PSAT for 12-6-11: School principals, unite!
Last night we watched a charming movie, “Amreeka,” about a Palestinian mom and her son who emigrate to Illinois the same week the US invaded Iraq. Not surprisingly, they encounter some challenges. Somewhat surprisingly, one of the film’s heroes is the mild-mannered principal of the local high school.
School principals are popularly portrayed as creeps, crooks, or idiots (anyone besides me remember Osgood Conklyn in Our Miss Brooks? OK, how about Glee’s Principal Figgins?).
My own experience of principals in the Chicago system has been similarly mixed. As a Local School Council (LSC) member, one of my first successful fights was getting rid of a do-nothing principal. The LSC’s choice appeared to be a dynamo at first but she quickly turned paranoid and never became effective. Over the years, we
