The Fired Principal

I always dreamed of being a corporate baddie- corporate attorney or big shot boss in the business sector. After graduating with my bachelor’s in business management, I pursued a career in banking. I spent five years working in that industry with my last year as a teller supervisor. Then I decided to make a career change to education because the thought kept tugging at me. I was living in an area with a low demand, but a high supply of interested educators. So, I applied for a role back home and was hired two days before the first day of school. I had one day to return to my banking role to resign immediately. My best friend will say that I “fell into education” and she could not be more right. But who would have guessed how that blessing would turn out to be such a traumatic experience years later.

Eventually, I relocated and was promoted to a principal role. Prior to becoming principal, I was a teacher for twelve years. I served two years as a campus administrator before being promoted to principal.

My first year as principal was a thrilling learning experience that included training, feedback, and leading other leaders. I made common leadership mistakes, we struggled with school culture and worked hard to ensure student achievement. Even with the mistakes, we had reasons to celebrate. At that time, I worked on a team of five school principals.

My first year as principal was cut short due to a breast cancer diagnosis. The surgery, treatment, and healing kept me away from work for the last quarter of school. I returned the summer before the next school year to begin planning and creating systems for the upcoming academic year. I was ready to do all the things to make this second year more impactful than the first. I was glad to be back with my team and ready for a reset.

What I did not realize is that part of that team had used the nine weeks that I was on leave to sabotage me. So not only was I returning from my physical battle, but I also had to battle opposition at work daily. Not long into that year, we had a leadership change and as a result I was not renewed to return as principal for the next academic year.

As a result, I accepted a literacy coach role on the regional team.

This is where things get sticky.

After being fired as principal, I was able to lead principals-request and expect deliverables, data, follow up to action steps assigned by me. At the beginning of my year as literacy coach year, the division between me and the principals was perpetuated by passive comments made during meetings and I can only conclude that there was more active voice concerns addressed in private meetings. Because of this, my work as the literacy coach was challenging. Principals and other leaders had already decided that I was not qualified to do the work of a regional leader because of my replacement as principal. This made it difficult to want to be in space or even effectively lead in my newly assigned role.

After the first quarter into my role as literacy coach, once I was moving data in the right direction, my manager told me that he had made the decision to release me based on word of mouth of people he thought he could trust but soon realized that those conversations were diversions from the work I had assigned each of them.

Eventually, my manager and I reconciled and began to have a healthy working relationship.

This experience has made me second guess myself and have imposter syndrome when I know what I know. It had silenced me and made me shrink back and when I used my voice, I was reprimanded for it. It had made me feel unqualified and question whether I should consider a career change.

I now know that it is important I tell MY story because others will share the story that they have been telling themselves about me. I have leadership gaps, but I am also an experienced educator who can impact student achievement. I will no longer dim my light so others can shine brighter or allow my voice to be silenced in the interest of protecting egos when student achievement is at stake.

What’s next? Only God knows, but I am ready to lead from the successes and mistakes of my past experiences!

Comment and share if you have experienced a similar situation-I want to hear from you!