Customer perspective: principal concerns
Author: Internet Strategies for Education Markets: The Heller Report

You'd have to live in a box not to know that schools and school administrators are under enormous pressure today. Recently, I read with concern and dismay as David A. Smith, principal of McMillan Elementary School in Murray, Utah laid out the issue for his colleagues on the K12ADMIN listserve. He poses the very real likelihood that becoming a principal may simply be too 'costly' for any sensible person to undertake in the future. ISEM spoke with Dave about what vendors could do to help. Below is an abridged copy of the original letter he posted to the Net, including some of Dave's insights about where principals could use a hand.

It seems to my colleagues and me that a principal's duties grow every year - sometimes every clay. I also speak of the social concerns, the federal guidelines that add reports and increased requirements for accountability, the various plans that need to be generated in my state (professional development, school improvement, reading, and so on - I'm sure you have correlates in your state), new teacher (valuation systems that will require about a 100 percent increase in the amount of time necessary to observe and evaluate a teacher, the data analysis requirements that the state and federal legislation require and so on. I've been a principal for 16 years and the load is growing all the tune.

Whenever we principals get together her lately our conversations tend to focus on how long we have until retirement, and can we get there before all the regs are in place? How do you cope? What kind of delegation mechanisms can you, Or do you dare. use? What kind of hours do you work in order to complete etc the job, or just stay afloat? And, most importantly, how can we communicate the dilemma office principal to those who can make a difference?