The President-Principal Model: My Thoughts

In the decade of the 1990’s, the “President-Principal” model became the dominant leadership model for mid to large Catholic diocesan schools across the country. Though each school varies a bit,  in general, the President is the “Chief Executive Officer” of the school, responsible for financial affairs, long term planning and external relationships (alumni, publications, marketing), whereas the Principal is the “Chief Operations Officer” responsible for day to day operations, the hiring and supervision of teachers, student discipline, and meeting the needs of the students and their families.

From 1989 until 2001, I served as “principal” in this model at Montgomery Catholic High School with Dr. Tom Doyle, president. When he left to become the academic director of the Alliance for Catholic Education at Notre Dame in 2001, I became the “president” of The school and served in that role until 2008. I then moved to Pope John Paul II just north of Nashville, partly because I was ready for a change from the model. Here I am “headmaster” and share leadership with a number of “assistant principal” level persons, whom we call “Deans” or “Directors.”

As a person who has held both principal and president roles for a significant period of time and who is now the single leader of a school,  I think I can offer "insider" insights on the strengths and weaknesses of the model, at least from my point of view. 

The breadth of skills and talents required to lead a successful Catholic high school is daunting. Principals are expected to be curricular experts, human resource professionals, financial wizards, strategic thinkers, public speakers, counselors, fund-raisers, marketers, and super-athletic directors (because it’s not likely that all athletic issues can be resolved at the A.D. level). At the same time, people feel best about principals when they see them in the parking lot before school, or when they're in classrooms, or when they're at the majority of the school’s athletic contests and fine arts concerts. Parents expect principals to know them by name and know their children personally. 

Adding to the challenge is the likelihood that the principal became principal through the ranks of teaching, with training and expertise in history, English, Math or Science (or in my case, Theology), but without formal training in development, management, finances or law.

Thus the logic of dividing leadership into two distinct roles is impeccable: Let the president be primarily the businessman whereas the principal can be primarily the educator.  Let the president think about the future, whereas the principal can focus on the present. Let the president serve the constituency outside the school, while the principal serves the constituency inside.

Savvy readers will object at this point: “Wait, you’ve drawn those distinctions too tightly. Shouldn’t the president have an understanding of the curricula of a high school, too, rather than be simply a businessman? Shouldn’t he be involved in creation of the policies and have relationships with the faculty?  And shouldn’t a principal also be a long-term thinker and a fund-raiser and care about the external constituency of the school?”

Yes! And that’s where problems develop in what is theoretically a good division of labor.  In fact, most of the excellent presidents I’ve ever met were first excellent principals. They trained originally as teachers, then became principals, and eventually became presidents. They had, at least originally, the same lack of training and skill sets in finance and fund-raising that most first time principals have. On the plus side, this means presidents typically understand teenagers, the curricula and the culture of high schools in a way that makes their leadership wise and authentic.  On the negative side, they have the same burden of learning these "M.B.A. skills" on the go like anyone else.

So I believe what one will find in most successful president-principal arrangements is not necessarily different natural skill sets. That’s not even the best argument for the president-principal model. Rather, the argument is one of both time and experience—time, because by dividing jobs, each has the time to do the disparate jobs more thoroughly than a single person, and experience, because usually the president is a veteran of Catholic schools and has learned things along the way which he or she can pass on to the (usually) less experienced principal.

I don’t want to trivialize those advantages.  A president who was first a principal can indeed mentor a young principal in an authentic, integral way. Such was my case when Dr. Doyle hired me as principal when I was only 27. I was too young to even know what I didn’t know. But as new situations came across my desk, I was able to walk across the hall, talk privately with him and receive excellent advice. And for sure, it was great not to have to worry about tuition, budget, operational expenses or long range planning during those early years; truthfully, I was simply treading water, taking in occasional gulps of water, trying not to drown!

But there are also problems with the president-principal model.

First, as I have noted, most schools end up with two people who have the same natural skill sets and proclivities. Often that tempts both leaders to dabble in the other’s realm, creating conflict between the two. Frequent communication, and even friendship, is essential to the model.

Second, while mentoring is an advantage in the model, it’s expensive for a school to hire two leaders and pay market rates for both! Hiring subordinate staff, like a school business manager, is cheaper. And if the school hires well, many of these staff members can learn the job of principal as they go.  A Dean of Students or Athletic Director can learn a lot about conflict resolution, handling parents and supervising staff without the school needing to pay them as principals.

Most importantly, if the lines are drawn too tightly between principal and president, the president’s job is often unsatisfying. Most Catholic school presidents take on the duties of president to serve his or her school more effectively—not because these duties are inherently attractive to him or her.  There was a reason they majored in history, or Math, or Science, but not Business! As C.E.O., the principal-turned-president often loses day to day contact with kids and their families, narrowing the breadth and depth of relationships that sustain a principal when a principals’ job turns unpleasant: an expulsion hearing, or firing a teacher, or simply wading through the paper-work. For sure, a good president builds different relationships—with alumni, with major donors, with key constituencies—but these relationships are more fleeting and less “authentic” than those formed by helping parents raise their kids through their formative years. 

That was my experience, in any case. In 2001 when I became president of Montgomery Catholic, we began a major capital drive to build a middle school for grades 7-8, then changed two K-8 elementary schools into K-6 schools, and merged all of the institutions into one entity called “Montgomery Catholic Preparatory School.” Except for the fact I insisted upon teaching one class of senior theology, most of my time was taken up raising money, or talking to Boards, parish councils or pastors, or putting into place a centralized financial office. We were successful in those changes, and I am proud of what we accomplished, but by the end of my 5^th year, I felt like I was losing the deep, intimate connection with the families I had known and served for so many years. Those relationships made all the difference!

So in the middle of my seventh year as president, I proposed to our Board that we merge the two positions together for a time and that I hire a business manager to manage the school finances. I was successful as president and willing to continue, but I needed the connection more typical of the principal’s position. Half the Board agreed, whereas the other half did not, so rather than become cause for controversy, I decided to look for a new school that didn’t have the president-principal model, which led me to Pope John Paul II High School. 

After six years at JPII, I feel (for sure) some of the challenge of my “both-and” roles as headmaster of the school.  In my first evaluation, the Board wanted me to be in the hallways more often, while being seen more around town. I’ve adjusted by hiring (for the first time in my 25 year career), a full time executive assistant. I have six “assistant principal-like” leaders to run the day-to-day operations, including a Dean of Studies, Dean of Students, Director of Finance and Operations, Athletic Director, Admissions Director and Dean of Advancement.  These people give me enormous flexibility and allow me to be involved in the day-to-day life of the school.

Even so, the president-principal model remains the most dominant model for mid-size to large Catholic secondary schools. Were I to counsel presidents and principals, I would counsel them not to draw the job descriptions too tightly. For sure, the president aims outward, but a school's external reputation is a function of what's going on inside. For sure, a principal aims to the day to day, but those daily decisions have communal impact. For this reason, better to define the president's role as "outside-in" and the principal's role as "inside-out" to recognize both must collaborate frequently on roles. Because there is so much cross-over,  friendship is key. 

Improving our Math Scores

Catholic elementary schools tend to produce students with much stronger scores in language arts than mathematics. This is generally true in dioceses across the United States.

I have a theory why: More so than public schools--with their detailed curricular specifications, a governing bureaucracy that supervises this curriculum and public testing that measures its progress-- Catholic schools are heavily dependent on the interests and talents of our individual teachers to create and deliver the curriculum. This independence, of course, is generally a source of strength for our schools, empowering our faculties with a sense of ownership that encourages a culture of creativity and innovation. 

But in the area of Math, this independence may be problematic. Most elementary teachers have more affinity for language arts than mathematics, and like any of us, we tend to place our energies into what we are good at doing. That doesn’t mean our teachers don’t “cover” what the curriculum requires. It does mean their passion and creativity lean more toward languages than math. And it probably means that the 9- year effect of this “lean” will result in math skills that lag in comparison. 

Short of adopting the public school model, I am pessimistic that new programs or other curricular interventions in our Catholic schools will yield substantially better math results. The issue isn’t one of technique, design, or time on task. Rather, it resides in the natural proclivities of our teachers. 

Sumner Academy, a small but highly regarded K-8 private school in Gallatin, TN (http://www.sumneracademy.org) has a simple solution: It departmentalizes disciplines all the way down to kindergarten. Each “unit” (K-2, 3-5, 6-8) has a math/science teacher, a language arts teacher and a third teacher. Kids stay in one classroom, but the teachers rotate to that classroom. 

Organizing this way allows the school to hire teachers with a genuine love and depth of understanding for math (and science) for each grade level unit, without adding any additional salary costs to the school.  The headmaster of Sumner Academy, Dr. Bill Hovenden, points out additional benefits:

• There’s better vertical alignment of the K-8 curriculum since it’s a matter of coordinating just three people in each discipline.

• Since a particular teacher teaches each kid for three years in their particular discipline, he or she begins the year knowing much more about his or her students’ strengths and weaknesses.

• When a teacher is on maternity leave or out for an extended illness, the other two teachers in each unit can guide and support the substitute as the third member of the team.

Most of the graduates from Sumner Academy attend our high school, so I see their test scores. The math scores are high. The model works. 

Because departmentalization at such a young age violates elementary school orthodoxy, I asked Dr. Hovenden if his kids seemed to have difficulty in adjusting to three teachers instead of one. He answers “no” rather emphatically. In fact, he argues that the trio of teachers can often provide more pastoral, loving support for a child than a single teacher because the teachers can talk as a team about each student, tackle issues together, and build longer term relationships with each student’s family. Students, families and teachers become very close to one another over the course of those three years. 

That's not speculation, he adds. They’ve been doing it this way for over twenty years.

Pay Scales?

Unlike my previous diocesan school, the school I work for now doesn't have a “diocesan pay scale" from which I must pay teachers. Nor does my school’s Board of Trustees dictate a pay scale for our school. Instead, the Board approves a line item in the budget for “salaries” and I have freedom within that budget to pay teachers as I see fit, depending on their value to the school and the “market forces” at work for their particular position. 

I have found this lack of a prescribed template extremely liberating, and truth be told, in the best interest of the school I serve. In my previous school, I often lost out on the battle for a fine teacher candidate, simply because the salaries I could pay that person paled in comparison to what others were offering. I didn’t go down within a fight, however! I would often “scaffold” his or her salary offer by including a laundry list of non-teaching stipends (coaching, extra-curricular clubs, etc) as a means of approximating market rates. I won some and I lost some. But the truth is, I was waging battle beginning with the self-inflicted wound of a pay scale that worked for some disciplines but not for others. 

Let me be specific. Catholic schools have always had the greatest difficulty securing and retaining good science teachers, especially in the physical sciences (Chemistry and Physics). The reasons are simple: What a young graduate in the physical sciences can make in the corporate/business world dwarfs what Catholic school pay scales usually dictate for first year teachers. Depending on the source, the average beginning salary for a person with a B.S. in Physics in the corporate world is between 60K and 80K whereas most Catholic school pay scales currently begin in the high 20’s or low to mid 30’s. And that gap widens as that person gains experience as a scientist! By contrast, when we have an open position in English or History, we are overwhelmed with highly qualified candidates, some with PhD’s, most who are willing to work within the salary scales common to our schools. 

Let me guess what you may be thinking: Is it just to pay some of our teachers more than others? Are we saying that the cracker-jack English teacher is less deserving of higher wages than teachers in our science department? I’d say “No, the cracker-jack English teacher is not less deserving.” But let me quickly add: If a school has a true maestro teaching English, they’d be wise to compensate that person generously, because they are a rare and great gift to the school! And in a school unconstrained by a pay scale, such maestros can be rapidly rewarded by higher than average increases in salary in successive years of teaching. But I believe it is foolhardy to insist that the beginning teaching salaries for English and Physics teachers should be the same. Once they’re in the fold, without a pay scale to hamstring them, principals can make rational judgments about relative worth and adjust salaries accordingly down the road. 

In the world we live in, those with science degrees get paid more than those with degrees in Arts and Letters. As an Arts and Letters guy myself, I was painfully aware of that reality when I decided to major in theology, and reminded of it every time someone asked me “What are you going to do with a theology major, become a priest?” My room mate was a Chemical Engineering major. We both knew he'd be making more than me when we graduated. We were right!

Insisting on a common pay scale artificially inflates what we need to pay some incoming teachers and deflates our capacity to pay others more. They don’t help us. If we are part of a diocese or have a Board that insists upon a salary chart, create "bands" of salary ranges for teachers, which give you flexibility over what you offer a teacher. Having some flexibility will help your school get the teachers it needs.