The assistant principal of a particular grade or subject area initiated strat-
egies that led to excellent statistics on the required state examination. She
created a curriculum designed to help staff and students achieve this suc-
cess. She worked with all newly assigned teachers to show them how they
could prepare students for this exam. She focused her staff development of
experienced teachers on strategies for improving student test-taking skills.
She created department- or grade-wide assignments and exams that made
students familiar with the format of the state exam. In other words, she did
a massive amount of work to try to achieve the desired result.
When these results were achieved, instead of taking any credit herself,
this assistant principal gave accolades to all her teachers for their fine
work. Her work would have been useless if the teachers had not imple-
mented all her strategies. When the principal asked her why her depart-
ment did so well, she praised the work of her teachers and requested
funding for a special congratulatory luncheon for them.
A week after Mr. Pfizer was appointed principal of his middle school, his
superintendent requested a mission statement for the school, as none had
been previously written. He had inherited a school with a Principal’s Ad-
visory Council composed of teachers, administrators, parents, and sixth
grade students. He felt this would be the perfect committee to create such
a statement.
This newly appointed principal naively thought this task would be easy,
for surely all these people knew what the school was all about. After sev-
eral sessions, it was obvious to Mr. Pfizer that the committee was going
nowhere—everyone had ideas, but nothing was forming a cohesive whole.
The superintendent expected a document before the end of the fall semester.
Mr. Pfizer carefully reviewed all his notes on the meetings and, based on
these, devised the “draft” of a mission statement. At least one idea from
everyone on the committee was included somewhere in this draft.
At the next meeting, the committee looked at the draft and provided
feedback. To Mr. Pfizer’s amazement, all discussion was focused on
relatively minor aspects of the draft. The main document was accepted
almost as a fait accompli. After a few more meetings to complete these
refinements (every meeting began with the distribution of the revised
draft, incorporating the ideas of the previous meeting), his committee had
a document that all accepted.
38 Chapter 4