Ever wonder what goes into a school to make it work? Well it turns out it’s not just the principal. Sure, you have one principal, or the "head honcho" as I would like to call it. Park Center also has two assistant principals and three administrative assistants.
What’s the difference you might ask? Well, I'm going to work my way up to the "head honcho" by starting with the administrative assistants. These people deal with students everyday. They enjoy working with students and try to help them solve any problems they might be having, and help to get them going on the right path. This is no easy job for just one person alone, so that’s why we have three of them. Here at Park Center we have one assistant for each grade, Mr. Harris(juniors), Mr. Turner(seniors), and Mr. Linneman(sophomores). I had time to talk to the 11th grade administrator Mr. Harris about how a typical day goes for him. Mr. Harris, who can usually be found in his office, the cafeteria, or in the hallways, claims that he usually has the same students sent to him, but there is always a new face each day. One of his favorite aspects of his job is that he says he is "working with tomorrow’s future." When asked what the toughest part of his job is he responded, "There just isn’t enough time in the day.” He has a favorite quote that I felt describes his character and that is, "He who is not courageous enough to take risk will accomplish nothing in life"-Muhammad Ali.
Next step up the ladder is the assistant principals. We have two assistant principals at Park Center, Ms. Miller-Cink and Mr. Osei. I had a chance to sit down with Ms. Miller-Cink and asked her what being an assistant principal is all about. First, I want to explain how one becomes an assistant principal. Most often a person starts off as a teacher. For Miller-Cink, she started as a choir teacher in 1989 and became and administrator in 2003. A little farther down the road in 2006 she became an assistant principal. Although you don’t have to be a teacher first to become an administrator (it is the most traditional way); there are some alternative routes you can take. To become an administrative assistant, one just needs a bachelors degree. Assistant principal and higher needs additional administrative degrees.
Assistant principals do help the administrative assistants with discipline issues, but they also have other responsibilities. Mr. Osei deals with building operations such as fire drills, pepfests and security, and Ms. Miller-Cink is in charge of the students schedules. Both of them do teacher observations and they both work with the principal to make sure the school runs as smoothly as possible. A typical day for Ms. Miller-Cink consist of arriving at school at 6:00 AM to organize and answer emails/phone messages. She then deals with students and teacher observations during the day. At the end of the day she will organize and answer more emails/phone calls before leaving school around 4:25 PM. Ms. Miller-Cink's favorite parts of her job include impacting the lives of students and being able to experience something new every day, because no two days are the same.
At the top of the administrative pyramid is the building principal. As you may assume, the principal runs the school. Our principal, Ms. Kelli Parpart makes all of the decisions that make Park Center run efficiently. Although I haven’t had a chance to have an interview with Ms. Parpart, I learned from Ms. Miller-Cink that everyone on the administration team has a walkie talkie. This is very important because communication is key to making things run smoothly. Ms. Parpart gets a lot of support from her administrative team and collaborates with them daily. You can find Ms. Parpart along with the rest of the administrative team in the student support office located by the cafeteria.
