23| May | 2019
It is my intention to share some reflections on the highs, the lows, the excitement, the routine, the successes, the failures and everything in between which I experience the course of the next 10 – 12 months, my first months as a full-time principal of a high school. Writing this journal will help me grow. Reading it may make you laugh…
It is with a measure of surprise that I write this, the final installment of A Journal of the First Year. It is cliche to suggest that I don’t quite know where the year has gone and how the days, weeks and months disappeared so quickly but I suggest it nonetheless. As I told our seniors yesterday at their graduation rehearsal, not every minute or every hour of every day sped by, but, taken in their totality, they absolutely flew.
I am so very grateful to my colleagues for this year. I am grateful for a community that, on the whole, understands a shared mission and pulls in the same direction. I am grateful for a community that cares about our students and, as a rule, tries to put their needs first. I am grateful for a community that reached out and, almost without exception, welcomed the new guy this year.
I am grateful.
I have spent much of my time this year trying to learn about this school – about its history and its people – and, after 12 months, I feel that I have discovered much. I am also aware that I have much more to learn.
I am more prepared, because of this year, to be a better principal next year. I am ready to spend much time this summer, when there is more of it that is unstructured on my calendar, to reflect upon what I have learned and to consider ways to better serve this community. I am excited for Year Two.
I know that I will be a different leader because none of us should be stagnant in our approaches to our work. I will push to be different. I know that I will be more vocal (though that may come as a shock to some of my colleagues who might be thinking “how can this guy be more vocal?!?) and more involved. I know that I will share my opinions more readily. And I know the school better.
I am hopeful and I pray that I have been a good servant leader this year. I am hopeful and I pray that I will be a better servant leader next year.
And I end this post and this year as I began: grateful to have been blessed with this ongoing opportunity. I promise I do not take it for granted.