\n[post_page_title]The weight of responsibility[\/post_page_title]
\nBeing a principal comes with a lot of responsibility. You have the education and safety of hundreds of kids on your shoulders, and that\u2019s not something to be taken lightly. If anything goes wrong, you\u2019re the one that\u2019s held accountable.
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\nLisa Love was aware of that when she took on a principal job back in 2017. She was determined to do everything she could to make the school a success, but that involved suspending many of her students. When the parents fought back, Love was forced to justify her decision.
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\n[post_page_title]Always meant to be[\/post_page_title]
\nBeing a principal was always in the pipeline for Love. Before getting her new job, she\u2019d already been working as a principal for 18 years, starting off with a middle school in Memphis. For the better part of two decades, she’d worked in the Shelby County district, building up a reputation as a competent and respectable educator.
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\nIt was her success in Tennessee that led to her receiving an offer up north in Pennsylvania. The job would be far from easy, but Love believed she was up to the challenge.
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\n[post_page_title]Time to make a change[\/post_page_title]
\nShe was hired to be the principal of Harrisburg High School, some 12 hours away from her old life in Memphis. The school had been struggling in recent years, with students not performing the way they were expected to.
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\nIt was hoped that Love would come in and put her foot down, bringing about the change that was needed to improve test scores and show that the high school wasn\u2019t struggling. Although her students\u2019 lack of accomplishments concerned Love, she wasn\u2019t going to give up without a fight.
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\n[post_page_title]Walking away with nothing[\/post_page_title]
\nCompared to the national average, Harrisburg High School wasn\u2019t up to standard. In 2015, only half of the students set to graduate actually walked away with their diplomas. Given that in Pennsylvania, the average for that year was 84%, the school\u2019s performance was a cause for great concern.
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\nHow was it possible that only half of the student body left the school as a graduate? The fact that this percentage was actually an increase from previous years made it clear just how desperately Love was needed to make a change.
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\n[post_page_title]Don’t know the answers[\/post_page_title]
\nThe reason that so few students had graduated was that their test scores were incredibly poor. While other kids in the state were getting good grades, those at Harrisburg High School were lucky if they got an answer right.
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\nThe students weren\u2019t dumb; they just hadn\u2019t prepared themselves for the exams. While the statewide percentage for passing a biology exam in 2016 was 64%, the rate at this school was just 7%. There was obviously an underlying problem that Love needed to address if that figure was going to improve.
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\n[post_page_title]Addressing the problem[\/post_page_title]
\nThe new principal thought long and hard about how she was going to enact change within the school. With such a poor performance record, Harrisburg High was in dire need of improvement, but that was only going to happen if she addressed the root of the problem.
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\nLove took her time getting familiar with the school and learning what she could about the students. It quickly became apparent what was causing the issues, so she devised a way to cut off the source and hoped that would make a difference.
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\n[post_page_title]Cutting things down[\/post_page_title]
\nWhen Love announced her plan, it took many people by surprise. She\u2019d only been with the school for two months, but already she was planning to shake things up massively. Love declared that she was suspending around 500 students from the school, a move that certainly wouldn\u2019t sit well with a lot of parents.
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\nGiven that the entire population of Harrisburg High was a little more than double that number, Love was effectively getting rid of half of her students. Surely she had a good reason for doing this.
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\n[post_page_title]Tackling the issue[\/post_page_title]
\nSuspending the students was Love\u2019s way of tackling the absentee problem that had become prevalent at the high school. Many of the kids had been skipping their classes which explained why so many of them performed poorly in their tests.
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\nIf they weren\u2019t showing up to class, then they weren\u2019t learning anything, meaning the exams they were taking proved to be fruitless. Love hoped that by suspending people, it would give them the push they needed to try harder in school and work towards graduating.
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\n[post_page_title]Excusing their absences[\/post_page_title]
\nOf course, not every student who had been absent from school had been playing truant. Some had been off for genuine reasons, so to suspend them was extremely unfair. After Love sent out the notice declaring which students were included in the suspension list, parents were quick to respond.
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\nSome of them provided alibis for their children, asserting that their reason for being out of class had been allowed. By the time the principal had sifted through the responses, many of the students had been removed from the suspension list.
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\n[post_page_title]Putting her foot down[\/post_page_title]
\nHowever, while a lot of kids were given a pass, there were still around 100 of them that were expected to serve their punishment. That\u2019s roughly one-tenth of Harrisburg High\u2019s population which is a lot of students to lose all at once.
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\nLove was firm in her decision to make the cull, declaring that truancy was a severe problem that needed to be addressed. Too many students had been avoiding classes, and the principal wasn\u2019t going to allow it to continue anymore. Skipping school would incur serious punishments.
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\n[post_page_title]Reaching out to parents[\/post_page_title]
\nTo address the problem and make her intentions clear, Love decided to hold a press conference. This way parents would be able to see where she was coming from and voice any concerns where necessary.
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\nShe knew that her plans for the school were not what people had expected, but she needed them to understand that she knew what she was doing. After working as a principal for almost two decades, she was aware that certain actions would garner results. Love was sure that this was one of them.
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\n[post_page_title]Where are your kids?[\/post_page_title]
\nIn the press conference, Love made it clear just how serious the truancy problem was. She explained that parents were under the impression their kids were going to class when they sent them off to school, but that wasn\u2019t the case.
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\nOnce they left home, they were spending their day doing whatever they wanted, instead of using the time to learn. Even if the students showed up to school, they still weren\u2019t going to class, making them \u201cdisruptive\u201d and a detriment to Harrisburg High in Love\u2019s eyes.
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\n[post_page_title]Questioning her intentions[\/post_page_title]
\nNaturally, Love\u2019s view of their children upset some parents who refused to hear anything negative about their kids. One mother asked what the purpose of suspending students was because that was still stopping them from learning anything.
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\n\u201cWhat does that teach them?\u201d she queried, although Love didn\u2019t have to explain herself. She wasn\u2019t the only one working at the school who supported the idea of suspension, and so her faculty quickly came to her aid. It was her assistant principal who pointed out one crucial detail about their strategy.
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\n[post_page_title]Focusing on repeat offenders[\/post_page_title]
\nKeith Edmonds, Principal Love\u2019s second-in-command, pointed out that they weren\u2019t suspending students who had only missed one or two classes. They\u2019d based their decisions on the children who had missed at least 35 classes over the course of the last 45 days. That equated to a week\u2019s worth of school.
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\nWhile the suspensions might not have seemed helpful to some of the parents, the children they were dishing them out to were the ones who were barely around anyway. They weren\u2019t going to be sad about missing out on classes.
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\n[post_page_title]Hitting them where it hurt[\/post_page_title]
\nThe point of suspensions was to put students off from playing truant in the future, but that wasn\u2019t going to work by itself. Love knew that if she wanted to drive the point home, she\u2019d have to give the kids a good reason not to skip classes in the future.
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\nThe only things these students really enjoyed about school were special events like prom, so Love ensured that anyone who was absent too often wouldn\u2019t be able to go to them. She set the cut-off point at 15 missed classes.
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\n[post_page_title]Establishing her priorities[\/post_page_title]
\nLove made it clear that she hadn\u2019t come to the decision lightly. As a principal, she cared about her students and wanted nothing but the best for them. However, she had a school to run and ensuring that everyone received an education was more important to her than anything else.
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\nShe knew that many people wouldn\u2019t get behind her at first, but she was hopeful that her strong stance would start getting results. Harrisburg High was in trouble, and it needed a firm hand to get it back on track.
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\n[post_page_title]Doing it for the school[\/post_page_title]
\nThe principal emphasized that she was doing this for the sake of the school and those attending. The test scores that Harrisburg High had been producing in the past weren\u2019t anything to be proud of, and it reflected poorly on everyone involved.
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\nNo parent should want their child to fail, but without intervention, the results from the high school would continue to sit well below the statewide average. \u201cWe want this to be a school that everyone is proud of,\u201d Love said during the press conference. She meant every word.
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\n[post_page_title]The support she needed[\/post_page_title]
\nAlthough a lot of the parents didn\u2019t get behind Love\u2019s plan at first, the people who did were the ones who mattered most. District Superintendent Dr. Sybil Knight-Burney supported the principal\u2019s decision to suspend her truant students, praising Love\u2019s decision to do something different.
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\nShe said that the school can\u2019t expect to get better results without trying to make a change, and that Love\u2019s vision is one that could have a significant impact on the lives of her students. Having the District Superintendent\u2019s backing was undoubtedly something that Love appreciated.
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\n[post_page_title]Voicing their opinion[\/post_page_title]
\nIt wasn\u2019t only her boss who gave Love support either. When news broke about her decision to suspend so many students, plenty of people had their say about the matter online. Many of them understood where the principal was coming from and agreed that enough was enough.
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\nStudents couldn\u2019t keep playing truant and expect to get away with it without punishment. By skipping school, they were hindering their chances of a bright future, and they\u2019d only have themselves to blame when that came back to bite them.
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\n[post_page_title]Opening up discussion[\/post_page_title]
\nWhether people did or didn\u2019t agree about Love\u2019s stance on that matter, the fact that it was creating an open discussion online was still a good thing. Truancy wasn\u2019t an issue that was restricted to just Harrisburg High.
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\nEducational establishments all around the world have varying degrees of student absences, so finding a way to tackle them is a universal issue. If Love\u2019s view on the matter led to an improvement in attendance and test scores, then other schools could follow in her footsteps and make a positive change.
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\n[post_page_title]The first step forward[\/post_page_title]
\nIt would take time to see whether or not Love\u2019s influence had affected Harrisburg High for the better or not. After all, removing a significant number of students wouldn\u2019t automatically make test scores rise.
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\nThere was still a lot of work required to improve attendance at the school and ensure that the students were getting the best education possible. It wasn\u2019t only the truancy that had caused Harrisburg High to have such a bad reputation, but at least something was finally being done to make a difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[post_page_title]The weight of responsibility[\/post_page_title] Being a principal comes with a lot of responsibility. You have the education and safety of hundreds of kids on your shoulders, and that\u2019s not something to be taken lightly. If anything goes wrong, you\u2019re the one that\u2019s held accountable. Lisa Love was aware of that when she took on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":69955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"\n