The Benefits of a Statewide "Principal for a Day" Program
By Angie Charboneau-Folch, Principal, Integrated Arts Academy, Chaska, MN
Earlier this year, more than 170 principals from around Minnesota hosted members of our state legislature for a statewide “Principal for a Day” initiative. It’s not unusual for legislators to visit schools, but this was the first time that we in Minnesota—the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals and Minnesota Elementary School Principals’ Association—put together a plan around a single day in January.
For many years, we’ve had a day where Minnesota principals—usually about 20 of us—spend a day at the state capitol in St. Paul. We sit in on meetings of important committees, like finance and education, and our members usually testify at those hearings. That does make an impact, and a lot of pro-education legislation has been passed by our lawmakers in recent years.
But that doesn’t mean we always have a voice regarding legislation that will directly affect our work as school leaders. We realized that even though our legislators are working hard on our behalf, the truth is that some legislators have not been in our schools in years, or even decades. We strongly felt we needed to invite them to spend more time in our buildings during a regular school day—and that’s why we created the Principal-for-a-Day effort. It is our hope to build stronger partnerships with our legislators so they can have a better understanding of what schools are like today, and the real challenges we face day to day.
Detailed Planning
The executive directors of our two state organizations help lead the Principal-for-a-Day effort. We sent out a message to every principal in the state inviting them to participate, and about 200 said they were interested. To make it easy, the organizers put together a spreadsheet that listed the legislators in the State House and Senate who represented their district, including contact information, so principals just had to find their name on the document and contact the legislator. While we hoped for all the visits to happen on the designated day, the goal was to get them to visit the school, if possible. In turn, our lobbyist also reached out to legislators and let them know we were going to do this. We wanted to make it a big deal and asked our legislators to make it a priority.
We did find that asking the lawmakers to spend a whole day in our schools might not be possible. Principals are also busy professionals, and we understand the demands of peoples’ schedules. My representative initially was scheduled to come for just an hour one day last January, but she ended up spending about two and a half hours with us. At my school, I invited one of my teachers, my counselor, my social worker, and a member of our student senate to participate in the discussion. A lot of our conversation centered around the need for adequate funding and the mental health of both staff and students. We also discussed the principal and teacher pipeline concerns as well as filling other essential staff positions, the cost of transportation, and the physical upkeep of
our schools.
The Shifting Education Landscape
The discussion reflected the realities of how the education landscape is shifting and what we deal with on a daily basis. Twenty years ago, if we met with legislators to discuss education, we would probably be talking only about math and reading in schools. Today, we focus on the other elements—the social, emotional, and mental health challenges—that our students struggle with every day and that have a big impact on their learning.
Working together, we developed a cell phone toolkit to guide schools to meet the new legislation requiring all schools to have a policy in place by March 2025. We had significant input in that process, which was a big win for us.
Ultimately, the “Principal for a Day” effort is about strengthening our partnerships with elected officials. We’ve seen what a difference that can make. For example, this past year, the topic of cell phone use in school was being discussed among our legislators. They consulted with our organizations early on about what we thought should be in a cell phone policy. Working together, we developed a cell phone toolkit to guide schools to meet the new legislation requiring all schools to have a policy in place by March 2025. We had significant input in that process, which was a big win for us.
We want to keep building those relationships and partnerships and work together on decisions that affect our schools, which is why we’ll continue our statewide “Principal for a Day” program. Our legislators also see the value of these partnerships. I know my representative appreciated our time together. My school is an alternative project-based high school, and she wasn’t familiar with it. But after the visit, she started following our Facebook page and gave me a shout out on her page and mentioned her visit to our school.
We feel really good about how it went last school year, and we’re looking forward to making it a regular event and growing it in the years to come. We would love to see our legislators clearing their calendars because they know how important it is to spend time with school leaders and experience what’s happening in our schools firsthand.
*Note - FASA has a"Principal for a Day" Program. If you would like to get involved, and invite an elected official to your school, CLICK HERE for more information.
Angie Charboneau-Folch is the principal of Integrated Arts Academy in Chaska, MN, and the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals state coordinator.