Fifth-grade student Tanish recently brought his personal style of leadership to his school campus when he served as Principal for a Day at Cumberland Elementary in May. Tanish garnered this opportunity through a winning bid on the auction item in the school’s Walk-a-Thon fundraising event.
Tanish started the day by welcoming the Cumberland students, staff, and families during our monthly Friday Flag Ceremony on the blacktop before the start of school. He reminded them of upcoming year-end activities: CAASPP state testing for third through fifth grade students, the school’s International Night, and the annual Open House event.
He then helped to lead the K-1 and 2-3 monthly Cool Cougar assemblies, where he spoke about the Cougar Code and explained the content of a slide presentation to students. After serving “yard duty,” and noting student behaviors aligned to the Cougar Code, Tanish visited several classrooms to observe and leave positive notes for the teachers. He then worked to draft both an email to the staff and a message for families to go out in the monthly school newsletter before sharing a special lunch with Ms. Carlson, his “assistant principal”.
“I had a tremendous day being principal,” said Tanish. “I highly recommend it!”
In April, fourth-grader Dimitri got to be Principal for a Day after winning the prize in the Walk-a-Thon raffle!
Dimitri said he learned that principals have assistants and visit classrooms, plus they do yard duty and give feedback to help the school work better and fix things to help improve overall operations.
“I like the job,” Dimitri said. “It was fun being principal because principals have assistants and lead the Cool Cougar assembly and flag ceremony. They also show appreciation to staff members and teachers. They also do announcements over the intercom.”
