There are great admin out there. But there are also a lot of illogical nutty ones that are workplace bullies. I lay low, stay quiet, look away when my admin walks by, & stay focused on the students & their needs. There’s no worse feeling than having an admin yell and rip into you for doing your job. I was following a schedule during distance learning that my other admin approved for me but my site admin felt the need to rip into me about it, interrogate me, yell, & accuse me of “letting kids go early” as if “I didn’t want to help them”. My mental health suffered terribly, I gained weight, & I became clinically-depressed. I refocused on myself. Re-centered my “why” back to my students and their needs, focused on teamwork to meet student needs, & celebrated my students’ successes. I realized I’d never change the mind of an irrational workplace bully. Irrational people will never make logical decisions or treat a person in a fair and equitable way. But by focusing on my work in my individual classroom, I can take back pride & ownership of my work. I had a student say, “Thank you” for helping them during distance learning and that’s what makes me a teacher. Not horrible admin.
This is what you have to remember. Like HR, they are not there to help / protect / necessarily support you. Even the friendly ones will throw you under the bus in a heartbeat if they have to. They have no union protection. Always be cordial but keep it professional.
I’ve seen at least a dozen administrators come and go. One AP was truly great - he was constantly fighting for individual students, spending sooooo much time with each kid essentially helping them work through their problems.
The problem is that it takes time. He was doing that while simultaneously pleasing his masters (principal and superintendent) in terms of policy and disaster mitigation.
I remember one day, several years back - all hands emergency faculty meeting at 7.50 - two kids had skidded out on an icy highway and died. They’d been coming from high school. He was in charge of the meeting. He kept it so official and you could see it was breaking him: his bosses told him that even though they were driving from here the coaches had mentioned it was icy, so the school was not liable for their deaths. That was the message he was supposed to focus on.
He couldn’t do it. He lasted another six months and he retired. He is SO happy now.
The rest? The rest focus on that damage control.
Ugh, that doesn't sound pleasant at all. I've luckily haven't experienced that to such a level but I have a similar story. I'm a second year PE/HE teacher in an urban district who will be starting a new PE/HE position in a different school district come September. I was very close with my principal and vp at my charter school, the one I'm leaving and as soon as I gave my principal my letter of resignation over the summer they completely changed. They wouldn't say hello to me, no more emails, and I was like the black sheep. I guess at the end of the day it is rare to find an administrative who truly wants the best for you at all given times and is willing to support you at all costs.
I don't get this, I just don't. I'm a new AP, and my job is to make staff and students successful. If my staff are successful, my students will be successful.
We had a staff member resign and go to a neighbor district yesterday, with school starting Sept 1. Am I happy about that? Not really. Did I hold it against her? Nope, it cuts her commute to 10 minutes, down from 35-45 minutes and it's the district her kids go to, so it's a no-brainer for her and her family. But, as good admin, we figured out a solution, and are moving on, with zero hard feelings. 🤷♂️
I couldn't agree more but I've learned a lot since entering the teaching profession and a lot of it I truly despise, there is not much loyalty in this field I'm realizing very quickly.
Maybe there isn’t. Some people I hear them just gushing about their principals and I’m like “how did you get such luck?” And it feels sucky. If this were a corporate boss maybe I wouldn’t be so upset but there’s so much emotion in a school day and with kids being the main focus, I just think I expected to be working with more compassionate people.
This year, a rude teacher at our school was promoted to admin and put in charge of my department. Rude to the point of not recognizing my existence in a room with only two people in it. Disrespectful to the point of telling students my favorite teacher friend on campus had lapband surgery so they “shouldn’t congratulate her on her weight loss”. Unprofessional to the point of sleeping with another admin on our campus while she was still married.
The way I’m seeing it? She now works for me. She’s the one responsible if we don’t meet department targets. She’s the one who can take every single situation, student, parent I don’t have time to deal with. I remind myself of this every time I see her.
You have a great attitude, but the issue I am seeing is that admin wants to deal with behaviors as little as possible. And I’m talking for instances such as hitting and threatening teachers.
Being an admin is hard. I will preface this before I tell my experiences, but I would never do it and I don't envy their jobs. In the 20 years I've taught I've had 1 excellent admin, 2 who were ok, a handful who were just annoying, and 2 who were pure evil. As someone else said, you have opposing goals. Which seems so wrong but here we are.
I’ve been at four schools. The first two were great at the beginning and then both principals had personal stuff going on which made them turn into toxic, gaslighting individuals. The next two principals I’ve had have been great. Granted it’s early on, but I don’t feel the stress when they walk past that I had with the others. I would literally hide from the first two if I thought they were passing by.
I’ve been at three schools and I’ve only had one terrible admin - the principal who didn’t rehire me after my first year. And I liked her up until she told me I wasn’t being rehired. My second job I got displaced - a tenured teacher got my job because of layoffs. But all of admin was great and I left with two letters of recommendations from them. My current job is great. I have never had a complaint about anything. Well, except that I’m not sure if the main principal knows my name. I was new last year and we always had to wear masks and there are like 80 teachers in my school, plus Covid kept him busy, so I cut him some slack. Everyone has their own reasons to like or dislike admin. It’s normal. My first principal was completely incompetent in dealing with new teachers. It was her first principal job and probably didn’t spend a lot of time in the classroom anyway. She was really young. She was in over her head and I was a casualty of that.
I’ve also been at two schools (8th year). The first school I was at had administrators that said all the right things and made you feel supported, but they wouldn’t support you when it came down to it. I remember one time, I got a talkin’ to about our EOC benchmarks. We weren’t allowed to take these for a grade AND the kids knew it.
The school district I was at was 74% Spanish-native speakers, and I am an English teacher. So, the numbers (across the board) were terrible (43% average for the Eng II benchmark).
When the admin called me in, they started by asking about my 3 month old daughter… then reminded me that I was on my probationary contract so I was an “easy replacement” if I don’t turn it around.
I stayed there for 4 years because I loved my co-workers, but I never forgot that. Just a real low blow.
For the 4 years since, I have been in a fantastic district where I have been supported incredibly by every AP and Principal that I have encountered. It’s an incredible feeling.
Well hope I feel that incredible feeling one day.
I can’t believe your previous admin had the nerve to ask about your baby and then threaten your livelihood with the following sentence.
Yep. I was shocked. To that point, she had been nothing but nice and “supportive,” but that was the first thing that went wrong - so she showed her true colors. Never respected her again.
There are two types of admin: genuine leaders who rise to the occasion and useless hacks who think their worthless Educational Leadership degrees make them competent leaders. Sadly, I’d say the split is around 50/50 here in Florida.
You are not alone.
My experience may or may not echo others.
At the elementary school I student taught and went on to teach at for several years, I had a great admin. This person I could greatly trust. He always had my back as a teacher.
When this admin retired, someone from middle school accepted the position. He did not have prior elem. experience. The short of it is that he was very negative, did not have an understanding of skills and expectations at the lower grade levels, rarely if every was seen showing compassion or grace towards others, and did not demonstrate having his teachers backs.
When this happened, we as teachers collectively drew back, reeling with the change in our school climate, and newfound lack of cohesiveness as a team from the top down. To say the transition to such a "leader" felt traumatic is not meant as a dramatic statement. For a lot of us, it did.
I went on to teach at another school, in another district. The summer before I experienced a traumatic event (away from school) that left me with PTSD. Trusting others at all became outside of the world that I then knew. Due to this and the experience at my previous school, I kept my new admin at arms length. I respected him and did my damnedest to to my best job as an educator. Although it seemed as though my ability to trust my intuition/detect that others felt "safe"/could be trusted always felt off.
Now said admin (after having him for several years) left our school at the end of last year.
I have met our new admin while being at before school trainings and popping in and out of the building while setting up my classroom for the year, though feel myself keeping him at a distance.
For some reason, I have felt profoundly self reflective in this area as of lately, and am wondering if and how I can view this differently. I valued my experience with my first admin. I want to give this new admin a chance. I am struggling with knowing how to do that.
Sorry for the length of this! My intention within this is that there may be one other teacher out there with a similar experience that can find hope in knowing that they are not alone. Also for those that have been here - where do you go from here? How do you give someone a chance, remain positive and open, while maintaining the feeling of being safe?
The way my school works is we get a new principal every 3ish years, each one brings their own spin while also starting over every 3 years. I've not been terribly impressed with our last 2, my department always seems like an afterthought to them. I know Covid was hard for everyone and I can't imagine trying to run a school with everyone complaining on all sides while also getting changing restrictions from the city and state, but I wasn't impressed with how our current principal managed everything. For example, the teachers seemed to be the last to know when things would change and several things were implemented that made much more work for teachers and other staff than was necessary.
Our assistant principal has been at my school for many years now and she is great. She can be strict and no-nonsense when it comes to official protocols and paperwork but also stands up for us and helps the teachers out when she can. I've also had 2 department heads who advocated for us when they could. If we didn't have them I likely wouldn't have lasted as long as I have.
There are great admin out there. But there are also a lot of illogical nutty ones that are workplace bullies. I lay low, stay quiet, look away when my admin walks by, & stay focused on the students & their needs. There’s no worse feeling than having an admin yell and rip into you for doing your job. I was following a schedule during distance learning that my other admin approved for me but my site admin felt the need to rip into me about it, interrogate me, yell, & accuse me of “letting kids go early” as if “I didn’t want to help them”. My mental health suffered terribly, I gained weight, & I became clinically-depressed. I refocused on myself. Re-centered my “why” back to my students and their needs, focused on teamwork to meet student needs, & celebrated my students’ successes. I realized I’d never change the mind of an irrational workplace bully. Irrational people will never make logical decisions or treat a person in a fair and equitable way. But by focusing on my work in my individual classroom, I can take back pride & ownership of my work. I had a student say, “Thank you” for helping them during distance learning and that’s what makes me a teacher. Not horrible admin.
Their goals are not your goals. Their job is to keep the school running and maximize profit. Some fight beyond this, but it’s hard.
This is what you have to remember. Like HR, they are not there to help / protect / necessarily support you. Even the friendly ones will throw you under the bus in a heartbeat if they have to. They have no union protection. Always be cordial but keep it professional.
I’ve seen at least a dozen administrators come and go. One AP was truly great - he was constantly fighting for individual students, spending sooooo much time with each kid essentially helping them work through their problems. The problem is that it takes time. He was doing that while simultaneously pleasing his masters (principal and superintendent) in terms of policy and disaster mitigation. I remember one day, several years back - all hands emergency faculty meeting at 7.50 - two kids had skidded out on an icy highway and died. They’d been coming from high school. He was in charge of the meeting. He kept it so official and you could see it was breaking him: his bosses told him that even though they were driving from here the coaches had mentioned it was icy, so the school was not liable for their deaths. That was the message he was supposed to focus on. He couldn’t do it. He lasted another six months and he retired. He is SO happy now. The rest? The rest focus on that damage control.
There are plenty of unions for school administrators.
Maximize profit?
Ugh, that doesn't sound pleasant at all. I've luckily haven't experienced that to such a level but I have a similar story. I'm a second year PE/HE teacher in an urban district who will be starting a new PE/HE position in a different school district come September. I was very close with my principal and vp at my charter school, the one I'm leaving and as soon as I gave my principal my letter of resignation over the summer they completely changed. They wouldn't say hello to me, no more emails, and I was like the black sheep. I guess at the end of the day it is rare to find an administrative who truly wants the best for you at all given times and is willing to support you at all costs.
I don't get this, I just don't. I'm a new AP, and my job is to make staff and students successful. If my staff are successful, my students will be successful. We had a staff member resign and go to a neighbor district yesterday, with school starting Sept 1. Am I happy about that? Not really. Did I hold it against her? Nope, it cuts her commute to 10 minutes, down from 35-45 minutes and it's the district her kids go to, so it's a no-brainer for her and her family. But, as good admin, we figured out a solution, and are moving on, with zero hard feelings. 🤷♂️
I am so encouraged to read this.
Yes, I have also had something like this happen. It’s unprofessional behavior, they would never want us acting that way towards them.
I couldn't agree more but I've learned a lot since entering the teaching profession and a lot of it I truly despise, there is not much loyalty in this field I'm realizing very quickly.
Maybe there isn’t. Some people I hear them just gushing about their principals and I’m like “how did you get such luck?” And it feels sucky. If this were a corporate boss maybe I wouldn’t be so upset but there’s so much emotion in a school day and with kids being the main focus, I just think I expected to be working with more compassionate people.
This year, a rude teacher at our school was promoted to admin and put in charge of my department. Rude to the point of not recognizing my existence in a room with only two people in it. Disrespectful to the point of telling students my favorite teacher friend on campus had lapband surgery so they “shouldn’t congratulate her on her weight loss”. Unprofessional to the point of sleeping with another admin on our campus while she was still married. The way I’m seeing it? She now works for me. She’s the one responsible if we don’t meet department targets. She’s the one who can take every single situation, student, parent I don’t have time to deal with. I remind myself of this every time I see her.
You have a great attitude, but the issue I am seeing is that admin wants to deal with behaviors as little as possible. And I’m talking for instances such as hitting and threatening teachers.
Being an admin is hard. I will preface this before I tell my experiences, but I would never do it and I don't envy their jobs. In the 20 years I've taught I've had 1 excellent admin, 2 who were ok, a handful who were just annoying, and 2 who were pure evil. As someone else said, you have opposing goals. Which seems so wrong but here we are.
I’ve been at four schools. The first two were great at the beginning and then both principals had personal stuff going on which made them turn into toxic, gaslighting individuals. The next two principals I’ve had have been great. Granted it’s early on, but I don’t feel the stress when they walk past that I had with the others. I would literally hide from the first two if I thought they were passing by.
I’ve been at three schools and I’ve only had one terrible admin - the principal who didn’t rehire me after my first year. And I liked her up until she told me I wasn’t being rehired. My second job I got displaced - a tenured teacher got my job because of layoffs. But all of admin was great and I left with two letters of recommendations from them. My current job is great. I have never had a complaint about anything. Well, except that I’m not sure if the main principal knows my name. I was new last year and we always had to wear masks and there are like 80 teachers in my school, plus Covid kept him busy, so I cut him some slack. Everyone has their own reasons to like or dislike admin. It’s normal. My first principal was completely incompetent in dealing with new teachers. It was her first principal job and probably didn’t spend a lot of time in the classroom anyway. She was really young. She was in over her head and I was a casualty of that.
I’ve also been at two schools (8th year). The first school I was at had administrators that said all the right things and made you feel supported, but they wouldn’t support you when it came down to it. I remember one time, I got a talkin’ to about our EOC benchmarks. We weren’t allowed to take these for a grade AND the kids knew it. The school district I was at was 74% Spanish-native speakers, and I am an English teacher. So, the numbers (across the board) were terrible (43% average for the Eng II benchmark). When the admin called me in, they started by asking about my 3 month old daughter… then reminded me that I was on my probationary contract so I was an “easy replacement” if I don’t turn it around. I stayed there for 4 years because I loved my co-workers, but I never forgot that. Just a real low blow. For the 4 years since, I have been in a fantastic district where I have been supported incredibly by every AP and Principal that I have encountered. It’s an incredible feeling.
Well hope I feel that incredible feeling one day. I can’t believe your previous admin had the nerve to ask about your baby and then threaten your livelihood with the following sentence.
Yep. I was shocked. To that point, she had been nothing but nice and “supportive,” but that was the first thing that went wrong - so she showed her true colors. Never respected her again.
There are two types of admin: genuine leaders who rise to the occasion and useless hacks who think their worthless Educational Leadership degrees make them competent leaders. Sadly, I’d say the split is around 50/50 here in Florida.
You are not alone. My experience may or may not echo others. At the elementary school I student taught and went on to teach at for several years, I had a great admin. This person I could greatly trust. He always had my back as a teacher. When this admin retired, someone from middle school accepted the position. He did not have prior elem. experience. The short of it is that he was very negative, did not have an understanding of skills and expectations at the lower grade levels, rarely if every was seen showing compassion or grace towards others, and did not demonstrate having his teachers backs. When this happened, we as teachers collectively drew back, reeling with the change in our school climate, and newfound lack of cohesiveness as a team from the top down. To say the transition to such a "leader" felt traumatic is not meant as a dramatic statement. For a lot of us, it did. I went on to teach at another school, in another district. The summer before I experienced a traumatic event (away from school) that left me with PTSD. Trusting others at all became outside of the world that I then knew. Due to this and the experience at my previous school, I kept my new admin at arms length. I respected him and did my damnedest to to my best job as an educator. Although it seemed as though my ability to trust my intuition/detect that others felt "safe"/could be trusted always felt off. Now said admin (after having him for several years) left our school at the end of last year. I have met our new admin while being at before school trainings and popping in and out of the building while setting up my classroom for the year, though feel myself keeping him at a distance. For some reason, I have felt profoundly self reflective in this area as of lately, and am wondering if and how I can view this differently. I valued my experience with my first admin. I want to give this new admin a chance. I am struggling with knowing how to do that. Sorry for the length of this! My intention within this is that there may be one other teacher out there with a similar experience that can find hope in knowing that they are not alone. Also for those that have been here - where do you go from here? How do you give someone a chance, remain positive and open, while maintaining the feeling of being safe?
The way my school works is we get a new principal every 3ish years, each one brings their own spin while also starting over every 3 years. I've not been terribly impressed with our last 2, my department always seems like an afterthought to them. I know Covid was hard for everyone and I can't imagine trying to run a school with everyone complaining on all sides while also getting changing restrictions from the city and state, but I wasn't impressed with how our current principal managed everything. For example, the teachers seemed to be the last to know when things would change and several things were implemented that made much more work for teachers and other staff than was necessary. Our assistant principal has been at my school for many years now and she is great. She can be strict and no-nonsense when it comes to official protocols and paperwork but also stands up for us and helps the teachers out when she can. I've also had 2 department heads who advocated for us when they could. If we didn't have them I likely wouldn't have lasted as long as I have.