The major obstacle, they later said, was convincing school-board members that “two heads are better than one.” The two women, who had worked as assistant principals in other school districts, developed a 25-page proposal describing how they would carry out the job-sharing experiment. And in August, the school board agreed to go along with the plan.
Since then, Ms. Brooks and Ms. Sciarappa have each been working three days a week and sharing equally in administrative and management decisions. On Fridays, both women are in school to coordinate school activities; each keeps a log of daily activities so that neither one loses track of decisions made by the other. Although some board members were skeptical at first that the 580-student school would suffer as a result of the experiment, they now say it has brought benefits. In fact, there are those who say the work performed by the two part-time principals nets the school more administrative acumen than would one full-time principal.
Because of the two principals, they say, the school profits from a variety of skills, a balance of opinion, more energy, and more ideas.
The school’s experiment also has attracted the attention of a number of education groups that are curious about the job-sharing concept.
