Hoping for a chance and finding the right fit!

     So I thought I would start this post with a little funny moment that happened at the end of my first interview. When the Superintendent was walking me out after the interview he asked me how I thought it went. I responded with, “well I didn’t fall out of my chair so that’s good.” He laughed which is good. I should note that the Superintendent is someone I have known as it was my son’s former principal. I am not sure I would have said that if I didn’t know him, but at that point, I was really happy I hadn’t done anything clumsy.

     The purpose of this post is to talk about the balance of wanting to find a principal position sooner rather than later with wanting to find a good fit position for me. A little more than a week ago I had my second interview (for an assistant principal position this time) and the interview went well I think. It was a very different interview than any I had been part of before with only two people and very scripted questions with no flexibility to ask clarifying questions or the interviewers to give me any feedback at all during the interview. I was also audio recorded which I didn’t love. After I got over my initial bewilderment of the interview format I really liked the questions and felt that my answers were not only authentic to me but made me very interested in working in that school. Then at the end of the interview, it was explained that it was a three-tiered process and this was tier one. They told me the salary and days contracted to work. This is where the good fit part came in. So I have determined that a good fit not only means the place but also the circumstances. After I left the interview I processed the whole thing. In the end I would be traveling an hour or more, the annual salary was only a little more than my current salary (the daily rate I would be paid would be about $25 less per day from what I get paid now), and the days I would be required to work would be more. So in this situation, it was not a good fit due to the distance I would need to travel farther for a reduced daily rate. It was not a good fit and so when I returned home that night I withdrew my name from the process. Huh??!! You might be saying at this point….I thought you wanted this?? Well, the answer is I do, but I also need to make sure it is a good fit for me professionally and for my family.

     So now I wait for more positions to open up (most of the others I have applied for it would seem I didn’t get an interview for as I have haven’t heard a thing). Such is the life of a teacher trying to become an administrator with no actual administrative experience. The good news is that I have a super supportive principal who let me be principal for the day last week to give me a little experience. It went very well and made me realize that I am on the right path, scared to death about the path, but on the right one at least.

     In today’s mail this showed up:

Can you say things are getting real??!!  Crossing my fingers for the right fit and that I can make it up the steep learning curve and become an awesome principal.

~Erica