Under Pressure

WHO'S RUNNING OUR SCHOOLS? Part 2 of 2

One school bus was 11 minutes late for the second day in a row, and the driver of another had words with a student, so Principal David Hudson’s morning, for this moment, is concerned with transportation.

It’s barely 8 a.m. on the second day of classes at Franklin Military Academy in Church Hill, and this is what a principal does when any number of items need to get ironed out: He hops to it. “Before we have a problem, we make sure we don’t have a problem,” says Hudson, underscoring his attempts to catch minor issues before they have the chance to mushroom.

Hudson puts in a call to the city schools’ bus dispatcher to address these issues; and while he’s on hold, another inquiry is brewing just outside his office. He gets up from his desk, asks a reporter to keep an ear out in case the dispatcher answers the line, then Hudson pops into the lobby outside his office.

Franklin Military Academy at North 37th and M streets is a specialty school that serves six grades — from sixth to 12th — and offers students a JROTC curriculum that leads to military reserve certification as well as traditional academics that ready them for college or a career. The middle school students take leadership courses in lieu of military education. As of Sept. 5, the school had 428 students enrolled, an increase of 75 students from the previous school year.

A new sixth-grade student and his mother — who speaks only Spanish — need help figuring out how to get the student his school uniform. Hudson explains to the woman, using her son as a translator, that they have a voucher that covers the clothes her son needs. It’s all good. The bus dispatcher finally comes on the line, and Hudson goes to his desk to lay out the concerns of parents who called him about service issues.

This is the life of a public school principal — often having to be more than one place at a time and making sure the business of education proceeds with the fewest possible obstacles. The pressures and high expectations of school accountability sometimes generate news headlines: More than one Richmond school has met scandal when principals and teachers colluded to help students cheat on the Standards of Learning tests. Cultural trends, such as cyberbullying, drug epidemics and gun violence, add complexity and stress. A principal is more than a leader of teachers and staff. She or he is also part social worker and part parent to many students.

Early in the school year, Richmond magazine spent time with two administrators — Hudson and, in Henrico County, Mills Godwin High School Principal Leigh R. Dunavant — to learn about the demands and strains they face daily.

An easy metaphor for the job is to think of principals as captains of seafaring vessels that launch in September and finish their voyages in the late spring. A lot happens on the way. On board their ships are hundreds of people, each with a role and particular needs. Occasionally, crises roil the waters, testing the resolve and character of the person at the helm.

Their constituencies come from every direction: parents, teachers, administrators, local officials, federal and state accountability standards and, of course, the students themselves.

Hudson is a 35-year veteran in his education career, and he spent 15 years as principal of Linwood Holton Elementary on the city’s North Side before taking over at Franklin in 2017. Dunavant has been an educator in Henrico County for 19 years. She is in her ninth year at Godwin and her third year as principal, working up the ladder after beginning as a teacher, which she did for eight years.

Each principal faces forces that add complexity to the job. For Hudson, it is a student population that comes, at least partly, from low-income and crime-challenged neighborhoods. For Dunavant, there are the ascending issues of a drug-use epidemic and cyberbullying.

Public Praise and Private Eyes

On this day in early September, Hudson is up and down the clean halls of the three-story limestone building that dates to 1929 and fills an entire city block.

By 8:20 a.m., during the first class period, Hudson is on a quick tour, stopping by the school’s media center. Students there are hearing from Col. Carlton Day, Franklin’s military commandant, who’s at home caring for a sick wife, but linking to his students virtually. Hudson peeks in on the video feed and greets Day before continuing down the hall.

Hudson tries to spend parts of his day doing what he calls “climate observation” in the classrooms, and he will get around to every one of the 50-plus classrooms during the first week. He visits to get a sense of how the teachers and students are settling in. He looks to see if the rules of learning and behavior are clearly defined in each room. “Consistency and organization — that’s the key to success in the classroom,” he says.

He looks in the open classroom doors at teachers carrying on discussions and instruction while students sit attentively at their desks. In the walk-around, his heels clicking on the polished granite floors, he often takes pride in the order and purpose he observes.

“Doesn’t it make you feel like you’re going back to 1950 in this school?” Hudson says. “See how the kids are behaving? See how they look?” In actuality, the middle school students, with their burgundy cardigan uniform sweaters, black polo shirts and gray slacks, smack more than a bit of Harry Potter’s Hogwarts milieu.

NEARLY 30% of principals who lead troubled schools quit every year. By the third year, more than half of all principals leave their jobs. (Source: The Hechinger Report, 2015)

Hudson’s persona in the Franklin hallways is part cheerleader, part helper. When he sees staffers, he greets each one, offering praise or an endearment of some sort. His stock in trade is positive feedback, whether it’s to students, to teachers or to parents who happen to be visiting the school.

On the way back to his office, Hudson encounters a young mother who’s there to check in with her daughter for a moment. She commends the principal for reviving the mood and culture of the school. “He’s changed this school,” she says, adding, “He listens, and not just listens. He listens and takes action.” She notes that he answers his phone almost anytime a parent calls him. “He doesn’t care if it’s a Saturday night.”

Days before, Hudson stood in front of new students and their parents at an orientation event in the Franklin auditorium and gave out his cell phone number to everyone there. His goal is to know about any concern anyone has.

“If it comes to your mind, you need to share it,” Hudson explains.

Few troublesome matters seem to come to the principal on this day, but by lunchtime, school staffers in the cafeteria sideline some boys who have been disobedient. One, a boy much smaller than others around him, was caught bullying other students.

The principal takes a moment to share words with a boy who’s been sent to sit at a table with Hudson during lunch. “If you’ve got a problem,” he says, “you’ve got to tell me. If somebody’s not treating you nicely, you need to tell me that, too.”

Moments later, out of the boy’s earshot, Hudson nods to a cafeteria worker who’s wiping down tables and sweeping. “That’s my private eye,” he says, explaining that she clues him in to friction between students. “I’m a bully buster. The worst thing is for a child feeling uncomfortable coming to school.”

Consistent and Clear

Godwin High School is four times the size of Franklin, with a student population of 1,821 as of late September.

Dunavant says that safety is the top issue on her mind as a high school principal. After the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, she led a forum with the school’s parent-teacher-student organization and the Godwin safety team — a panel of administrators and teachers.

The issue of safety goes hand in hand with the second most important item on her list, which is keeping three groups informed and on the same page: students, parents and teachers.

“The only thing parents really want is communication,” she says, noting that relationships with parents are calmed by consistent and clear information. “If you’re communicating with families and parents, and they know what’s going on, then they will be your partners.”

Her strategy with communication is to use any mode necessary, from school office personnel to phone calls, to digital messaging and, of course, face-to-face meetings with parents. Every Friday, the school office distributes the Eagle Express, an e-newsletter compiling all manner of information for the week ahead — from athletic and social events to school policy changes. Like Hudson, Dunavant hands out her cell phone number, but mostly on a case-by-case basis when a parent needs to keep a line open to discuss an issue dealing with their child.

When the Florence storm system spun off tornadoes touching down in Central Virginia in late September, the school had to hold students for an extra three and a half hours beyond the normal dismissal time. During that period, the school sent 11 updates to parents by text message.

Including her five-person team of associate and assistant principals, Dunavant has a complement of 150-plus school staff. With coaches and volunteer sports sponsors thrown in, the number tops 200.

“The biggest challenge of being a principal is the hours,” she says.

A typical school week for Dunavant involves 60 to 65 hours on the job, including catch-up tasks on Saturdays. When the first week of October came — homecoming week — Dunavant spent about 80 hours at the school, appearing at events every evening, closing the day at 9:30 or so.

On a typical day, her schedule stretches into the evening and may include a meeting with a parent and usually a couple hours’ worth of catching up with emails that need to be read or sent.

Hudson’s usual day, he says, begins at 7 a.m., before school buses and most teachers arrive, and finishes around 5:30 p.m. if there are no meetings or events to attend. He also handles the Saturday detention session, adding to his time on the job.

Despite a six-figure salary, or close to it — the average pay in Virginia for a principal in 2018 is about $102,000 — the career of an administrator has personal costs.

The toughest sacrifice of the job, Dunavant says, is time away from her family. She and her husband have a daughter in second grade, which means that family time often is incorporated into Godwin events.

“My family will come here for some of those events. My husband will bring our second-grader, and we’ll have dinner together. She’ll go to the Powder Puff football game. … I need to see her, you know? … They come to football games. They come to plays. They come to any kind of activities that are going on here.”

Her teachers, as well, usually go beyond their contractual hours, she adds, but a glimpse at Dunavant’s daily calendar shows a schedule packed with appointments. “And those don’t even include the work I need to do.”

Weekends, she says, are big workdays — time to catch up — although she tries to reserve Sundays for her family. “But Saturday mornings, I’m usually working”  — on the weekly Eagle Express school newsletter, on teacher evaluations, on meeting preparation for the week ahead, on school finances, on catching up with parents’ emails and calls.

Discipline Decisions

How each school chooses to mete out discipline is a particular decision that’s governed by the principal and other administrators.

The differing sizes of their school populations largely shape how Hudson and Dunavant deal with behavioral issues and rule enforcement in their schools.

At Franklin Military Academy, Hudson assumes the role of disciplinarian, mostly because he wants his teachers to focus on the job of education. Any teacher who has a problem with a student being disrespectful or disrupting a class is immediately sent to Hudson, no questions asked.

“The teachers will send them to me — they don’t deal with discipline,” Hudson says, “If [the student] comes to me, they’re not going home. If you come to me, you’re automatically in detention.”

Part of Hudson’s strategy is to keep the teacher-student relationship positive. “You correct behavior, but you never belittle a child,” he says wistfully.

He demands that teachers always show respect to students, even in trying situations. “I never yell at a kid,” he says. He adds that he focuses on keeping interactions calm and friendly, and as a result, he says, “You’ll find they listen very well. They really do.”

One of his goals, Hudson says, is to avoid giving a student an out-of-school suspension. If the student is at home, he notes, they are not learning anything.

“If you’re communicating with families and parents, and they know what’s going on, then they will be your partners.” —Leigh R. Dunavant, principal at Mills Godwin High School

Patricia Brown, 17, a senior at Franklin and the cadet commander, says she was one of those students. “I tried my best to be put out,” she says earnestly. In the cafeteria during lunch, Hudson jokes with her that she’s a reformed troublemaker who used to show up in his detention session. On the morning I walked into Hudson’s office, he was eating a Panera breakfast sandwich brought to him by Brown, a thank-you gesture.

Brown aims high with her plans beyond Franklin: She hopes to attend the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Meanwhile, at Godwin, the bigger ship requires a more layered approach to discipline, and most of the ankle-biter discipline issues never reach Dunavant.

Her teacher-aides (who are both teachers and junior administrators), her assistant principals and even teachers follow a protocol to deal with issues that violate the school’s code of conduct. For example, a student who has a temper outburst or who shows disrespect to a teacher is likely to meet consequences issued by an assistant principal.

“If it’s something really serious, something really concerning, I will investigate it fully,” Dunavant says.

The Day, Extended

At 2:35 p.m. on Sept. 5, school buses start rolling up to Franklin Military Academy to take kids home, while Hudson is having a meeting in his office with J. Austin Brown, who works for Richmond Public Schools as the principal director for high schools — a newly created position. Brown has spent more than 40 years working at the city’s public schools, and now, in his new job, he mentors and assists principals. On this day, Brown has stopped by simply to see how Franklin is running on the second day of classes.

Already, Brown and Hudson are talking about the Class of 2019’s graduation ceremony — a larger senior class will require a bigger space for the event, and planning needs to start now.

Brown runs down a list of issues and has quick conversations with the principal: Brown asks how the new teachers are doing. Hudson brings up his new math instructional team. “These are really good teachers,” he says.

They keep hitting topics. Hudson asks who needs to come to the school to reset the bell to ring at the new class times — school start times changed this year. Brown asks about the principal’s professional development plan for the teachers.

The two men wrap up the meeting so that Hudson can join his staff on the sidewalk to see the students off to their buses, a process that takes only about 10 minutes before there are just a handful of students waiting out front for their parents to pick them up.

But Hudson’s day is not done. He still has another meeting, this one with the School Program and Management Team, which includes Hudson, Vice Principal Linda Smith, PTA President Tanya Francis and a half dozen teachers who head the academic departments.

The meeting takes an hour and a half and allows for an exchange of information between the administration and those who represent the parents and the teachers. Every department weighs in on a variety of issues: plans for field trips, a department’s performance on 2017-2018 SOL test scores that were just released; how student athletes can get their physical exams; the upcoming dates for practice SOLs. Although it’s only 4 p.m. or so, the day begins to feel long. The school is not empty, but the bustle has faded.

Channeling the Inner Teenager

In late September, Dunavant walks the school as lunch periods overlap with classes. In the cafeteria at midday, she stops to chat with students manning the “No Eagle Left Behind” table — a club that consistently engages with students. In essence, it’s a campaign to battle against psychosocial ills familiar to teenagers. Dunavant gushes about the group and its purpose. A teenage girl asks if I am OK and if I’d like a smiley sticker. I take one to stick on my shirt. So does the principal.

Dunavant explains that this is Godwin’s way of battling the phenomena of teen suicide and, somewhat, cyberbullying. The point is to encourage people to interact, and the actions of outreach, while quiet and small, seem genuine. The girl gives me another sticker that students can put on their laptops — “You can sit with me” — to let others know they have a friend to hang out with in study hall or the library.

ABOUT 25% of a student’s academic gain can be attributed to an effective chief administrator. (Source: The Hechinger Report, 2015)

The Godwin principal talks openly about factors that challenge her village of teenagers. “There’s a drug problem in our country. There’s a drug problem in our community,” Dunavant says. “There’s a drug problem in schools. I think we at Godwin have been one of [the schools] who have addressed it the most.”

She points to recent overdose deaths and suicides involving Godwin High School alumni as evidence that the dangers are real and require consistent attention. More visible, she notes, is the ever-growing gateway of nicotine addiction — which she calls the “Juul epidemic” — the widespread use of e-cigarettes.

At Franklin, Hudson notes that some of his students live in areas where shootings are not uncommon and where some parents are directly affected by the problems of addiction and violence.

Dunavant and Hudson’s work is not for the faint-hearted. It requires no small measure of resolve, compassion and even optimism to do well. Or, some days, just to do, period.

Dunavant holds tight to her community — she grew up in Henrico near the school and graduated from Godwin in 1995. “Some of my idealism and my passion for this place comes from the fact that I am a graduate and understand what it’s like to be a student here.” Later, she adds. “I still have that whole feeling when I come in the building. I had a good high school experience, and I love being here.”

Hudson speaks about good teachers as people who have one key quality: “You have to like children.”

He sees Franklin, a specialty school that requires an application and selection to attend, as a haven for students who want a bridge to their next opportunity.

He calls himself a “gangbuster” and sees his school as a haven from that danger. “We’ve got to shelter our children.”