It Doesn’t Have to Be Me
Why I didn’t apply for a recent administration opening at my school.
There was a recent administrative opening at my school: Middle School Deputy Principal. I considered applying for it for a while this past summer. I even wrote the application prompt responses (more because I find that kind of thing fun than for any real application purpose). I thoroughly kicked it around, and then I decided that this one, at least, was not for me.
A Useful Framing
The main thing that really moved me to a place of ruling out this recent opportunity was a three-point framing that I came up with when thinking about the ideal kind of administrative job I might be interested in. In a perfect world, the type of administrative role I would really want to go for would be at my preferred level (high school or K-12), with my preferred focus areas that allow my strengths to be put to best use (various, but Deputy Principal fits this one just fine), and where I wouldn’t be contributing to the sort of representational dynamics that remove people who don’t look like me from the leadership picture of a school.
This is ideal, not actual. I’ve been in this field long enough to know that it’s not all that common for all three of these criteria to line up. So, pragmatically, I’m okay with pursuing any…
