The Santa Clarita Valley Education Foundation hosted its annual “Principal for a Day” recently, spanning across 22 schools in the valley this year.
Joe Satorhelyi, executive director of the foundation, said that the event has been around for almost 30 years and it is an opportunity to bring schools and the community closer together.
“(They) meet their principal or superintendent at the school site or office site, and they spend a good, you know, little less than about two hours of being principal for a day, shadowing them, getting to do some of the things, see behind the scenes, look at what’s like and then getting involved a little bit,” Satorhelyi said. “So, it really is kind of a unique event that we do.”
Satorhelyi added that the event is a way to have fun during the school year, especially since principals deal with so much day-to-day.
“They’re (principals) right back on campus, you know, problems arise, and they get called here and there, but it is a chance to kind of have fun … so, it’s respecting their profession and a chance to learn,” Satorhelyi said.
One parent who got the opportunity to be principal at Westcreek Academy wanted to give a personal thank you to Westcreek Principal Susan Bett and all she and the staff do.
“I just wanted to commend them because I know they work hard and so do all the other staff members. But they work throughout the year, not just on one day of the year to show the business community what they do. But they really are in the trenches with our kids and making sure that they are prepared for careers in the next five or 10 or 20 years,” said Natalie Vowell, who was representing Santa Clarita Valley Economic Development Corp.
Vowell said that, during her day at Westcreek, she was able to talk to different groups of children about what economic development is.
“It was definitely fun talking to the kids of all different age groups about what economic development is, what the economic impact is,” Vowell said. “Mentioning some of the facts about some businesses who they are familiar with or who some of their families or parents work for and really bringing that community, the business community, back to the school kind of full circle.”
A pastor from Grace Baptist Church joined in on the fun-filled day at Golden Valley High School.
Jared Burkholder, pastor at Grace Baptist, said this was a great opportunity to form some new connections with leadership and see behind the scenes.
“And there’s a lot of the school I’ve never been able to see or, or even to understand kind of a holistic scope of all that they do there,” Burkholder said.
He added that he was “overwhelmed by the magnitude of the chop” Principal Jennifer Ambrose has to deal with, as he put it.
“So just seeing the number of students, the number of teachers, the number of administrators, all the programs that they have, the athletic component of it, and you kind of know that all of those pieces are part of what a principal does, but I think even just in two hours to kind of make the rounds and get a sense of what some of her day-to-day looks like, it’s just a really big job,” Burkholder said.
Burkholder’s day consisted of meeting with students from various clubs, seeing different classes in action like Spanish and English, seeing some of his own personal friends who work at the school and stopping by the mental health facilities, the Growl Center.