Principals Center
Georgia State University
PO Box 3977
Atlanta, GA 30302-3977
Phone: 404-413-8256

WELCOME

Welcome to the Principals Center, a safe place where school leaders can confront the issues met everyday while leading and managing school communities. This is a place where education professionals can come together to learn and share dreams and frustrations, to laugh and to grow. We hope you will join our learning community and find strength, knowledge, and excitement to meet the challenge of being a school leader.

Although our bricks and mortar home is at Georgia State University in Atlanta, we hope this site is a way to reach a broader community of colleagues so that professional learning and networking is extended beyond jurisdictional, political or geographic boundaries. Because the role of a school principal is demanding, often very lonely, we hope this is a place created for each of you to help to maneuver those challenges.

If you are going to be in the Atlanta area anytime this year, please register for our sessions listed in the calendar. These programs are designed to keep principals abreast of the most current thinking in our field, provide opportunities to refine leadership skills and learn new strategies for improving school performance and student achievement.

The mission of the Principals Center is to provide practicing and aspiring school leaders with learning and networking opportunities designed to develop their capacity to create schools that work for all children.

NEWS

Welcome 1st Year Principals!

If you are a first year high school principal, the Principals Center would like to invite you to participate in the 1st Year Principals Learning Community. This is an online community, facilitated by the Principals Center and co-sponsored by the Georgia Association of Secondary School Principals. It is an anonymous environment for the purpose of connecting 1st year principals throughout Georgia to promote problem solving, community support, and learning.

To join the 1st Year Principals Learning Community, email your request to Dr. Ronda Tighe at rtighe@gsu.edu.

Once you are registered you will get an email, directing you to the login page at http://sites.google.com/site/1styearprincipals

Also, if the 2009-10 school year is your FIRST year as a school principal and you want to be on the invitation list to a very special event in your honor, please contact us so we can add you to the list.

CURRENT FIRST YEAR SCHOOL PRINCIPALS SPEAK OUT

The 2008-2009 First Year School Principals Reflect On Their Year As A School Principal

"No one told me..."

.....how much surprise and humble service would be involved in the power of leadership.

.....work often imposes on your personal life more than you can imagine

.....things left to do tomorrow will get buried under tomorrow’s issues

.....people have so many excuses; I have heard it all!

.....my high school parents were more difficult that the students (teenagers – puh-leez!)

.....that I would no longer have a social life – too tired to do anything but work; mentally exhausted!

.....that I would have over 100 e-mails a day.....I was going to be everything to everybody

.....the head custodians need leadership training just as much as administrators do.

.....I would never seem to stop thinking about work

.....that writing a teacher up for wearing flip-flops would result in a teacher uprising!

.....what to do on my 1st day as a principal in a new building with everyone else on vacation

.....how hard it is to keep smiling on the tough days – but you have to!

.....that I would make 9,000 decisions a day with no help! .....no day is the same....

.....[about] the politics involved in high school

.....that it was the adults with problems not the students

"Tips from me to new principals…"

.....go home! No matter how late you stay you will never catch up or get ahead

.....always remain true north!

.....focus on the children

.....don’t quit in October. You will want to. It will get better!

.....find something to laugh about every day!

.....do what only the principal can do, then get others to help with the rest

.....listen to all sides before making a decision. Realize you can’t make everyone happy

.....smile and be present -- the rest is easy

.....smile, this will pass!!

.....hold on and enjoy the ride

.....have a balance in your life. Family or hobbies must be scheduled and included to keep your sanity

.....take time for yourself and family

.....always be honest & govern by consensus when you can

.....value all parents as assets

.....cultivate partnerships because you can’t do it alone

.....take time to relax and spend quality time with your family

"I wish I had known before becoming a principal…"

.....how to get a snake out of the wall in the science classroom. A parent conference was interrupted to resolve this issue

.....that nothing can prepare you for the principalship. Thank God for common sense

.....that the principalship makes you analyze things that don’t need analysis

.....how to master an excel spreadsheet

.....that I would run out of time before I got everything done in my first year

.....how rewarding it is on a daily basis

.....the number of e-mails you have to respond to everyday

.....that time off is not time off

.....people would nod and smile and totally disagree with me a the same time

.....how much time out of every 7 day week you must give if you want to build a true sense of community within our school and surrounding community. Student achievement follows naturally

.....that I would want to know all of my students as well as I did as a classroom teacher

.....how much I would LOVE being a principal. I resisted the move for years!

.....everyone knows how to do your job but you

.....to take a nap everyday

.....all the different little pieces of the job that you never see as an Assistant Principal