:
dealing with an ocean of bureaucratic paperwork; reacting to federal, state, and
local initiatives such as zero-tolerance policies for drug abuse and sexual
harassment that they may or may not agree with; being aware of the litigious
nature of society today without resorting to nonsensical policies to avoid lawsuits;
responding calmly to sometimes outrageous parent demands; riding herd on
uninspiring or incompetent teachers while maintaining morale among the able
and outstanding teachers; working long hours with night and weekend
school-related activities, and taking pains to ensure that violence doesn’t erupt at
the school while keeping in perspective the thought that Columbine could happen
anywhere. And financially, it often doesn’t make sense to move from master
teacher to principal.

"The intensity of the issues has increased," says Tony Bencivenga, principal for
11 years at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood, New Jersey. He
particularly emphasizes the propensity by a growing number of parents to head
for the courts as soon as they have a disagreement with school officials. "From
the parent, there’s an increased sense of demand for immediate gratification that
wasn’t evident in years past," Bencivenga says.

Bencivenga maintains a low-key mentor/friend relationship with his former House
Administrator (similar to an assistant principal), Richard Kuder, who was named
principal at nearby Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School in Wyckoff in 2001.

At Ben Franklin, the two found they shared the same philosophy about many
educational issues: emphasizing the social and emotional aspect of learning as
well as the academic; tying use of technology into collaborative learning and
projects; going for the win-win situation, such as meting out consequences for
unacceptable behavior while helping the errant student change for the better.

Finding the Win-Win

"I’ve never called him and said, ‘What should I do?’
because I think Tony and I see eye to eye on a lot of
things," Kuder says. Their conversations, he adds, go
more like this: "What do you think of this?" "Have you
heard about this before?" "This is what I’m thinking
about this. Why did you think about it that way?"

"What I give him is a framework and support and always let him see the win-win,"
says Bencivenga. Many principals, including Bencivenga and Kuder, often refer
to the need not to lose sight of the "big picture," the idea that what a principal
does should not be done in the heat of the moment for expediency, but that all
decisions should be made with the long-term welfare of all the children in mind.

"I think that’s one of my real strengths [as a mentor]," says Bencivenga, who talks
to Kuder regularly on the phone and meets him for dinner now and then. "I have
a perspective on things that recognizes the impact of a decision on a lot of
people. I know that a decision now is going to have an impact down the road."

"There’s always going to be a first year," Kuder notes, adding that much of the
first year is about getting to know the staff and understanding the culture of the
school. But a fellow principal mentor can make it more enjoyable. He is also full
of encouragement and perspective. "I might have lost my sense of humor"
without Bencivenga’s availability, Kuder says.

Despite the hardships, principal after principal agrees that the rewards of the job
can be great, from watching your academic vision produce results to forming
relationships with children over a number of years and witnessing student
progress in academics and life over an extended period of time, not just one
year.

"You get back a real sense of connection to people, to service, to kids, to
teachers, to growth — personal and professional," agrees Albuquerque’s
Espinosa. "Your life is very full, very rich, very human."

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