Inside A Private School Principal’s Day

We pull back the curtain on a private Christian school principal’s day, from pre-dawn safety checks and prayer to academic leadership, community partnerships, and healthy boundaries. Along the way, we unpack how mission drives decisions on curriculum, staffing, finances, and culture.

• morning routines, safety checks, and greeting families
• chapel and school family meeting
• tutoring and interventions for students with additional needs
• discipline systems and counseling support
• tech troubleshooting and curriculum guidance
• lunch duty, staff care, and midday logistics
• academic vision, teacher observation, and PD
• staffing, hiring, and mission-aligned culture
• budgets, tuition, and financial stewardship
• accreditation versus autonomy in private schools
• church partnerships, donors, and community ties
• differences between private and public school leadership
• spiritual leadership and integrating faith with learning
• sustainable boundaries and leaving work at a healthy time

If you have ideas for future episodes or questions you'd like me to explore, you can reach me anytime at admin at educatemewell.com and be sure to keep an eye on educatemewell.com

Contact Educate Me Well

• Email Tonya at admin@educatemewell.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/educatemewell/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/educatemewell
• X: https://x.com/EducateMeWell
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/educate-me-well

Keep watching for the website to go live: https:www.educatemewell.com

We are just getting started! Check back for more info as we go along on our social sites. 

Thanks for listening and keep making a difference in the lives of children!

Transcript

A Day In The Principal’s Life

Morning Arrival And Safety Checks

Greeting Families And Chapel Rhythm

Tutoring, Discipline, And Tech Support

Midday Routines And Dismissal

Learning Healthy Work Boundaries

Academic Vision And Teacher Support

Staffing And Faculty Culture

Operations, Budget, And Compliance

Community, Donors, And Public Image

Note: Skipped Duplicate Topic Marker

Tonya 0:04

Welcome to Educate Me Well, the podcast that brings faith and education together. Hi, I'm Tonya and I'm so glad you're here. A A day in the life of Tonya's Private School Principal Day. Today we're going to talk about what it's like to be a private school principal. I worked in that field for eight years, and here's how my day would kind of go. So just let me give you a little idea of what it's like. Most of the time I would arrive at work by 6:30. I'd get to work and tour the building, turning on lights, unlocking classrooms, and checking safety issues. I'd get my office set up for the day's events if I hadn't done that the afternoon before. Then as a faith-based or Christian school principal, early on, I would get there earlier, really, than 6:30, and I would begin my day with prayer. So important in today's world. Also, after getting my office set up for the day's events, then I would prep my entry basket for receiving students. I like to receive the students because then I could be the one to see them first during the day and just see how they're doing as they're coming in and just making that one-on-one contact with them. Then I would prep music for chapel prayer and school family meeting for after breakfast. Once I greeted the students and parents and teachers on their arrival, then I sent the students to the breakfast area. Then I would join students and staff in chapel for morning prayer. I conducted the school family meeting together with everyone else. And then once that was over, I would handle any student issues or if a teacher had a reminder or something that needed to be done and she needed to talk to me before class, then I would talk about that and try to handle that first before they went to class. Then once everyone had gone to class, I would go outside and walk the perimeter of the building and the playground looking for any potential safety issues. Wanted to make sure that when they went out for a recess, everything was well. By that time, it was about 8:30. And if it wasn't a day to tutor students, I would work on office work like curriculum, tuition, finance, correspondence, communication, teacher needs, student needs, pastor requests, fundraising, supply orders, and you get it. Two days a week, I would tutor students most of the day. And usually that was four to five students per day. These were usually students with a disability or struggling with behavior or academic issues. And I usually did that tutoring because I was the one that had the background in special education and intervention. Then I would take care of any discipline issues as they came up throughout the day as teachers had requests. Also, I would help teachers when issues of curriculum or technology arose. Most of the time, I was the tech support. Also, I would take care of any sick children and send them home if needed. I'd take care of any janitorial issues that arose, such as stopped-up toilets. I'd counsel with any students that were having a hard day or needing a listening ear. Talk with any parents that happened to call or call parents for students that had a discipline issue or an absence or tardy issue. Also, I would help with lunch as the needs arose. Then I would eat lunch with teachers if no other issues were happening at the moment. By that time it was about 12:15. On Mondays we had chapel service. And it usually was over by one o'clock. And then I would continue the day the same as in the morning. By 2:50, we were ready for dismissal. And at 3 o'clock, we dismissed. That usually lasted about 15 minutes, unless a parent was late, which was often. And then by 3:30, we were usually finished. And I would talk with any teachers about students, curriculum, technology, or any other issues that arose during the day. After I finished talking with any teachers that had needs, I would head to my office and finalize anything that I didn't need to get that I didn't get done earlier in the day that had to be done that day. My work was never done. Usually I left around 4:30 or 5 o'clock for the day. Most days because early in my principal career, I stayed until 5, 5:30, 6 o'clock. And you just can't keep doing that every day without stressing your body out. And so I learned, put it down and leave it. It will be there tomorrow. And then sometimes in the evenings, I would also receive texts or phone calls many times on the way home from work from a teacher or a parent with something that was pressing on their mind that they needed to tell me. You know, communication with parents can be hard because not all parents value you. So let's talk about instructional and academic leadership. Private school principals are responsible for shaping the school's academic vision and ensuring high-quality teaching. It includes things like setting and maintaining academic standards and curriculum quality, observing and evaluating teachers to support instructional improvement, planning the academic calendar and overseeing program development, and leading continuous improvement initiatives and ensuring alignment with the school's mission. Then, in the area of staff leadership and human resources, private school principals often have more direct influence over staffing than their public school counterparts. The responsibilities include hiring, onboarding, and supervising teachers and staff, conducting performance evaluations and coaching faculty for growth, building a positive mission-aligned faculty culture. And then in the area of school operations and management, we know that private school principals operate independently. We have many duties in that area that we have to handle ourselves, whereas public school principals often have a department they can call. And we don't have that department. We have to do those things ourselves. There's usually very few people we can call on. We have to work on it ourselves. Some of those operation and management things are like overseeing the daily operations of the school and ensure a safe, orderly environment. Like as I was telling you, that I go, I went out and walked the perimeter to make sure everything looked well, safe for the students. Also managing budgets, making tuition-related decisions, working on financial health in collaboration with leadership, handling discipline and student behavior systems. Also ensuring compliance with accreditation standards rather than state mandates if your school is accredited. Mine was not accredited. We were a church school and we just chose not to be accredited. We wanted to have our own autonomy. However, we did think it was important that our students graduated with an accredited diploma. So we did go by the requirements of our curriculum company in order to receive that accreditation for our students on the diploma. Another area is in community, culture, and external relations. Private school principals are deeply involved in shaping the school's identity and relationships with other people. They represent the school to families, donors, and even the broader community. Principals also communicate the school's mission and values clearly and consistently. And then these principles also build strong parent partnerships while maintaining a positive public image. These are all so important and involve more than just this bullet point, you know, that I would make. There are many, many things that go into the details of these individual decisions here. So one way private schools differ from public school principals is that we have more autonomy. We have greater freedom in curriculum, staffing, and school culture. We are a mission-driven leadership. Our decisions are guided by the school's philosophy, whether it be faith-based, classical, Montessori, and so on. Also, there is less state compliance than in public school. Private schools usually focus more on accreditation standards rather than state accountability systems. Often we have closer community ties. The principal in a private school serves as the face of the school to families and donors. And then financial stewardship. We may participate in fundraising, tuition planning, and enrollment strategy. Those tasks are rarely assigned to public school principals. Because private schools vary widely, some are religious, some are independent, there's Messory, classical boarding schools. You know, the principal, the private school principal's role can shift dramatically. But across all models, the principal is the central stabilizing force, responsible for aligning people, programs, and resources with the school's mission. Now let's take a look a little deeper into the Christian school principals' responsibilities. Faith-based private school principals carry all the responsibilities of a traditional school leader, but with an added layer of spiritual leadership. The role is broader and more holistic than in most public settings, and the expectations are shaped by the school's theology, culture, and governance structure. Faith-based principles are expected to serve as the spiritual head of the school in many instances. I know in my instance, our the spiritual head of our school was our pastor. He was considered our superintendent if you were to have a public school equivalent. But he was also our pastor. And so he was considered our spiritual head. And then I was kind of like the under shepherd of the spiritual leadership of the school. And some of the principals that were expected of me was and others in faith-based schools are guiding the school community in integrating our Christian faith into all aspects of the students' education. And then we as Christians and as leaders and as teachers and staff, we were needed to model Christ-like behavior and mentor the students. And also, I would mentor the staff and even parents spiritually. And then we, as private school Christian leaders, wanted to ensure that biblical values were woven into everything that we did, the curriculum, our everyday culture, and all of our activities. We wanted to represent the Lord well. And then, as you heard from my day in the life earlier, we are required to do things like lead devotions, prayer. I didn't lead chapel very often. Our pastor had assigned leadership, you know, over to preach at chapel to the students or to lead a Bible study to the students. But if they were gone, then it was my responsibility to lead chapel for that day. Also, one of our responsibilities would be to support the pastor and his staff and any church leadership that he wanted us to be involved with. In a faith-based school, while spiritual leadership is central, academic excellence also remains a core expectation. Some of those responsibilities were the same as the earlier private school responsibilities that I told you about, like supervising teaching staff and make sure there's high quality instruction. That's a given. But also overseeing curriculum to assure that it aligned with both of our academic standards and also the school's beliefs, faith beliefs, our spiritual beliefs. We wanted that woven into our curriculum, and we had a great curriculum that did that. I may do a podcast episode on that one day. Also, just as we would conduct evaluations of the curriculum, any assessment we did, or the way teachers were performing, we wanted to make sure that the teachers were supported spiritually as well and that they passed that down to their students. And then always had professional development and always was trying to bring in good professional development for the teachers, but we wanted to integrate faith and learning in that area. Christian school principals often manage a wide range of operational duties, also because we operate independently, as you heard earlier, again, as I allude to, my day in the life. Some of the things that included were just as other private school principals, was overseeing the daily operation of the school and make sure there was a safe, orderly environment, and then implement any policies and directives and reporting regularly to leadership, such as the pastor, and then managing finances, enrollment, tuition, and those kind of things. Also supervising non-instructional staff and then coordinating all the schedules, facilities, events, fundraising, anything like that. Our schools also rely heavy heavily on strong relationships for the community, and part of that community is the local church, and we depended on them a lot for fundraising to help us to get the money that we needed to operate. There's no way that tuition can always cover every expense, and so fundraising was a big part of that. And we depended on our community to help us with that. And so the private school principal in the Christian school would serve as the primary communicator of our mission and values to the families and to the community that we had. And then we were always trying to build partnerships with parents, donors, church leaders, volunteers. So, how do Christian principles differ from public school principles? And there are several distinctions that consistently come about. And one of those is mission driven decision making. Every choice in a Christian school environment is Filtered through our Christian-based beliefs. And then also spiritual mentorship. You know, principals are expected to disciple, pray with, and spiritually guide staff and students. Many Christian principals report to a board or a head of school or even to the congregation. In my case, I reported to the pastor of our church, and he reported to the church and this and the church board. Also, distinction would be community integration. I know that public schools are very heavily involved with the community and need the support of the community. And we are just the same. Families often expect a relational spiritual presence from a private school principal that is in a Christian school. And then we have more autonomy in a Christian school. Curriculum, hiring, culture decisions are less restricted by state mandates. So faith-based principles as both educational leaders and as spiritual leaders. Their success is measured not only by academic outcomes, but also by how well they cultivate a Christian environment where students will grow in character, faith, and service. We have seen many of our students that have graduated, not even graduated, just many of our former students that are really involved in our church services, singing, and getting really involved in the local congregation. And that is a really a requirement of Christian school principals. You would expect that to happen. Although it varies a whole lot. Of course, as a Christian school principal, we know that public school principals would not be allowed to do some of the things spiritually that we do. And so we know that they don't have those responsibilities. So we will talk another time about public school principals because we know that they have the added responsibility of state mandates and also extracurricular activities that they have to be involved in outside of the school day. And so that adds a whole lot more stress to their plate. So I hope you've enjoyed this episode learning about what goes on in the life of a private school principal. And hopefully, I can come back to you later on and tell you more about public school principals and what is involved in their work. Maybe I could even have a guest on that has had that experience because I have not had that experience. So thank you for being with me today. I've enjoyed talking about this topic today. And I will see you on the next episode. Thank you for joining me today on Educate Me Well. I'm grateful you spent this time with me, and I hope the conversation encouraged and equipped you. If you have ideas for future episodes or questions you'd like me to explore, you can reach me anytime at admin at educatemewell.com and be sure to keep an eye on educatemewell.com. The website will be up and growing as new episodes are released. Until next time, keep making a difference in the lives of children.