News Photo by Julie Goldberg Alcona Elementary School Principal Tim Lee reads with third-grader Adriana Grimshaw on Tuesday.

ALPENA — School principals have a challenging job.

They have to make sure students are in their classrooms learning. They have to make sure teachers are teaching the right curriculum.

They also look over data from state-mandated tests, call parents for discipline and other reasons, visit classrooms, and other things.

A principal is someone a student looks up to.

This month is National Principals Month and organizations and school districts are recognizing principals for the work they do every day. There were 90,410 principals across the U.S. in the 2015-16 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Northeast Michigan principals said they work hard to help students and staff in anyway possible.

Alcona Elementary School Principal Tim Lee said being a principal is rewarding and exciting, but also a busy job.

“It’s a unique position, where you can directly work with pretty much every stakeholder within the school system,” Lee said. “It’s not just a title, but it’s an important piece for education. I think having that collaborative piece with the staff, community, and students really sets it apart.”

“BRINGS A SMILE TO YOUR FACE”

Students make the principal job easier because of the joy they bring to school every day. Lee said he could be having bad or rough day, but students can change that in a heartbeat.

“You come in and see the smiles of the kids about an exciting game they had last night or something they accomplished and it just brings a smile to your face,” he said.

Besser Elementary School Principal Stephanie Hitchcock said seeing the students every day is one of the best parts of the job because they’re excited to be at school.

“They want to learn, they’re just a joy to be around,” Hitchcock said. “I love the little notes or pictures that they draw for me that are personal, you could have the toughest day ever and you finally sit down at the end of the day and you find a drawing from a student that was to me and was personal and kind of makes all the stress of the day go away and it always reminds me of why I come back to do the work that I’m doing.”

Besser second-grader Sawyer Gauthier said principals are really nice and it’s awesome to see his principal, Hitchcock, around the school.

“She’s helpful, she’s nice, she’s kind like when you’re having bad day, she’ll come help you or if you’re mad that something went wrong, she’ll come help you again,” Besser fourth-grader Benalli Gabara said about Hitchcock.

Steve Kowalski, Rogers City Elementary School principal, said making a positive difference on students is enjoyable.

“I like coming to work everyday knowing that the students, teachers, parents, paraprofessionals, custodial staff, kitchen crew, and office employees are always working together,” Kowalski said.

PRINCIPAL DUTIES

A principal doesn’t sit behind a desk all day disciplining kids. They’re in the classrooms working one-on-one with students, on the playground with the aides, and in the cafeteria when students eat lunch. They are everywhere.

The job entails lots of different duties along with running a school, including curriculum and principal meetings, completing evaluations, and contacting families and members of the community. Besser Elementary School Principal Stephanie Hitchcock said it’s a very fast pace job.

“You are on all day long trying to make decisions,” she said. “There’s just so many things that it’s almost hard to even tell someone what a day in the life works like because it’s that overwhelming and intense some days.”

Every day is different for principals.

“You walk in and you don’t know what you’re going to face,” Hitchcock said. “It could be situations with kids, with teachers, with parents, with different families. I think that’s what I love about my job is that it’s not boring whatsoever.”

“Everyday’s pretty different, there’s some unique challenges to education and so a lot of times, the schedule of the day doesn’t always go as planned or the to do list doesn’t always get accomplished, but that’s what makes it fun and exciting,” Lee said.

Kowalski begins his day by welcoming students as they come to school and reads off the announcements so the students can start their day.

Kowalski said it’s great to see teachers engage students at a high level and see students learning in different ways when he visits classrooms.

Lincoln Elementary School Principal Hans Stevens said his role is to make sure the ones in the classrooms, which are teachers and instructional staff, can do their job successfully.

“Sometimes that means working to remove roadblocks, sometimes that means handling situations so they don’t have to, sometimes it means trying to foresee problems before they happens,” Stevens said.

CHALLENGES

Being a principal has its challenges. Lee, the Alcona principal, said following state or federal mandates that may not be in the best interests of students is challenging so policies and procedures have to be understood.

“It’s a challenge at times, it’s frustrating at times, but being able to problem solve and having a strong team here to be able to creatively think of ways we can overcome barriers and challenges to make sure that the environment and the students are provided the best education we have,” Lee said.

Hitchcock said being a principal can be an intense job.

“Some days it can go all day long where you’re putting out fires, you are faced with multiple challenges, you have parents coming to your door wanting to have conversations,” Hitchcock said. “You’re running a building.”

Hitchcock said building relationships and rapport with staff is important to the role because the job can get really stressful at times.

“I try to avoid the desk as much as possible, I would rather be out in classrooms and helping kids,” Lee said.

Julie Goldberg can be reached at 989-358-5688 or jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jkgoldberg12.