Opinion
School & District Management Letter to the Editor

Principals Tackle Herculean Tasks Every Day. Their Jobs Must Become More Manageable

April 19, 2016 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

To the Editor:

Psychologist and school consultant Robert Evans, in his March 30, 2016 Commentary “Principals, Get Your Irish On,” was right on target when he wrote that “if we truly wanted to attract, retain, and support the best and brightest principals, we would focus on making their jobs more doable.”

Indeed, a recent report, commissioned by the Wallace Foundation and penned by Paul Manna, a professor of government and public policy at the College of William and Mary, argued that “principals are bearing more and more weight as old responsibilities persist and as new ones become layered on top of them.”

Principals today are spending more and more of their time on teacher evaluations and on setting performance standards. As instructional leaders of their schools, principals are also responsible for daily operations, student discipline, teachers’ professional development, budget management, work with families and the local community, and the building of a caring and inclusive school culture that has high expectations for teaching and learning.

I vividly remember my own days as a school principal, including one in which prior to arriving at my office to begin work, I had already had been notified of a school bus that had broken down, a teacher whose son was so ill that she could not come to work and hadn’t had time to find a substitute teacher, a flooded toilet, and a schoolwide Internet outage—as well as an irate parent who was waiting in my office to find out why her daughter was being punished for bullying another student.

All this had to be handled before I could tackle our new reading program for middle school students, as well as the issue that the only days available for the required teacher training were a specific Friday and Saturday morning, in spite of the conflict this raised with the teachers’ union and a previously scheduled upcoming school dance.

As the principal, I had to find solutions for every single problem.

Phyllis Gimbel

Professor

Educational Leadership

Bridgewater State University

Bridgewater, Mass.

Related Tags:
Research Opinion

A version of this article appeared in the April 20, 2016 edition of Education Week as Principals Tackle Herculean Tasks Every Day. Their Jobs Must Become More Manageable

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Student Achievement Webinar
Student Success Strategies: Flexibility, Recovery & More
Join us for Student Success Strategies to explore flexibility, credit recovery & more. Learn how districts keep students on track.
Content provided by Pearson
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Artificial Intelligence Webinar
Shaping the Future of AI in Education: A Panel for K-12 Leaders
Join K-12 leaders to explore AI’s impact on education today, future opportunities, and how to responsibly implement it in your school.
Content provided by Otus
Student Achievement K-12 Essentials Forum Learning Interventions That Work
Join this free virtual event to explore best practices in academic interventions and how to know whether they are making a difference.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

School & District Management Quiz Quiz Yourself: How Much Do You Know About The Director of PD Persona?
Directors of Professional Development influence purchasing decisions, but how well do you understand the key factors at play? Test your knowledge of this key buyer persona and see how your results stack up with your peers.
School & District Management 'Pre-Apprenticeships' Give Teachers a Taste of What It's Like to Be a Principal
Western Kentucky University is piloting a model to develop future school leaders.
7 min read
Photograph of two multiracial educators walking and talking in a school hallway. The woman on the left is mixed race Hispanic and African-American, in her 30s. Her coworker is a Filipino woman in her 40s.
E+
School & District Management Some School Staff Might Need a Measles Booster. Here Is Who's Affected
Some educators could have received their measles shots during a five-year span when an ineffective version was given.
3 min read
A sign is seen outside of Seminole Hospital District offering measles testing, Feb. 21, 2025, in Seminole, Texas.
A sign is seen outside of Seminole Hospital District offering measles testing, Feb. 21, 2025, in Seminole, Texas. The biggest risk from the outbreak is to unvaccinated people, but a small number of people who were vaccinated decades ago might need updated shots to ensure they’re protected.
Julio Cortez/AP
School & District Management Opinion Want to Lead Your School Well? Find the Right Coach
When done well, the positive effects can transform not only principals but schools and system.
Nancy Gutiérrez, Michelle Jarney & Michael Kim
5 min read
Professional looking through a telescope supported by other leaders, coaching, developing
Vanessa Solis/Education Week + iStock/Getty Images