xii Preface
a teacher, you developed a repertoire so you could better motivate your
students to higher levels of achievement. Some of your techniques were
learned in your education courses; many more from your mentor or coop-
erating teacher; even more from your more experienced colleagues when
you found a position. You developed your personal teaching style and
methodology from these menus of options, selecting what worked best
for you and your students.
This book is such a menu of options for the prospective, new, or
experienced school leader. Some items you will find to be perfect “as
is,” and you will incorporate them into your style. Some you will find
need tweaking to fit your personality or your school’s culture. Some
options will cause you to throw your hands up in the air and exclaim,
“You’ve got to be kidding!”—these menu items just do not mesh with
your supervisory persona or the culture of your school. Of course, you
will be adding other items not in this book that have worked for you
and those who have helped you on your path to school leadership. I
would like to hear about these. E-mail me at [email protected].
None of us has a monopoly on wisdom when it comes to the art of
leading a school.
What will you find here that you might not find in some other like-
themed books? You will find a book based on practice, not theory. The
students in the educational leadership courses I taught had had enough
theory. They wanted to know how to deal with the real day-to-day prob-
lems. How do you handle student complaints about a competent but not
very likeable teacher? What do you do when your deans start treating all
students as miscreants? How do you handle organizations that want to
rent school space for questionable reasons? What do you do when a par-
ent storms into your office screaming profanities? These are among the
day-to-day issues that this text addresses.
I was a New York City high school teacher, assistant principal of su-
pervision, and principal. My point of view is that of an educator in a large
urban area with a diversity of populations. The examples and anecdotes
that follow come from this experience. However, they are universal in ap-
plication because a school, whatever the level or size or location, is still
a school with the same goals and issues. The district office, whether in
New York City or Los Angeles or Boise or Kansas City, is still a district
office, a bureaucracy.