Education’s revolving door
CHICAGO — When you live in a school district where 64 percent of the students come from low-income homes and budgets have been squeezed to death, every official school communication has the potential to ruin your day.
So it went when I read a letter from my youngest son’s school informing us we’re getting a new principal next year. We got the letter a few weeks ago, but only now, in the last days of this academic year, has it becoming gut-wrenchingly real.
Our current principal is one of the best I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing and by far one of the best in our community. And though his move is cause for celebration—he’s being promoted and not leaving the district—it’s a deeply painful loss to our neighborhood.
Painful, but not surprising. Our school leaders come and go all the time.
With principals, it is much different now than when I was a kid, or even when I began my teaching career. Back then, principals usually only ascended to the top job after working in the same school’s classrooms for decades.