Brief Report of Interviews with Three Administrators
By
Dr. Victoria Pettis
Summer Cohort 2006
EOCS 7450
This report details shadowing experiences I had with three different administrators: Dr. Ben Kerwin, principal of CMS; Pamela Teep, associate principal of CHS; and Wilber Rilkins, assistant principal of CMS[1].
Middle School Principal
I chose to shadow my own middle school principal Ben Kerwin for two reasons. First, it was convenient to shadow him because he was readily available to me as the head administrator at CMS. He has been principal at CMS for 15 years. Second, Kerwin serves as my mentor for the leadership practicum.
On November 9, 2006, I observed Kerwin from 8:10 a.m. until 12:17 p.m. During this first shadow experience, I was struck by the enormity of his job. From the moment Kerwin arrived with his breakfast and 7th grade daughter in tow, he was pulled in many different directions.
I would describe my four hours with Kerwin as a dizzy, whirlwind of activities. How did he manage to catch his breath and not go crazy? He acted as if the back-to-back interruptions were normal. I witnessed him making morning announcements, dealing with substitute shortages on the 8th grade hallway, signing checks for payroll, answering a ton of email, answering telephone calls, discussing the lights, air conditioning, and calking with the district workman, conferencing with an irate parent, deciding the next plan of action on three teachers experiencing major classroom management problems, discussing a hearing with the assistant principal, and fielding calls for vacancy positions.
I was fortunate that this day’s shadow experience including me observing Kerwin facilitating a middle school principals’ meeting. The bulk of the meeting focused on administrators’ concern about transition students (8th grade students who were not promoted to high school because they did pass the CRCT), who still needed academic and behavior support in January when they would begin taking high school credit courses. Kerwin argued that he did not want middle school experience to be too high school oriented. Other topics included district’s 6th and 7th grade retention policy and the gaps in arts – specifically the band program – at the middle school level. What I really like about Kerwin’s facilitation was that he always kept the meeting going and used clarifying techniques to make sure information was simplified. He was truly a leader among the other principals.
My second shadow experience with my principal was on November 30, 2006. Due to a last minute doctor’s appointment by my principal, our time together lasted under two and a half hours. Even in that short about of time, his life was no less hectic. He managed to managed to eat lunch from a local restaurant, give an emotionally unbalanced teacher a choice: resign or get fired, answer emails, conduct a teacher observation, sign student of the week certificates, talked to students in in-school suspension, proofread a discipline letter for the assistant principal, subpoenaed phone records of 7th grade students suspected of making harassing phone calls to his home, give his approval on the school’s Christmas float, announce and congratulate the winners of the Can-a-thon, determine adequate solutions for discipline referrals, gave registrar advice about attendance, discussed the rape of female student with the school resource officer, instructed instructional lead teacher to make copies of school fund-raiser to distribute at parade, asked me to be the contact person for a district-sponsored writing contest, and returned late that evening to ride his bike in the city’s Christmas Parade.
High School Associate
Principal
I chose to shadow Pamela Teep for two reasons. First, I wanted to observe an administrator at a high school. Second, I wanted the perspective of an administrator whose primary job was instruction. Her designation as associate principal was new; just a year earlier, she had served five years as assistant principal. (Before transferring to CMS, I had worked three years with Teep at CHS.) I was delighted when she agreed to be shadowed on two separate occasions: November 28, 2006, and April 9, 2007.
On November 28, 2006, I observed Teep for over four hours. During our time together, I managed to observe a variety of activities, including 15 minutes of a high school instructional committee meeting. The rest of our time was flurry of activities. Teep answered phone calls, responded to 40 emails, made decisions on the high school program of study, printed numerous schedules for the new semester, consulted with the scheduler over several private issues, used the walkie-talkie to listen and communicate to others in the building, coordinated with the bus garage to pick up an ill special education student, gave advice to the instructional lead teacher, wrote and proofread a paragraph to be included in the newest edition of the high school course of study, supervised the cafeteria during lunch, authorized a one-day in-school suspension of student, gave me a tour of the freshmen academies, talked to the assistant principal about a disruptive student, advised and answered questions from various students about dropping classes, final exams, and the high school graduation test, talked with the registrar about medical leave, and conferred with the counselor about a failing student. She said one of her major frustrations as an administrator was the number of times her office space has changed during the school’s renovation.
My second observation of Teep occurred on April 9, 2007, for nearly three and a half hours. Although there was nearly a five-month gap between the two observations, her life was no less hectic. Teep was 15 minutes late in meeting me due to an administrators’ meeting, which ran later than scheduled. Once she returned to her office, the pace of things picked. During our time together, she managed to do the following: answer numerous phone calls, respond to numerous emails and voicemails, advise the scheduler on registering rising 9th graders for Spanish, counseled and reprimanded an angry student, eat and supervised students in cafeteria, used the intercom to request students to come to her office, counseled students on options for course registration and how to earn credit for a course, talked about tough issues (including what to do about an Algebra III teacher who has too many students failing, low writing test scores, and “cleaning up” 1st semester failures.
Long before I arrived for our 12 noon rendezvous, Teep was busy. Since 7:30 a.m., Teep says she accomplished much, including “cleaning up” incompletes, finished registration, finished discipline referrals, filling students in zero and 5th period, attended an administrative team meeting, reset a hearing, and notified failing seniors of their options for graduation.
During this shadow experience, Teep discussed one of her main frustrations in working with curriculum is placing students from foreign countries (especially those who speak no English) into high school classes. Teep said transcripts make it hard to find equivalents to American courses. She gave one example of a 21-year-old student from a country in Africa whose transcript included such courses as basket weaving. Yes, that’s right: Basket weaving. Teep said she believes the Georgia Department of Education should set up centers around the state to take care of such students because regular high schools are ill-equipped to take care of such matters. As the situation is now, she has to treat them like 9th graders, which creates a whole set of problems.
Middle School Assistant
Principal
I chose to observe my middle school assistant principal for two reasons. The first, reason was the convenience and availability. Like my principal, I could observe Wilber Rilkins right in my own school building. Second, I sought the perspective he would provide: a middle school administrator whose primary responsibility is discipline. Rilkins was a neophyte to administration. Although he had 22 years of teaching experience at CMS, this was only his second year as an assistant principal. I observed Rilkins on two separate days: November 9, 2006 and April 9, 2007.
Although the two dates were exactly five months a part, it is hard to determine which experience was the most hectic.
On November 9, 2006, discipline for Rilkins was contained to CMS for the nearly three hours that I observed him. He spent half of his time dealing with disruptive students sent to his office by teachers. At the beginning of the observation, Rilkins was in his office typing on this computer. One male student sat slumped in a chair outside Rilkins’ office waiting to see him; a female student was sitting across from Rilkins as he typed on the computer. Before leaving his office minutes later, Rilkins called a teacher and informed her that a student would be timed out in in-school suspension and she should promptly send work.
Walking must be a major part of the job description for Rilkins because he walked the halls performing the following tasks: spoke briefly to a teacher about setting up an appointment to see him, escorted a noisy group of students to another hallway, answering questions of students, talked privately with a parapro, did a “walk-through” of the cafeteria during 8th grade lunch, and touched base with principal about a complaint of racism against the band director.
Once he returned to his office, Rilkins dealt with at least seven to eight students about a variety of discipline issues, including disruptive behaviors on the school bus. “Dealing” with these students meant using the technology available – telephone, email, video, and walkie-talkie – to call them to his office to counsel them on their offenses and failing grades and notify their parents or guardians of their offenses. Their punishments varied. Several girls were suspended from the bus because of horrific behavior on the bus. Others were given days in in-school suspension. One girl became uncontrollably upset when Rilkins announced she would be suspended from school for the rest of the week. He followed this news up with instructions: Your grandmother said for you to walk home.
Minutes later, we end up walking to in-school suspension, or ISS, where Rilkins gave a male student (he had seen earlier) a surprise consequence for his teacher writing him up: He was being suspended. His grandmother had given permission for the student to walk home. We escort him to the front of the school and stood there until we could literally see him step off the school’s campus onto a public sidewalk. Seconds later, Rilkins provided a parent with assistance on his way back to his office.
Once in his office, Rilkins used the telephone to bring other disruptive students to his office, talked to a parent privately about her child, counseled more students about their behavior on the bus and their grades, informed some students of their suspension off the bus, and ended his day with bus duty.
If I thought my observation of Rilkins on November 9, 2006 involved a lot of walking, it would dull in comparison to my April 9, 2007 shadow experience with him. On that day, I decided to observe him at the beginning of the day. The observation lasted three and a half hours.
Much of the early morning consisted of supervising students outside of the cafeteria before school began. He had to talk to one female student about an inappropriate shirt she was wearing. During the principal’s announcements, Rilkins walked to halls, greeting students and admonishing them to get to class and be quiet once they arrived there. I lost track of the number of quick exchanges he had with both faculty and students.
Rilkins seemed consumed with making last minute preparations for an assembly, which was set to begin during 1st period. Walking briskly around the building, he touched base with the custodian, school resource office, band teacher, and principal about last minute adjustments to the gym. We also met the guest speaker, a motivational speaker, who came highly recommended to encourage students to do well on the CRCT. In all of the chaos of getting ready for the assembly, Rilkins managed two back-to-back conferences with irate parents, which both turned out extremely well due to his ability to patiently listen to their concerns and act in a manner parents deemed reasonable and fair.
I was looking forward to seeing Rilkins in action during the assembly, but my hopes were dashed when he had to deal with an injured student. A tall, lanky 6th grader was brought to Rilkins by another teacher because he was experiencing shoulder pain. Upon closer inspection, we both came to the same conclusion: The student, looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame on one side, had come to school with an apparent dislocated shoulder. Because repeated attempts to locate the grandmother were unsuccessful, Rilkins decided we would take the student to the hospital (located across the street from the school) – by car.
The rest of my shadow experience consisted of sitting with Rilkins and this student in the emergency room, where he filled out mountains of paperwork, answered the same set of questions three different times, and was examined by a nurse practitioner. In my effort to keep my shadow appointment with another administrator (Pamela Teep, associate principal) on that same day, I had to leave (as in walk back to CMS) the hospital before the student was X-rayed and a diagnosis confirmed.