Difficult Principal

Dealing With Difficult Principals
I wish to share my story about a challenging experience I had with a building principal. Initially, he was very nice to me. I was very busy running my own program and continually seeking ways to improve it. This brought my in contact with me to discuss my ideas and, at times, seek funding for various projects. I was careful to do the research, put to get my proposal, and meet with me at a time when I could explain, at length, my idea, the research, and the expected outcomes. I was successful in achieving much of my ideas because they had the best interests of students in mind.
When these programs became established and successful, my principal took notice, but then began to ask me to do other things that were not related to my content area or teaching assignments. I agreed, simply because he was my employer, and I did not want to offend me. He continued to approach me for additional responsibilities but offered no compensation. I soon became overloaded with a lack of support in the costs I incurred, extra time required to manage the additional duties, and my attempts to resolve these inequities were not fruitful. I began to experience disappointment in my ability to be competent in my practice and additional responsibilities. My stress levels were extremely high, and my health began to suffer. Something had to give.
He continued to request additional projects of me, along with the duties of running the current projects, but without compensation. I became trapped in a cycle of not wanting to offend my employer, while experiencing an overload in my responsibilities. The moment of truth came when I was held accountable to a high standard of my performance regardless of my enormous responsibilities. A mark was made on my evaluation that indicated that I was being held responsible for saying "yes" to my employer when I really should have declined. Being compliant and accommodating to my employer had not fostered a positive relationship with me. It led to a point of departure.
Once I began to decline additional responsibilities, he began to ridicule me and then became overly punitive of me with no consideration for my accomplishments. His frustration with me increased to the point of agitation and ultimately over scrutinizing me to the point that I had no choice but to fight back. I was taunted, provoked, insulted, charged leave for attending professional development that he requested, and then I was subjected to an abuse of his administrative authority by taking equipment from me that he had approved, and provoked me to do something about it. I informed the school board of my difficulties, missing equipment, and didn't want to be held accountable for missing items. Eventually, I needed my union representative in for my proceedings with me. I was not serving his agenda, so my usefulness to me had ended. I noted the difficulties that the other teachers around me were having with this administrator.
He threatened me when I sought help, and then began to take measures to dismiss my. Ultimately, I did leave the district as he forced me to resign. He was not able to bring punitive action against me. If I had understood the dynamics of the way this administrator related to teachers early on, I would have resigned and sought a more positive work environment much earlier.
Leaving the district was the right solution for me as I was much happier in my new surroundings. My relationship with the students and parents were instrumental in avoiding his attempts to ruin me. They quickly to spoke up, defended me, and provided evidence for me at his investigation hearings. He had attempted to coerce them into making statements against me, but with no success. I had made every effort to conduct myself appropriately in all matters, which left no opportunities for this administrator to invoke the teachers' code of conduct against me.
In looking back, I realized that the most important things I learned from this experience was not to accept more than I could be competent at and when circumstances begin to indicate a personality conflict with an administrator, it is better to resign and move on before it becomes as complicated as an abuse of power, which is a very difficult and emotional experience for any teacher.