By Gail Connelly
Principal, January/February 2011

"Too much to do and too little time to do it.” That’s a common refrain today, when everyone operates at two speeds—fast and faster. The work day starts early and ends late, and many of us work at least one weekend day. 

Elementary and middle-level principals juggle a hundred tasks every day, ranging from the routine to the stressful. Unlike many other professionals, principals can’t shut their office doors and dedicate long stretches of time to drilling through a daily to-do list. A colleague recently shared a conversation she had with a principal about his “typical day.” His response surely resonates with principals everywhere. He said, in part, that a productive day was one when he spent fewer than 30 consecutive minutes in his office.

Rather, his work took him to classrooms and hallways, the cafeteria and the playground, the library and the lobby, meetings with community groups and district colleagues, and to his students’ homes—anywhere he could build and strengthen relationships with individuals who were involved at some level with his school.

Accomplished principals build and manage a complex network of relationships and they do so with the most diverse groups of individuals imaginable—children and adults, educators and business people, next-door neighbors and cross-town parents, and community leaders and volunteers, just to name a few. This issue of Principal focuses on some of those vital relationships and offers strategies and insight for strengthening them.

As savvy as most principals are about developing school-based partnerships, one kind of relationship typically gets scant attention. It’s the principal-to-principal relationship, and it gets short shrift for two reasons. First, principals often feel isolated in their buildings, with few opportunities to directly share with and learn from their peers, whether across town or across the country. Second, principals unfailingly put the needs of others ahead of their own and so willingly invest time and energy in providing networks of support for students and teachers, but often overlook the value of building and nurturing their own networks.

Even so, investing in professional relationships—or, more accurately, strategic alliances—is the most important way principals can support students and teachers. Every well-nurtured partnership enhances principals’ skills, deepens their knowledge, broadens their vision of the principalship, and validates their judgment and instincts. NAESP makes several opportunities available for members to network and develop their own professional strategic alliances.

First, NAESP members have 23,000 friends and colleagues—a national network of peers who share the complexities, rewards, and challenges of the principalship. Even when principals feel “building-bound,” NAESP’s national community ensures that principals are never really cut off from colleagues. From Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, and West Fargo, North Dakota, to West Palm Beach, Florida, NAESP members are connected, regardless of where they live and work.

That said, connecting with colleagues investing in professional closer to home is vitally important to building effective professional networks, relationships—or, more and each of NAESP’s affiliated state-accurately, strategic based associations offers networking alliances—is the most opportunities on a localized scale. State conventions and regional meetings give important way principals members an unequalled opportunity to can support students develop and nurture a spirit of camaraderie, establish life-long friendships, and and teachers.

And when principals need a trusted confidante or an experienced career adviser, NAESP offers help. Our mentor program pairs new and even experienced principals with NAESP-certified mentors—retired and active seasoned professionals—who provide a crucial support system and offer advice and counsel to protégés. Our Principals Help Line is a confidential, online forum that enables members to ask questions about their most pressing issues and challenges and get help from veteran colleagues within 48 hours.

But there’s no better opportunity to cultivate networks than by attending NAESP’s 2011 Annual Convention and Exposition, April 7-10 in Tampa, Florida. As the only national gathering exclusively for elementary and middle-level principals, the annual convention is the ideal setting to build and nurture professional relationships—to connect and to bond, to empower yourself with new knowledge and to share your insight with colleagues, to listen and to talk, and to regroup, refresh, and recharge.

Make these networking opportunities work for you. Connect with your colleagues, and give your colleagues an opportunity to connect with you. Who knows? They could be the start of some beautiful friendships!

Gail Connelly is executive director of NAESP.
 
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