Summer Leadership – What principals should do during the summer? Part 1






So many people wonder what school and district educational leaders do during the summer.  Most people don’t understand the amount of work it takes to begin a school year with little to no incident.



Effective school principals spend the first week after the staff and students go home for the summer, working on a summer schedule for their twelve month staff: secretaries, bookkeepers, custodians, counselors, and any other twelve month staff. The principal should work with the custodians to develop a summer schedule for cleaning the building, repairing equipment, painting, moving furniture around if applicable, opening and disbursing new furniture, maintaining the lawn, washing tables and chairs, cleaning carpets if applicable, washing windows, and any other building needs. They should also discuss the custodian’s summer vacation. Principals should have someone on the maintenance team available everyday during the summer. 

If there is more than one front office person that is a twelve-month employee, principals should develop a schedule for their vacation, so there is someone in the front office at all times. The phone should be monitored and managed everyday for questions, concerns, issues, and explanations. Parent might drop by the school to pick up report cards, lost clothing items, to ask questions, etc. Therefore, the front office should always be open to the community and general public. If there is only one person available, principals should work with parents to volunteer and even monitor the front office themselves if necessary.

If there are twelve-month counselors, make sure they are working on student schedules, talking to parents about student issues, and working with student placement for the next year. Now that the twelve-month staff has their schedules, duties, and vacation for the summer, the principal should spend some time planning vacation for him/herself before beginning the work for the next year.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Summer Leadership – What principals should do during the summer? Part 2

What Should You Focus Your Attention On Between October - December

Spending Tax Dollars On A System That Is Not Producing