10 Years of Believing in Jewish Day School Education

Bruce: Everything that happens inside of the school—curriculum, supervision, teacher evaluation, parent
contact, day-to-day operations—are the responsibilities of the principal. Everything that happens outside of
the school—admission, vision, philosophy, projection, board development, fundraising, student recruitment,
faculty recruitment, showing up at every fundraising event, public relations—is the responsibility of the head;
that is, the head of school drives the mission, vision, and philosophy of the operations of the school.
Mollie: Terminology is key when differentiating the roles when a school has both a principal and head.
However, the majority of our Jewish day schools have only one professional leader, a head or principal, or director.
Bruce: In some smaller schools, a person may be both the head of school and principal. But in those
schools, let’s have realistic expectations about accountability. When my president calls, I drop everything and
take the call because that’s my job. I am accountable to the board; this is not the case for the principal. For
the head of school, the board comes first. For the principal, the parents and children come first. If the board
expects one person to do it all in a school that is growing, it’s simply not fair and everybody will be unhappy.
Elisheva: I think that danger—of expecting that one person can do everything— isn’t always coming from
the lay side. Not infrequently heads impose this on themselves. Especially in Jewish day schools, the road to
headship often starts with the love of teaching. Often, the heads have been teachers or divisional principals,
maybe young rabbis. They see themselves as educators, people who put children and mission first. Most often, if
heads of school experience role confusion it is not only because of the expectations of their boards.
Mollie: There are many facets to head of school support. Can the same people provide head support and
head evaluation? How do you talk to your head as a critical supporter, as a friend?
Elisheva: We evaluate students by trying to measure growth—how is the child doing in math and can I make it
better? We won’t fire the child because he or she is not doing well in math. The point of the evaluation is not to give
a thumbs up or down; the point is to ask, where are we going with this? How can I help this person improve?
58 partnership for excellence in Jewish education