The Principal Component: Bringing Your Administrator on Board

What administrators know and understand matters when it comes to organizing a school for teaching and learning. When principals and assistant principals discourage the use of practices unfamiliar to them or do not support best practices, they can actually hamper student achievement and professional growth. This is especially true when it comes to the library media center, where front office decisions directly affect program budgets, the master schedule, and the overall role as library media specialist. This article presents a discussion about the importance of partnership between principals and school administrators. Together they can actually bring forth change when they are on the same track. A quality library media center program has the potential to impact student learning the way no other support program can. In fact, the importance should move the library media center program from "support" to "critical" status by its ability to bring those real-world critical information, communication, and technology skills into the more traditional content area curriculum standards. Furthermore, along with the efforts, the principal is the other critical force to ensure the library media center program takes its appropriate place in the school's course of study. Bringing the administrator on board may be the most important challenge, but it will be well worth the effort!