Interview with Lawrence Lyles

The following is a transcript of an interview of Mr. Lawrence LYLES, former principal of Kenmoor Junior High School, Landover, Maryland.

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Q: Thank you for allowing me to interview you, Mr. Lyles. Let's just start with the questions. The first question is: How many years were you in the PG County School system as a teacher?

A: Ten years as a teacher.

Q: And as a Principal?

A: As a Principal, per se, three years. As a vice principal, for five years.

Q: You were a principal at Kenmoor Junior High School. Would you describe the school?

A: Kenmoor Junior High School, when I became principal there, was a brand-new school. It was in its second year of operation. They'd had one principal prior to myself. He was there for, I think, just one semester. It was a brand-new facility--all new, modern equipment-classrooms, cafeteria including multi-purpose room, guidance suite, health suite, and, let's see, approximately 50 classrooms, including shop.

Q: What was the student population?

A: Around 900.

Q: What was the socio-economic and/or racial mix? of the school?

A: At that particular time the County had just integrated under a formal court order the year before. Actually, January of 1973. So it was about a year and a half. So, the population basically, when I became principal, was about 50-50.

Q: Fifty percent White, fifty percent Black?

A: Right. And other minorities, because we did have some Asian students. But they were approximately, maybe no more than two percent.

Q: Why did you decide to become a principal?

A: Well, the decision really wasn't mine. Basically, I had been a classroom teacher and responsible for various social-studies type groups such as the Student Council and some other groups at Fairmont Heights High School where I taught. And the principal there felt that, basically because I was involved in a lot of things, and he felt that I got along well with others and had leadership ability, he encouraged me to go take the administrative exam. I was also going to school--graduate school--to use my GI Bill, and consequently received an Advanced Certificate. When I started teaching, I already had a Master's Degree and I used my GI Bill to get the Advanced Certificate in Education and Administration. So, I was involved in programs like that. So, then the other people, more than myself, felt that I would make a good administrator and I was encouraged to go take the exam.

Q: There's a specific exam for administrators?

A: Yes.

Q: So you go from the classroom to the Administrative Suite with a rite of passage or an examination ... ?

A: There's a written exam and an oral exam.

A: The school in terms of my philosophy as a principal?

Q: Or if there was a school's philosophy of teaching subject matter?

A: Well, the curriculum was more or less spelled out, but that, was even flexible. There were certain goals, certain teaching goals, that we were trying to reach. The whole County was working toward that. But each individual school board left the task to the school--and the goals were more or less set by the administrator for the school, in terms of what you wanted those children were to achieve and how you wanted them to function. But there were overall County goals for the school system.

Q: Getting back to the leadership potential that you had exhibited, what leadership techniques did you while creating this climate for learning?

A: Well, my first thing was, that for people who were.... Number one: If you were working in a public school system, you had to be willing to deal with everybody's child--the good the bad, and the ugly--all of the kids. You just couldn't favor (have) smart kids. You had to work with kids on all levels. We wanted you to be a committed public school educator. And if you couldn't do that, then you weren't going to last. You just weren't going to function and be effective with children.

Q: And which techniques were successful? We'll start with the successful ones because they're the ones best remembered.

A: Well, first of all, I felt that if you have a staff of professional people, then, where possible, the decision making ought to be shared, because everybody's smart about something. You may be the designated leader of a school or any kind of organization. However, leadership comes within. And you can, if you're smart, in my estimate, if you're smart, you utilize the expertise of the people on your faculty to plan programs to get things done, and everybody has a shared commitment. Now, there are times when decisions have to be made that are not negotiable. When they come down from the Board of Education--"This HAS to be done"-- and there's no fooling around about it. You just have: "This is what we need to do! This is how we're going to do it!" But, where possible, I would try to get the faculty involved in the decision-making.

Q: Any techniques you used that seemed like good ideas at the time that proved unsuccessful?

A: Well, now that time has elapsed, I've probably forgotten a lot of things, but when I went to that particular school you had no real commitment on the part of students because they were being bussed in from .... They were either being bussed in or they were walking in, but they were walking into a school (where) they had no community ties. So, you had to try to build a tradition where people would have a commitment to the school. And so we used to try to have campaigns to -- like poster campaigns about keeping the school clean, going to class. We even had some training sessions that were partially funded by some community groups to develop student leadership. And various teachers wanted to sponsor activities that students were interested in. And with the junior high school population they like a lot of hands-on activities, clubs. We had a lot of clubs -- everything from model cars to biking, things like that.

Q: So that would be the public- and community-relations aspect?

A: Right.

Q: Now on to the principal-teacher relationship. What do you think teachers think principals should be?

A: Teachers expect principals to be .... Well, I guess they expect them to fit in according to the situation that they're in. By that I specifically mean .... In my particular instance, at that particular school at that time--Kenmoor, 1975--I did not have the type of staff, if I had to pick them, that I would have selected. I inherited the people who were there, and basically, I had a lot of inexperienced teachers. And then I had some teachers with a lot of experience but no middle people hardly. So you had almost like two extremes. And, for the inexperienced people and a lot of the inexperienced people were also--well, say they were inexperienced or had no experience working with what I call "the urban student." Some had taught in other smaller communities where everybody knew everybody's parents and the children were from middle-class, behaved backgrounds and that type of thing. And consequently, when students were not functioning and behaving like teachers felt they would -- like sitting down immediately or not saying anything back to them or this kind of thing, their answer, in many instances, was to suspend the child from school.

Q: These urban students who were usually suspended were black, weren't they?

A: Most of them were. The suspension rate for minority kids was always higher.

Q: Did the teachers expect you to be an instructor, or a parental or substitute...?

A: Well, in some instances, they more or less wanted to be a police person and I could not accept that philosophy. I could not accept that. I felt that it was everybody's responsibility to work with those youngsters because for a child of junior high school age, a person has to come back to school. Suspension is not the answer. You've got to come back to the classroom. "What are you doing in that classroom to make that child want to stay in there and not be disruptive?" You see? And a lot of people refuse to look at that until after the fact. I mean, years after I had left that school I've seen people and they have realized that and have said so to me.

Q: How did yon evaluate those teachers? You mentioned those who had either lots of experience or very little experience. How did you evaluate those?

A: Well, again ... You have to do a certain number of evaluations -- classroom observations and that type of thing-during the course of the school year. For, the people who do not have tenure it's more frequent. For the people who do have tenure, you still have to do it because you have to have a written evaluation and you certainly can have an interview with the person. For the people who were having a lot of problems, and, like I said, in most instances they were the newer teachers and the inexperienced teachers -- I tried to work with that philosophy that I had: If you were working in a public school you've got to be able to deal with all kinds of children. It doesn't mean you have to love them all, but you've got to try to understand. And, even if you don't like them, know why you don't like them. That type of thing. And so, you look at that and again.... I tried to give out material. We would have faculty workshop about classroom management, that type of thing. "What do I need to do?" Look at introspection. "Am I doing something that gets the kids set up?" "If I'm dealing with minority kids, what are the trigger words that turn them off?" "What are the things that get them worked up?" And one of the biggest things was the word "boy." And this has traditionally been a thing. Now you had -- and this wasn't true in all cases, depending on the teacher's relationship with the youngsters-because there were some of the Caucasian teachers that would do that and had no problem at all because they related well to the kids. This wasn't a trigger word that set them off. For others it was. But with workshops, through faculty workshops, through giving out literature, through things like that--talking about it, talking about problems, making people feel that "Don't leave the school and criticize the school and the kids because you're actually criticizing yourself because you're a part of that action."

Q: How did you handle teacher grievances?

A: Well in many, many instances I tried to get people not to see where a confrontation with a student did not have to be a win-lose situation. As an adult in many, many instances--adults have a problem in dealing with youngsters--and it's got to be: "Since I'm the adult, then I've got to win." And that means the student loses face completely. And many times you have to try to see both sides of the story. Have both people listen to it and try to evaluate: "Did I do something wrong as a teacher?" "Am I too sensitive? Too thin-skinned?" And for the student: "Am I being disrespectful?"

Q: These were teacher grievances though they were usually in regard to student behavior?

A: Right.

Q: They didn't have any grievances about working conditions, or hours .... ?

A: Well, basically the hours and that type of thing were designated, and, you know, all of the contracts and negotiated agreements. So, they knew what hours they had to work. If they sponsored activities, they got paid for them. You know, if you stayed after school. So it wasn't a freebie ... Like when I started you just sponsored an activity. But nowadays, they've gone to -- that even is negotiated. If you sponsor cheerleaders or whatever kind of group, there was a stipend attached to that. So most of the grievances at the time --- like I said --- the school was just a new school with no real sense of pride in it and community feeling. So you had the various community groups that would actually come to loggerheads at the school. It used to be that you would be changing hats from policeman to social worker -- to father, mother, priest--all of those kind of things all in one day.

Q: Did you ever have to fire a teacher.?

A: Yes, one teacher. And it was really cleaning up after somebody else. The person who was principal before I was there really should have terminated the individual. The person did not plan well. He didn't relate well to the students. He had the necessary education. That wasn't the problem. But he was basically inexperienced. As I said, he always had conflicts with the kids. He was very sensitive. Anything that the student said, whether it was aimed directly at him or not, he heard everything and took it as a personal affront. He didn't vary his subject matter. You can't teach five or six different classes each way. All of the kids are different and different levels. And those kind of things got him into complications. I brought in the curriculum specialists and they tried to work with him and it just did not work out. And, to be perfectly frank, I felt badly about it because I felt a person's job was important to him.

Q: Was he dismissed from the school system?

A: Yes. He was a non-tenured teacher and during the first two years if you don't get (you know) "Satisfactory" ratings, then they will terminate you. But he wouldn't have gotten any better, in my opinion. So I didn't feel -- and with the kind of problems I was having -- I wasn't comfortable about letting him stay there another year.

Q: This was a new school that was not tied to the community?

A: I had students feeding in from, I would say, about half a dozen community sub-divisions. And many times they were at odds with each other. so they would bring the community problems to the school.

A: Right. Well, for parents who would come in bent out of shape -- (you know) they would tell me quite frankly -- "I don't want my child here in the first place!" -- I would just deal with that issue in a mater-of-fact way that: "I did not assign your child here. I am the administrator of the school. the school system designated the boundaries and if your child is here, they put him here. Not me! And, I have no control over that. If you want the child moved, we'll try to get him moved. You may appeal the decision. But I have no control over that. But as long as the child's here I expect him to operate (you know) the way everybody else operates.

Q: And on the bussing issues?

A: Same thing. "That's not anything I have control over."

Q: The schools were all in transition then. They were going from predominantly White and rural.....

A: The county was changing and the schools basically in the Beltway were the ones that were coming -- well the population was becoming more of a minority population-- and the ones outside the Beltway tended to remain White while the ones within the Beltway where we tend to get a heavier Black population.

Q: If you had to do it again, what would you do to better prepare yourself to be a principal?

A: Ha-ha. Well, I don't know if you can ever really better prepare yourself. I had gotten administrative experience. But basically, I guess my biggest problem tended to be I had worked with secondary school students, but they were high school students. I had taught for ten years and had been an administrator for another five years, but they were high school students. So you have a different level of maturity. And, to go to a junior high school is really like moving into a new world. Basically, all school administrative experience at a principal's level -- you tend to have some of the same job tasks. But the schools vary from community to community. That's where you have to find your little corner of the world because you can't operate the same way everywhere you go. You get kids with different backgrounds and you've got to have some kind of understanding there. So, I don't know if you can really prepare yourself, but you've got to be willing to try to change with the environment that you're in.

Q: Following on to that, what procedures should be used before a person is selected to become a principal?

A: I feel that the process they use is pretty well, in terms of training--either operate for a couple of years as an administrative assistant or vice-principal so that you do get some experience. I don't think it's practical at all to move somebody right from the classroom to a principal's job because you move from two different levels completely. From a level where you're not involved in a lot of decision making to one where you are. So I think the training steps in the school system -- most of them tend to operate ... You either go from a vice-principalship to a principalship. That's about the best step. It wouldn't be practical to go from a classroom teacher to a principal. It just wouldn't. You'd be in a real world of trouble as far as knowing all the ins and outs of how to function as an administrator. Right from doing the Master Schedule to other things.

Q: But you were a vice-principal for five years before you became a principal. So, when you became a principal how did you utilize your assistant principal?

A: Well, basically, the school I was vice-principal at -- I went as a vice-principal in the middle of a school year, which was a traumatic thing because I had been a classroom teacher say, between September and then December I was called down to the Board, to the Superintendent's office and they told me they would like for me to go into a new school come January in an administrative capacity. And, consequently, it was frightening, absolutely frightening. However, when --and I went to Central High School as vice-principal, the principal there and the vice-principal and I actually learned the job from him. He was a very intelligent administrator. He got along well with kids. He was low-keyed. He didn't lose his temper, that type thing. And, we were on a double shift. We had so many students we couldn't even put them all in the school at the same time. And the principal himself let us get involved in various administrative tasks. So by the time I had three or four years' experience I knew how to do a Master Schedule. I knew how to work with curriculum programs. I knew how to handle a budget, substitutes (you know), all the kinds of.... We got experience doing the different administrative tasks that you can have as an administrator. And, this is where a lot of people don't work well. They give the vice-principal one duty and that's all that person ever does. He may get saddled with discipline, and that's all he ever does. He never learns how to do anything else, depending on the philosophy of the person who's in charge. but again, he had basically the same kind of philosophy : Why waste other peoples' ability when a lot of people are smart or even smarter than you about some things? So, I rather learned by doing.

Q: So that when you became a principal applied the same?

A: I applied the same thing, right.

Q: In doing the Master Schedule, did you find it most effective to maintain control or did you have the Guidance Department do it?

A: We shared. Well, actually the Guidance Department and my other administrative assistant and myself. It was a sort of triumvirate kind of thing. We did it in terms of trying to match kids up with teachers, trying to match up ability levels. A lot of it was done by data processing, but you still had to put the data in. And so, we knew some kids, with the type of maturity level they were at, there were certain people they wouldn't function well with. So you tried not to program them with those people because you knew you were just setting the kid up or something would lead to problems. So I found it better to share with other people, and yet the final decision, if it had to be made, would be made by the principal. But it tended to work out better, as far as I was concerned, if you had other people involved with that.

Q: As a principal, what was your biggest concern?

A: My biggest concern was the number of children that had to be suspended because they did not know how to deal with the rules.

Q: So who's the most to blame, the children?

A: Yes. And, as I say, minority kids were the ones that tended to be suspended the most. And, the period of time you have to think about also had a lot to do with it. We were into the peacenik, beatnik, Black Power, Black militant kind of thing where everybody was kind of doing their thing. Even the schools were -- we had so many courses in many instances -- all these new courses were put into the curriculum. With the Vietnam War and everything going, it was sort of like wild times. The media, they portrayed nothing but violence and things like that. So this is what the children saw. This is the kind of behavior they wanted to model. And, like I say, a lot of the minority kids were not sophisticated enough to deal with the rules without getting into problems. And, one of the most widely used things for suspension--which could be interpreted in many ways--was the term "insubordination and disrespect," because that varied from teacher to teacher. But (you know) it took a lot--I spent a lot of time just working with kids. I would have detention at 7:30 in the morning. Call kids who lived within walking distance and let them come up to school to serve detention rather than suspend them. And we would deal with: "How do you, if you have a conflict with somebody, how do you deal with it without losing your temper, cursing somebody out, these kind of things?"

Q: These are junior high school students so that should say something about the elementary schools they came from.

A: Well, it's more of a community thing. Kids model what they see in the community. And, as I said, what they see on the media at that particular time --- Black Power was in. It wasn't just the Black kid. I'm just saying the Black kids were most of the ones who got suspended. But, even the White kids who got suspended, a lot of them were into "doing my own thing, and I don't have to yield to authority. I can do what I want to do," that kind of thing. So, suspensions really bothered me because I felt we could do a lot with that, but I knew it was a long haul. It wasn't an overnight job. It was going to take some years to work that kind of thing out.

Q: That was your biggest concern, but was that also your biggest headache?

A: That, and classroom management, because the two were related.

Q: Classroom management. How could that be a headache?

A: Well, as I said, we had some people who were not skilled in grouping kids for different kinds of activity. You can't have all kids working at the same level. You had some people who had a philosophy of win-loss, an adversary role with children, you see. I had one teacher in particular who would leave his classroom and pursue a child if the child -- sometimes he would ask the child to close his locker -- and if the kid didn't do it right away, he would leave his classroom, pursue the kid where he's going (you know). I used to say: "The child can't go anywhere. He's here 'til the bus comes in the evening. We can deal with him. Don't leave 25 other children in the room and let something happen to them. And, with junior high school students, you're into the business of ego. Ego and "How do I fit in with other people?" "And what do my peers think?" -- Moreso than "What do the adults think?" And so, most likely, if you confront a child, he's going to do something that will make him stand out in the eyesight of his friends and (you know) what the adult thinks comes later. He may be sorry afterward, but that's the think that's important to him at the moment -- "How my friends see me?" And a lot of them will come up and say: "Gee! Hey, you did a great job. You really gave so-and-so a piece of your mind." (Even though you did get suspended.) So you had that kind of thing to deal with and this tended, I felt, were the problems with some people -- not to always put that kind of child in an adversary role, in a win-loss kind of situation. Classroom management; dealing with the student code of conduct, because those were the rules that were laid down by the school system. And each student got a booklet and was made available and teachers talked about it. But again, a lot of the children had a problem being sophisticated enough to deal with that think in a manner where they would not get suspended.

Q: What was the toughest decision you had to make as a principal and why was it the toughest?

A: I would say -- I don't know if it was the toughest, but it was one of the tough ones -- was the one I mentioned earlier where I had to terminate a teacher. That had been the first time as an administrator that I had to get involved in the type of thing. And I would say, to me, a person's job is very important to him. But, that individual just wasn't meeting the standards that we wanted him to meet. I knew that if we kept him he would attain tenure and you would have a very difficult time later on getting rid of him -- a person who's not a bit competent.

Q: Now we're going into a series of "What do you think?" questions. What do you think of the standards of quality established by the State School Board?

A: Well, I hope I understand the question. As I mentioned at the beginning of the interview, basically the County -- and I'm sure they were matched up to what the State wanted in terms of certification (all that's tied up to it) -- that the educational goals of the State and the County would tend in some ways to mesh. And the things that they proposed that we try to do in terms of learning goals--I had no problem with those at all.

Q: What do you think about career ladders for teachers?

A: Well, public school education doesn't leave too many options just by the nature of the system itself. You're only going to have one superintendent, and you'll have, maybe, depending on the size of the system, maybe a half dozen or so assistant superintendents. Other than that you've got to go into curriculum or some type of special or supervisory; administration as a principal; or you remain a classroom teacher. Those are the only ways you can go. However, into counselling. You can become a guidance counsellor. But the ladder only takes you in those directions, and it depends on what you're committed to and what you'll be happy with. Personally, I could have been very happy just being a classroom teacher, but I have no regrets from having administrative experience, but I was not unhappy as a classroom teacher.

Q: Given the limited rungs in the career ladder, another alternative to reward teachers would be merit pay. What do you think about that?

A: There are good and bad aspects to that. One major complication, it always seems, is that people become very selfish in terms of sharing ideas, things like that. Nobody would want to share anything with anybody else (I'm being facetious about that), but I know that idea-sharing, experience-sharing, that kind of thing, would become a token object. (Because) the person might get the upper hand on me and get the rewards rather than I get the rewards.

Q: Merit pay would lead to competition?

A: Well, I would say, to some degree, stifle the exchange of good ideas and fellowship among the teachers, and things like that. It would just lead to hard feelings. Now, granted, in any organization, you've got some people who are better than others. That's a fact. But I don't know if that issue will ever be resolved. I just see it as being a controversial thing that would tend to put people at loggerheads with each other more than bring teachers together because you're going to have two opposing camps.

Q: What was the key to your success as a principal?

A: Well, if you can equate success to what people tell you after the fact ... Because, as a principal, very often I didn't see any success, per se. I could see some gradual changes as far as -- and I think is probably one of the keys to success -- is that teachers having a more tolerant role toward the students, but I left before I could really see that coming into fruition. I have found out about it after the fact because I have seen teachers who were there and they have talked to me later on, years afterward, and told me how some of the things we tried to do to improve human relations ... How, that by being there over a period of time they began to do some things, make some changes on their part. So I could guess you could call that a success, but while you're right in the heat of battle you sort of suffer from a combat syndrome where you can't see the trees for the forest, but you just keep at it. I guess persistence, keeping faith in your philosophy that you've got to be for everybody's child even though you might not like everybody's child, but you've got to try to educate everybody's child who's there..

Q: What advice would you give a person who's considering an administrative position in the school system?

A: Number one: Be prepared for a lot of disappointments because you're caught between a lot of different forces. You're going to need to try to be an understanding person because you're going to have to deal with a lot of different types of personalities. You've got to be on top of the changes that take place in curriculum and other learning techniques. You've got to try to gain the support of your staff and try to share ideas with them and let them share ideas with other members of the faculty. Get them involved in decision making, where you can. Like I say, be ready for a lot of disappointments, but don't let them get you down. Because, over a period of time, you can bring about a change.

Q: What aspects of your professional training best prepared you to become a principal?

A: When you say "professional training" are you talking about, education or does that mean actual on-the-job experience?

Q: On-the-job experience.

A: Well, I would say that the part that prepared me was really the on-the-job training I received as a vice-principal. It was the particular school I worked in and the fact that I got a chance to do most of the job tasks of a principal while I was there.

Q: What suggestions would you offer to a university that would better prepare candidates?

A: You can't really do it at the university. To be a good administrator, I feel, you have to be a decent teacher and know something about children. You can't just go into school administration just out of the clear blue sky. You've got to know something about the emotional makeup of kids: how they function, their problems, their concerns, things like that. You've got to be into that. You can't be thin-skinned, because a lot of things that are said are things that are directed towards you and a lot of people fail because they hear everything and they take it as a personal affront.

Q: Did you feel that the Central Office policies prevented you from accomplishing goals?

A: No. Now, when I was a Kenmoor the County was divided into three administrative districts and I was part of the Central Area. And, the assistant superintendent there then, Annabelle Ferguson, was very supportive of all her schools. If you needed help, say you needed help, and she would bring you whatever kind of personnel. If you need people to help you with teachers, teacher training .... Whatever you needed, she tried to provide-- to make your life livable in the particular situation you were in. If things got rough for you, she would try to support you through thick and thin. And I think that type of thing, even when the going gets tough, if you have that type of backup you can go back and fight the battle again.

Q: What consumed the majority of your time? What administrative aspect?

A: Student discipline.

A: I would liked to have spent more time in classroom observation, doing more things and have faculty meetings that weren't just meetings that were training sessions -- that type of thing--where we could share ideas (on) how to do things better. But, most of the time we spent during those days, just putting out fires.

Q: Over the past decade, schools have become larger and larger and the populations sometimes have exceeded 4,000. What do you feel is the best organizational arrangement for the three respective groups of people: the administrators, teachers, and the students?

A: Well, as far as administrators are concerned, you almost -- you know, a lot of the literature used to say that the principal should be the educational leader of the school. In other words, know about curriculum and all these other kinds of things. I know a lot of this relates to cost effectiveness. Largeness of schools has reached the point where, many times, your administrator needs to be a manager (more than just) ... You just can't be an educator. You've got to be a manager. And some of your secondary personnel, or backup people, have to do the things that are related to the curriculum, classroom management, student problems and it goes right down to the teachers. It just can't be the way it used to be, not the way our society is moving right now. the schools continue to get large. That's the wave. You cannot have a principal that's everything. That's not even reasonable to expect a person to be able to do it all the many kind of things that they used to do in the past.

Q: Now it's become more management than administration. During your time, were you a manager or more of an instructional leader?

A: Well, I tried to be more of an instructional leader, but your role changed depending on what happened at the moment. But I tried to stay up on things relating to curriculum, counseling techniques -- things like that -- dealing with kids who were considered exceptional children, because we did have special education children. How to make them fit into the mainstream, those kinds of things. You played many roles.

Q: Special education, were those talented and gifted or learning disabled?

A: At that time, mostly learning disabled. It could have been the kids who were considered -- who had a reading problem (SLRD group)...

A: It was something related to reading problems. I've forgotten the exact terminology. Right down to kids who were learning disabled in terms of having low IQ's. We had no orthopedic-disability children, but you did have low-IQ kids with learning disabilities.

Q: What about the Southeast Asian kids?

A: We had problems with language, but they would bring in a special teacher just to teach those children English, because most of the Oriental kids were -- I guess a lot of it's based on tradition -- but they were keyed into education. And, you never had any problems with those kids. If there were any problems, it was because some other kids had hassled them. It was a last resort before they would get into anything, really. But they were keyed into education.

Q: What do you feel is the ideal sized school, as an administrator?

A: Around-- Actually, the 700-900 category, if you've got the proper staff, that's a good load. If you get too small, you can't have all the programs you want, but I had no problem working with that seven to nine hundred group of children. Once you get, into the thousand, two thousand, that's when it. starts to become a real management problem.

Q: If you could use one- or two-word descriptions, how would you prioritize your activities for most effective leadership?

A: Ah ... First of all, you've got to know what's expected of you. And then you've got to have some kind of plan of action for how you're going to get there, how you propose to get there, how you're to accomplish things. And, if you can't accomplish all those, what are you going to try to accomplish. What kind of priorities are you having?

Q: Did you have a model you patterned yourself after?

A: Basically I patterned myself under people I had worked under at Central High School.

Q: In talking earlier about human relations in the late 70's, there now seems to be slippage. Have you noticed whether or not there's been a relapse in the attention given to minority groups?

A: Well, I know the suspension rate still tends to be high for minority students, but I've been out of the system for seven years. So, I really can't give a first-hand account. But I know, from what I've been reading, you still have the bulk of your children that get suspended are minority children.

Q: (Question inaudible. The question dealt with appointment of minorities to positions of authority and/or responsibility.)

A: Again, I have not kept up with that, but I do know that in Prince Georges County -- I do know of several people who have moved into -- some of the higher-ups who are, you know, your Black Personnel who were principals and things that have moved into assistant superintendent type jobs and other high echelon jobs. So I know some effort has been made in that direction. I would imagine that maybe more still needs to be done, but I do personally know people who have moved and they were wellqualified people who got those positions. So, I think it's safe to say that some movement has been made and the present superintendent is one who seems to be striving to make a good system out of the one we have.

Q: Would you discuss the five most pleasant principalship activities and then the five most unpleasant, starting with the most pleasant?

A: The five most pleasant ones, I think number one would be the prom. That was always the night when people were on their best behavior, dressed nice. You'd see them in an aspect you'd never seen maybe during the whole school year. Awards assembly. That was another pleasant one. Many students had a chance to stand out for various things. They weren't just sports. Practically all activities -- anything you'd done from attendance right on down to sports -- you got a chance to let your little light shine. Faculty Socials, that was another pleasant one. Many times we would have those at somebody's house, including mine. It tended to kind of put us in a different atmosphere, doing different things that weren't school-related, per se. You kind of let your hair down and had a nice time. Graduations (were) a happy/sad time. You're glad. It's always nice to see the youngsters move on and some you knew you'd miss, but you'd always have replacements next year. How many is that? Is that four? And probably to see the faculty work together, not at odds with each other. Doing things at school that tended to enhance each other. The probably most unpleasant things: Number one -- termination of an employee. This also included custodial care and day workers. There were times when we had to let people go from those areas also. Student discipline. Resolving community conflicts in the school. I mentioned that a lot of times children would bring their problems from the community and try to settle them at school and you'd have involve police and that type of thing. Going to court on children. You had to do that in many instances because they would break the rules and you'd get a summons to appear. It put you in a very awkward position. You would feel as though: "I'm supposed to be helping this child, and yet I have to say something negative about him." In most cases, I always tried to find something positive to say at a hearing, but in many instances you really had to scratch. That's four. Could you give me an instant replay on those negatives?

Q: Firing employees, student discipline, resolving community conflicts, and going to court.

A: And student suspensions.

Q: If there were three areas for administrator which you could change, what would they, be?

A: The way schools are set up, it's pretty hard to change any of them. Naturally, if the size of the school changes, one would almost have to be this business of being an educational leader. You have to be more of a manager just to be able to facilitate getting things done in the plant. But that's part of the one big change that I haven't seen. Some tasks you just can't get out of. You've got to be involved some kind of way. So I really can't think of three, but that would be the one that I think there might be some change in.

Q: If you could change any five areas of U.S. education, what would those five areas be?

A: I can't really.... I don't think I can give an adequate answer on that one.

Q: What in your own experience did you find most beneficial in helping you maintain a sane attitude toward being a principal?

A: A sense of humor and being flexible.

Q: Will you describe the most effective assistant principal you have had -- assistant principal characteristics used to generate creativity and support?

A: Say it again, please.

Q: Well, could you describe the most effective assistant principal you had?

A: Well, I only had one, and, again, I didn't have any choice in selecting the person. He was just assigned ... As a matter of fact, the person had more years of experience than I did, yet we tended to function all right together. He had a different personality from me, which may be good. And, as I say, we worked all right together. He did have some conflicts with teachers, because, again, we were dealing with two different kinds of personality. But, probably if I had had a choice of selecting someone, I would probably have picked another person.

Q: Your retirement was because you went into another occupation, right?

A: No. My retirement was because of the job stress.

Q: Oh. Let me read the question again. Was your retirement because of administrative burnout or for age or for going into another occupation? They gave me three options down here.

A: Well, if you call it physical burnout, it was. I actually had to be hospitalized for intestinal surgery -- extensive intestinal surgery. I was in the hospital for six months. I had a ruptured large intestine. And, consequently, I was asked to take another job in the curriculum office just to get well again, which I accepted. I stayed in that job for approximately one year as a curriculum specialist, and then that position was cut by the next school budget and I had to go back to a school administrator's job. At that point, my doctors advised me to retire because my system could not handle the same kind of stress again.

Q: So it was stress-related, then. What were the characteristics of the superintendent which you found most effective in allowing you the most leeway in operating your school?

A: We're talking about the area superintendent, and that's who was really close to the schools, the area superintendent. Number one, she was supportive, very supportive.

Q: This is Annabelle Ferguson?

A: Yes. Very supportive. She was a kind person. She was a good administrator. She was an understanding person and she tried to give you whatever assistance you needed to do the job you were supposed to do.

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