Leadership and Administration

 School Admin 

For students, it is easy to imagine that school administrators spend all day sitting in their squishy office chairs doing nothing. For parents, it can sometimes feel like administration's only job is to promote fundraisers or call and report students' misbehavior. But running a school is a lot more work than anyone can imagine without trying it. The Department for Professional Employees put together a fact sheet full of information about the many tasks and decisions needed to keep a school afloat and the many new challenges administrators face in modern society. Everything from the curriculum, the schedule, the food, the bus routes, and so much more has to be carefully considered and planned every day. 

The Best Principal

A newspaper clipping featuring a black and
white photo of a row of marching band members
with one (Ms. Golden) smiling at the camera.
The text reads "UT's Pride of the Southland Band
was at the Gator Bowl where UT beat Indiana.
Former LCHS Big Gold Machine member
Emeline Golden is a member of the Vols band
and helped play Rocky Top during the bowl win"

I have had mixed experiences with school administration in my life. Thankfully I didn't spend much time getting in trouble and sitting in the principal's office, but I can remember my elementary and middle school principals being distant and vaguely frightening presences. I honestly couldn't tell you if we had assistant principals at those times because if we did, I never spoke to them. That story completely changed in high school. My high school principal was a constant, positive presence in our school. He was always walking up and down the halls, chatting with students and teachers. He came to every sporting event with a smile on his face. He made you feel heard, and his office was always open. If you had a problem at school, you knew you could go to him, no matter what it was. He always pushed to make our school better. When some students complained that our school didn't offer any AP courses, he started implementing as many as he could, getting teachers the training they needed to offer them. One place I can really remember him shining was in standardized testing. I grew up in a low-income area where most students didn't go to college, and our average test scores were consistently low by state standards. He made it his mission to get people engaged in testing and college. He and his admin team were the ones who first made our school an ACT testing location, the first one in the county. They came up with incentive programs for increasing scores, like reimbursing the cost of the test for students who improved or offering movie field trips for reaching your projected score. I was a part of a small group of students who were above their goal score, and many of us felt unsupported in our attempts to increase our scores since most of our teachers were focused on helping students who were below the average. Our principal was the one who called us all into a meeting, sat us down, and asked us what he could do to help us. I remember that day so clearly because it was one of the first times that I felt like I was being treated like an adult by an authority figure. Students who met their projected score or increased their score, no matter what it was, would be invited into his office to take a picture for his Twitter page. And his support didn't stop at testing either. Students were constantly hyped up on his social media for being accepted into college or trade school, and he kept up with students even years after they graduated. When my dad posted a picture of me in my freshman year playing with the band in college on his social media, my principal shared the photo and even got it put into the local paper, saying how proud he was. It meant so much to have him show us that we mattered.