Reply to Ludlow-Taylor principal made permanent!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As an insider who has been at the school for a decade, these two years have been the worst admin-wise that we’ve ever seen. Important emails go unanswered, schedules don’t make sense, there’s a weird lack of empathy… But it’s a tough time to be a school principal (or just about anything). I don’t know whether someone else could handle the staffing shortage better or not. At least she’s showing up every day. But we expected there to be better plans in place coming back from summer break. And the grace a lot of us are trying to give her is wearing thin. If this continues, I and many other staff will be looking to transfer at the end of the SY. [/quote]

I actually like the new schedule with kids getting 6-8 specials every week and having a predictable weekly rotation. I would have assumed it also frees up more time for planning, LEAP, etc, though I understand some of that is likely being lost to current staffing issues. I agree that she is very bad at emails. Whether she responds is completely unpredictable and not related to how important/urgent the subject matter is. She's much better in person but, of course, that means people are constantly showing up at her office to get a word with her, which doesn't help overall.

Do you have tangible suggestions for improvements that could be made? I know it's hard to give feedback to your boss and it might not be well received, but perhaps parents could pass the suggestions on. (Parents definitely have the same communication complaints that teachers do.)[/quote]

She is only 1 person that is managing a needy school community. Cut her some slack. [/quote]

I'm the PP you're responding to and I actually cut her quite a bit of slack and think she's a decent principal. As I said, I think her schedule changes are an improvement. That said, she's bad at responding to emails. I don't know a single person in the school community who would disagree and it is a genuine problem (including for her, because then people swamp her in person, as explained above). Asking if a very experienced teacher has tangible suggestions for improvement that they feel uncomfortable passing on directly isn't taking a potshot at the principal, it's seeing if there's a way to make the situation better, since I do think the teacher(s) posting on this thread aren't outliers among teachers at the school.

Also, I don't actually think the school community is particularly needy. The PTO actually takes on a much bigger communication role than any other school I have experience with, which I think takes stuff off her plate. Families helped staffed recess 3 days a week last year to give teachers more planning time. I think the community is quite involved and very willing to help, but that's not the same as needy. [/quote]

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