D is for Disappointment

Before I became a school principal, I was a coach and worked as a manager at the district office level for quite a bit of time. I was partly responsible for resolving parent complaints and providing technical assistance to school sites when they called. I was also responsible for coaching and providing professional development. I was always taught by my superiors that everything that we did should be designed to serve school sites and that we needed to be responsive. I took pride in providing customer service to teachers, parents and school leaders.

During my first year of being a principal, I'd have to say that one of the biggest stresses that I feel is the disappointment that I feel over the lack of response or support from the district office. I call for help and no one responds. I call with questions and no one knows the answers or they give me conflicting information. I see my old department falling apart over ineffective leadership and feel sad and disappointed that my effective team is jumping ship from a great ship that we built together. Those are just some small examples of my disappointments but my disappointments are many.

My mentor and another principal that I speak to often tell me that I need to just deal with the fact that no one is coming when I call and that I just need to only depend on myself and my team. They suggest to me that I am making myself more angry by having the expectation that they show up. I know this and I will try to get to that point but I also can't shake the fact that I am hurt and disappointed also in my evaluator, who I worked for and served for 20 years but she can't even call me back when I am having an emergency. All I can do is try to accept it and hope that I get better with managing the disappointment because it often manifests itself in anger, self righteousness or stress.

Most importantly maybe I also am a little disappointed in myself that for years I maybe thought I was serving school site leaders when I was at the district office but maybe then I also didn't fully understand the complexities of their job. When they didn't prioritize certain compliance issues, I because frustrated but at the time I didn't understand how much they were navigating and how hard it all is. When schools first opened up during the pandemic I was angry that we often had to go substitute in classes when teachers were sick with covid. I complained that we had too much of our own work and that school sites needed to handle their own problems and I didn't understand how much they were falling apart with lack of personnel.

I am glad that I finally made the leap to be a leader at a school site. I don't know if I will ever go back to the district office. My old team claims that this position I have is probably just temporary and is a stepping stone for me to go back with a higher position at the district level, which I wouldn't have been able to do without being a principal. But sometimes the disappointment that I feel about the lack of response and understanding of the issues that we are facing makes me never want to go back to the district office again. Do I really want to be part of a system again that isn't responsive, doesn't understand our needs and causes more work for us? There are a few responsive people here and there at the district though and they make a huge difference and have been a lifeline for me. Time will tell what happens in the future.

C is for Compassion Fatigue

People in helping professionals often can experience compassion fatigue, where we pick up on the trauma of others. Sometimes we don't even know that we have picked up on the trauma or we don't even know that we are depleted from having compassion for others. We don't recognize that exhaustion, depression, irritation, frustration etc can be manifestations of caring too much about others.

I have one student who transferred from another school and is on a temporary permit at our school with the expectation that he has good behavior. I can revoke his permit if he has behavior or attendance problems, if I provide interventions over an 8 week period. We have provided lots of interventions and sometimes I think about revoking his permit. 

One day he came to school with a black eye and said that he went to visit his dad over the weekend who gave him a black eye. We called child protective services and also notified his mother because he was scared to go back to visit his dad. This month he has been acting up and told us that he is scared of his stepdad who is an alcoholic and beats his mom. We reported that also to child protective services. I don't think child protective services has even investigated over the past few months because they usually show up at the school to talk to the child.

He has so many behavior problems but my heart hurts for this child. He is so darn smart sometimes with some of the things that he says. I appreciate that he confides in us. But it hurts my heart so bad to see in his face many days that something is wrong. Sometimes I wonder what would also happen to him if he were to be placed into a foster care situation. I have had to even report a foster parent in the past so it is so painful to know that sometimes there are students in lose lose situations.

There is another family of five and I suddenly noticed that all of them are acting up. After about two weeks I found out that for some reason their dad moved and is living with his dad and they went to live with their mom who I think is very unstable and inconsistent. I spoke with the father and he knows this but he is struggling himself and said that he is trying to get back on his feet. It hurts me to see these kinds of situations. I can't even be mad at the students, really.

These are just two situations of MANY and I have been noticing that I have had a heavy feeling inside of me. I have been emotionally and physically exhausted. What is important about compassion fatigue is that it is important to try to recognize that it is happening to you. Sometimes we just think we are tired or grouchy and don't realize that we are going through compassion fatigue. I haven't figured it all out yet but I think self care in the form of self compassion, disconnecting from the job etc can help educators manage this. 

If you also work with a lot of students with trauma, keep your eye out for compassion fatigue. When you start to feel symptoms, do something extra special for yourself. Hang with the people who make you happy. Read a book. Dance. Connect with nature. Feed your soul. 

B is for Birthday

It's my first year as principal and I ALMOST made the mistake of taking the day off for my birthday! Then I remembered that one of my friends told me years ago that as principal she used to clear her calendar and spend all day in classrooms with students. So, I decided to give it a try.

I just have to say that I made a great decision and I can honestly say that it might truly be one of the best days of my life! When I walked in, our social committee had decorated my room with a large banner, balloons and streamers and my room was full of balloons and flowers. They gave me birthday necklaces to wear and a birthday crown. 

My vice principal made an announcement that it was my birthday and then all the real fun began! I started to get cards and presents from students. It's always endearing when a student gives you something that belongs to them, like their pencil or eraser. Everywhere I went, I was greeted with students giving me individual and group hugs and shouting, "Happy Birthday!" I spent the large part of the day calling up kinder and first grade students to read their guided reading books to that they had read in their small group reading lesson.

I walked the campus and there were a few times that I felt so overwhelmed with joy and emotion that I had tears streaming down my face! Students convinced me that next year we will have a birthday celebration for 20 minutes for everyone who has birthdays that month. We will just need to figure out what to do for the students who have birthdays in the summer. I feel that it really improves climate and culture when we celebrate as a community. 

If you haven't decided to stay at school and be with students on your birthday, I highly recommend it. And if you aren't a principal but are a parent, I recommend sending a little card or well wish to your child's principal. We have a really tough job and will take all the joy that we can get for those special moments. 

A is for Ambulance

This week was the second time this year that I have had to call the ambulance for a student who got hurt. A few weeks ago it was because one of our autistic students in the special day class tried to hug another student and ended up hurting the other student’s neck and she passed out. I rode to the hospital with her and ended up being violently sick for the rest of the day because I rode in the back of the ambulance. 

This time a student in the same class got overstimulated for some reason and started to spin around, and then fell and gashed his head open on the forehead. It took about six of us to try to hold him still because he got hysterical once he saw blood. We kept him still until the ambulance and his father got there. 

I knew he was going to be okay but before the father got there, I began to feel a lot of stress that he was going to yell and curse me out for the accident. I wanted to protect myself from being yelled at so I told him he should go in the ambulance with his son and that I would pick him up later and bring him back to his car. I figured that showing the father that I would go above and beyond for him would help create a bit more trust because I do not know the father. I was so nervous about it but the father never called me to be picked up. I decided to call later and he was fine. 

That night as I was driving home, I realized that something from a few weeks before must have really affected me much more than I thought, causing me to have anxiety about the father attacking me. I will get into that story at another time but one parent was harassing me for about 8 weeks and it got really ugly and irrational until she finally ended up leaving the school. With that parent, I was not doing anything wrong but she tried to blame me and try to control everything that was happening at the school. With this newest ambulance incident, I had to remind myself that I didn’t do anything wrong, that it was an accident and that I was just having anxiety over the previous harassment that I had received. 

It's frustrating being blamed for things that are not in my control and it’s frustrating to deal with an emergency at the same time that I am dealing with fear of being blamed or attacked. But, I suppose that is the name of the game with being a school site administrator. Hopefully, over time I will grow thicker skin and it won’t bother me so much. Until then I will work hard to build relationships with parents so that if and when something does happen that I have a little dividend in the trust bank with them. It’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it.