HOW TO BECOME A GOOD SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR

PABLITO P. GANTAN, JR.

School administration is a very challenging task especially for teachers who are in transition to that aspect of education management.

A school administrator is in charge of all the operations at their school: they oversee teachers, coordinate curricula, plan and manage school events, maintain a budget, and keep the environment safe and conducive to learning.

This is a role with a lot of power, but with that comes a lot of responsibility, specifically to both local and national standards. Administrators are in a great position to shape the way their school operates and make a change, but they’re also beholden to requirements for their students’performance on tests and their teachers ability to drive those test scores.

To become a good administrator, he or she will also need to draw on their knowledge of teaching for tasks like mediating parent-teacher meetings, observing classrooms, and evaluating teacher performance.

A good school administrator must also work full-time, year-round because while everyone else goes home, they’re the ones responsible for writing up reports on student test scores, or drafting next semester’s class schedules.

It can be a challenging, highly visible job, but the role of school administrator has plenty of task variety and offers the satisfaction of making real change. If lesson plans and lunchtime quiz grading has got you down, the high risk, high reward role of administration might be a good fit for you.

To be a good school administrator, one must be adept at policy and planning; recruiting, hiring, and supervision of faculty and staff; student events and services; parent, teacher, staff, student, and community relations; recordkeeping; quality assurance; budgeting and purchasing; and interpretation and implementation of regulations.

Additionally, to become a good administrator, one must be skilled in aspects of interpersonal, IT, numeracy, organisational, time management Negotiation, and communication.

School administrators need about 5 years of experience. That experience is usually in teaching, but can sometimes work their way up from an assistant principal. Educationally, candidates should have a master’s degree, and often have a bachelor’s in education.

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The author is Teacher III at San Juan High School