system. Over time, a new position of testing coordinator was added, as the
tracking of student progress on standardized tests became more and more
complicated and important. This staff member also had crunch times with
some lulls in between.
Ms. Niles-Perry merged these two offices into one office of data man-
agement. The three staff members learned what each other did. If one left,
for any reason, two experienced staff members would be left to train the
new addition and little efficiency would be lost. A school leader will find
that she may use a similar strategy for any office that has more than one
staff member assigned to it, such as a typical dean’s office. The veterans
will be there to train the neophytes.
However, some key responsibilities reside in one-person offices. For
such offices, the school leader needs to identify a possible replacement.
She can use her knowledge of current staff and her discussions with new
staff in her new teacher workshops to do this. The school leader also needs
to pay careful attention to those currently in positions and encourage
each to let her know if he or she has to leave. Informal talks on her walks
around the school will be useful for doing this.
When the school leader becomes aware someone is leaving a position,
she should try to create a situation where a new person could receive some
pretraining or, at the very least, where the outgoing veteran could provide
some training once the new person takes over. In some cases, she may
be able to use school funds. In New York City, per-session monies pay
the veteran an hourly stipend to do this. (Note: For the sake of brevity,
the myriad contractual issues involved with the assignment of teachers to
such nonteaching jobs are not being discussed.)
Some such positions involve secretarial staff. In every school, a key secre-
tarial position is that of the payroll secretary. This is a difficult job requiring
knowledge of budget codes, salary steps and differentials, procedures for
absences, leaves of absence, sabbaticals, and so on. When Ms. Niles-Perry’s
payroll secretary told her that she was going to retire in one year, Principal
Niles-Perry added a secretarial position to the budget so the secretary could
train her replacement during her final year. Even after the veteran retired,
Principal Niles-Perry was able to have her work one or two days a week on
a part-time basis to help the new person during her first full year.
The longer you serve as principal, the better you will get at lining up
staff members as replacements for key positions, ensuring the smooth
Lay the Groundwork 117