Legislative Update

Each year, AWSP’s Advocacy Advisory Council has the opportunity to select a state-level public servant who has demonstrated support of principals and the principalship in the education of all students. For 2020, the Council selected Representative Lisa Callan as AWSP’s 2020 Torch of Leadership Award winner. Representative Callan is a Democrat representing the 5th legislative district, which includes Issaquah, North Bend, and the surrounding areas.

I’ve been “out of the building” now as a recovering high school principal for about seven years. My trips to the grocery store are still filled with high fives and hellos from kids and families. As a principal, I always prioritized relationships above all else, and the evidence of that can be found in any aisle of the grocery store to this day. There is no way those relationships would have happened with sixteen little video squares on a computer screen

If you think principaling was tough before COVID19, what about now? If we kill the will of our principals by not addressing the workload, stress and increasing demands, then our kids and schools will suffer the consequences through a constant turnover of school leaders. LPI's research highlights the obvious, principals are fighting to survive. But their research also recommends some action we can all take to breathe hope into the system for one of our most precious resources - principals and assistant principals.

As I look to the future of our education system, I challenge all the thought leaders, policy makers, and educational leaders to think differently as we redesign our new approach to serving kids. Whether we are still operating under a distance learning model, blended model, or back to some version of brick and mortar, can we prioritize relationships above all else? Can we build everything around creating time for students and adults to find, build, and sustain meaningful relationships that create hope for everyone involved?

One unforeseen consequence of a statewide closure has been the massive forced push for all of us to engage in the virtual meeting space. We might have dabbled before in Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts, and Microsoft Teams, but now we are all exceeding standard. AWSP is offering weekly Office Hours for members to engage with with the AWSP Executive Team and K-12 principals from all over the state. This is a wide open session of give and take, but more importantly, to hear our members (principals, assistant principals and other school leaders) share challenges, successes, and barriers they are facing as newly assigned digital leaders. It is so incredible to watch these natural and organic conversations take off each week that I find myself thinking, "Why didn't we do this sooner?"