Principal for a Day

Dean Kathleen McCartney Changes Jobs for the Benefit of the BPS

Principal: "Did you wear your running shoes?"

Principal for a Day: "No, but I think I should have."

HGSE Acting Dean Kathleen McCartney was prepared for her transition in every other way. She came with her large white binder in hand, complete with all the details and statistics relevant for her new job as Principal for a Day of the Garfield Elementary School in Brighton, Massachusetts. After the first hour, though, her sensible black leather shoes seemed less than perfect for the stair-climbing, hall-walking, and touring that would follow.

Footwear aside, McCartney, Lesser Professor of Early Childhood Development at HGSE, managed her honorary role well as one of 100 business, government, and education leaders who participated on November 1 in the third annual "Principal For A Day" event sponsored by the Boston Public Schools (BPS) and the Boston Plan for Excellence, an organization started by corporations and foundations in 1984 to benefit the city's school system.

"This is a great way to call attention to the schools," said McCartney shortly after arriving at Garfield at 8 am sharp to meet Principal Victoria Megias-Batista, a 29-year veteran of the BPS who has spent the last 14 years in her current post. McCartney also met Megias-Batista's intern, Emily Glasgow, Ed.M.'03.

For close to an hour before classes began, the three women met to discuss many of the top challenges facing public education and, more specifically, Garfield--one of 67 K–5 schools in the BPS. Garfield is housed in an older, blond-brick building, with 220 students, a staff of 32, and 13 homerooms. When McCartney asked what percentage of students spoke English as a second language, Megias-Batista, a native of Cuba, told her the number was greater than 60 percent. A handful of students in a range of grades arrived on the first day of school, she said, unable to speak a word of English.

Conversation moved quickly from the challenges with English-language arts to the system's investigative math curriculum to the controversial Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) standardized testing. Also on the table: the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act; and the staggering fiscal realities facing schools of all grades and all calibers. Having enough supplies to get students and teachers through the year, said Megias-Batista, is a challenge they face each and every day.

Traveling from classroom to classroom, McCartney sat at a table with four kindergartners working on stories about rainbows, high-fiving five-year-old Nuriana for successfully writing her name. In the first grade, McCartney saw examples of the investigative math program, known as TERQ, as students used colored game chips to derive multiple avenues of arriving at number 12. In the third grade, she met with teacher Louise Kuhlman, a 30-year veteran of the BPS who also serves as an adjunct professor at Boston College (BC), and mentors student teachers from BC in her classroom. McCartney and Kuhlman spoke at length about the importance of working with young teachers, delving into such questions as "How do you know students are learning?" and "How do you make learning visible?"

"It's important to remind yourself," said McCartney, "of what it's like on the ground."

Final stops included a visit with fifth graders working on letters to their pen pals in North Clarendon, Vermont, and a quick trip to the school's lone science classroom, a space that appears untouched since the 1960s.

With nearly four hours of honorary duties behind her, McCartney shook the hand of Megias-Batista as she made her exit, but not before one last discussion regarding whether a HGSE graduate student could help Garfield in the area of data preparation and dissemination. As McCartney left for the annual Principal for a Day luncheon, where she would meet with her fellow 99 principal cohorts, she praised Megias-Batista for her dedicated and devoted work with both her teachers and her students.

Principal for a Day: "What's the best part?"

Principal: "The kids…absolutely the kids. I can't see myself doing anything else."