“He can run a whole school with the tip of one finger, he can be at school from 6:15 am to 10:00 pm with a smile on his face every minute of it, he is John Phelps, the most interesting principal in the world.”

As I get out of my car in the morning at 6:15 in the morning I feel excited and ecstatic to start the day off great. I get into my office and I turn on my computer. Then I leave to unlock and open the doors of Blaine High School. As I open the front doors I tell myself “This is going to be the best day of my life.” And I know that if I say that enough then it will come true. As I get back into my office I see that my computer has turned on, I log in and then I see the humongous amount of emails that I have waiting for me. After I go through and read most of the emails that I need to, I look at the clock and I see that no parents have come into the school to meet with me yet (yes, they do show up at 6:30 sometimes). Finally after I greet all of the staff that has arrived and dealt with anything that has popped up I get to go into the hallways and see the people that brighten my day up the most, the students. As the 7:40 bell rings I make sure that all of the kids have made it safely to their classes. Some of the time their are bundles of kids that need to get to class, and I help them get there.

From 1st to 3rd hour I deal with most of things that need to get done, there is never any routine to anything. I need to make sure that I stay on my feet and ready to go because anything could pop up at anytime. Sometimes I will have meetings that last until the end of 3rd hour. And sometimes I have meetings with parents or with students, but other times I could be going through the hallways walking into classes to see how the teachers are performing. Luckily I have a fantastic group of Assistant Principals and a great staff who can get most of that stuff done so that I don’t have to, not that I don’t love too, it’s just that I mostly don’t have enough time. Since every once in awhile I will get some extra time to myself, so I will go through some more of the emails that I got since the day started (which is a lot).

When lunch comes around I go out to the hallways to meet with some of the students who are eating, mostly I go and talk to the students who are eating alone so that I can brighten up their day. I want every student to have a Grrrrrreat Bengal Day (I got that from Tony The Tiger, I use it because I learned that you want to enjoy what you do and you want the kids to enjoy the day, I want our school to be a place you want to come to, not run from). Most of the time I don’t get to eat lunch because I meet with so many students during the lunch time.

For the rest of the school day I get to do most of the same stuff I do at the beginning of the day. Sometimes I get to meet with the students even more because that is the most important thing about being me is to make sure the students are having fun during school. As the school day winds down I start to get near the end of my emails and meetings, but sometimes something will pop up saying that someone is upset, the hardest thing about being a principal is that someone will always be upset with you, it’s like you can never win. But I always take that challenge and I try my hardest to make students believe that something that might be big, is small. That is what we do as people is make something that is rather small and turn it into a big thing. When the final bell rings the students days are over, but for me and most of the staff we stay back and do work. If I ever need to catch up on any stuff I will do that after school then I will go out and cheer the Bengals on in the sports activities that they are in that day. After the games are over I go back to the office and wrap everything up. As I leave the school and look back at the day, and I say to myself, “This was the best day of my life.”