Part of a principal’s job was to prepare the assistant principal for this
process and the superintendent’s visit. This was not always easy. Mr.
Chen had a probationary assistant principal, Mr. Sienna, supervising a
subject area. To prepare Mr. Sienna for this visit, Mr. Chen made sure
the assistant principal’s documents were in order (they were—Mr. Sienna
was very good with paper) and then went with him on classroom visits,
simulating what the superintendent would do. Everything went well.
On the day of the superintendent’s visit, the documentation review
went well, but the classroom visits were a disaster. Almost every time
the superintendent made a suggestion, the assistant principal demurred,
saying, basically, “I know this teacher and this school better than you, so
I need not take your suggestions.” Mr. Chen could see the steam starting
to come out of the superintendent’s ears, but never had the opportunity to
speak to Mr. Sienna alone to clue him in.
At the end of the visit, the superintendent told Mr. Chen that under no
circumstances would she grant tenure to Mr. Sienna (her language was far
more colorful than this paraphrasing). As he knew that you never interrupt
someone’s anger, Mr. Chen just nodded his head and accompanied the
superintendent out of the building.
Needless to say, Mr. Sienna was told in no uncertain terms that when
the superintendent makes a suggestion, whether you agree with it or not,
you say, “Yes, that’s a great idea. I’ll work on it.” (In truth, all the su-
perintendent’s suggestions were right on target.) The assistant principal
started to give excuses, but Mr. Chen cut him off and made it clear that
Mr. Sienna’s failure to gain tenure reflected negatively on the principal’s
own ability to provide him with the proper training.
It took Mr. Chen several months to convince the superintendent to give
the assistant principal another chance. This involved making an apology,
taking the blame for not providing Mr. Sienna with the proper training,
and promising that this would be corrected. Every time Mr. Chen saw
the superintendent at meetings, he casually brought up how the training
program was going and how the assistant principal would do better if only
given a second chance. The second chance was granted in late May and
this time all went well.
In actuality, training had been amply provided from the start. Mr.
Sienna never corrected Mr. Chen’s suggestions during the initial walk-
through because he accepted his principal’s knowledge of the school and
42 Chapter 4