School Principals I Have Known: Oliver Deex

Although I have never served as a principal, I have been a student under elementary and secondary school principals and worked for six high school principals as a social studies teacher. As a district superintendent in Arlington (VA), I supervised and evaluated nearly 40 elementary and secondary school principals. Since the 1980s, as a university researcher, I conducted school-based studies, observing at least 20 different principals do this crucial (and often under-appreciated job). So from below as a student, above as a superintendent, and then as a researcher, I have seen many principals up close and personal. I have written in this blog about the core roles that principals must perform (see here, here, and here). In this post, I describe my experiences with one of those six high school principals with whom I worked—I was going to write “under”–but decided that a better word for my experience with Oliver Deex is “with.” Those years with Deex helped shape me intellectually, grounded…