Meet Ed, Cindy’s Principal

Principal’s Perspective

Ed believed that if a student has a problem, you deal with it. Just this morning, for example, he had to cut short a fairly important telephone call to address an immediate concern in the building. Cindy had wandered out of her classroom again, and her teacher couldn’t locate her. Ed had found her outside on the swings and spent time with her going over some of the Willow School Social Curriculum rules for appropriate behavior.

Sometimes, too, dealing with a student’s problem meant working on the community level. Then the school reached out into the community to find the right kind of help for the child. Ed served on the Board of a local youth organization and enjoyed the connection this provided to the larger community. However, he was concerned about the lack of collaboration across the many community social service agencies, the fighting over turf, and the way the school had to pick up the pieces and coordinate services for a student or their family. Willow School’s biggest challenge now was being expected to do more and more with less and less. Not just academics — but support to children and families — were expected despite diminished resources at the school’s disposal. Thinking about all these responsibilities heaped on the school, Ed wished for more help from the parents and the community. The school could not do it alone.

Ed knew that Shellie, with her “Do Not Disturb” sign on her door this afternoon, was stressed out trying to do it alone. She worked hard on making out-of-school time connections for some of their students. Ed often despaired at the level of parents’ involvement in out-of-school activities with their kids. Although some families would take trips or do educational things with their kids, others simply didn’t have a clue as to what enrichment activities would help their kids excel academically. The school tried to help by providing information about community enrichment activities in its newsletter, but he was sure that a fair number of these backpack-carried newsletters never made it home.

Ed also believed out-of-school activities didn’t necessarily have to be trips to museums or things like that. He recognized that not all families had access to such resources, and that there were many things to do in town that did not cost anything. He believed that a walk in the woods bordering town, looking at the vegetation, or time just spent by parents talking with the child about life experiences, were valuable and necessary lessons. Parents needed to provide the opportunities for children to learn, whether in formal programs or informal family time together. In fact, Ed actually worried that some of the kids were over-scheduled in after school activities — in effect, neglected by their parents. To him, nothing out-of-school was as important as the time parents spent engaged with their children.

Ed also provided the following background information about Cindy’s school, Willow Elementary School.

Next: Read About An Encounter Between Parent and Teacher in the Community