<p>My senior son and sophomore daughter attend a medium size (approximately 1,000 students) high school. A new principal and assistant principal were hired last year when the former principal resigned just two weeks before school began. </p>
<p>My kids are good kids - they are academic achievers, participate in sports and music and have never gotten in trouble. They are honor roll students and involved with their school community, yet the principals don’t know them. I suppose this is better than having them be known for rotten behavior. </p>
<p>Today my dd told me she passed the prinicipal in the hallway and she was going to say “hi” to him but he didn’t even make eye contact with her. I just asked her if she knew the assistant principal. When I said her name dd replied " I don’t even know who that is!" </p>
<p>Is this unusual? Is there something I should do as a parent to remedy this situation?</p>
<p>I ask because my niece who attends a different school got a very nice letter of recommendation from her high school principal. He obviously knew her well and gave her high praise, citing specific examples of her character and traits.</p>
<p>I don’t think that either of my kids’ high school principals knew them.</p>
<p>Why would they?</p>
<p>In my experience, principals mostly tend to know kids with unusual problems and student government leaders. My kids didn’t fit in either category.</p>
<p>I was always very active in the PTA, so all of the administrators knew me and my kids. But they also knew my kids through their student government and other activities. Over 2,000 kids.</p>
<p>My Ds HS has 125 kids in her class, the principal and assistant know everyone. Its a small community, runs it own summer camp, my D was counselor for Ass. Principal.'s kid.</p>
<p>“oday my dd told me she passed the prinicipal in the hallway and she was going to say “hi” to him but he didn’t even make eye contact with her. I just asked her if she knew the assistant principal. When I said her name dd replied " I don’t even know who that is!” </p>
<p>Is this unusual? Is there something I should do as a parent to remedy this situation?"</p>
<p>The kids the principal’s know in most schools are the kids who get into trouble, the student government leaders, and the kids of parents who are very active in PTO/PTA, volunteering at the school, etc.</p>
<p>When it comes to assistant principals, often the main kids they know are the ones who get into trouble.</p>
<p>What to be concerned about is making sure your kid gets to know her/his GC and several junior year teachers well enough so they can write recommendations for college, etc.</p>
<p>D is a senior, HS about 800. By all accounts, she is invisible to the principal and the assistant principals, despite receiving honors in just about every academic gathering for the last 4 years and holding a school athletic record. She’s not the val or sal, he knows them. Falls all over them and their parents at every assembly.</p>
<p>My S went to a high school with about 1000 kids. I think the principal and vice principal probably knew just about everyone. Everyone really liked the principals. They were both very outgoing, would be at all of the sports events and really made themselves available to the students. </p>
<p>The principal wrote letters of recommendation for my S. In fact, S stopped in to visit the principal and a couple of his old teachers during spring break.</p>
<p>DD1 - none of the principals know her … except for one that she had as a teacher in 7th grade. she is a good kid.</p>
<p>DD2 - everyone at her school knows her, the principal, the asst. principals, the counselors and all her teachers! she started off with a rough patch so she got to know everyone in the first six weeks. now they all know her and sat hi to her at every opportunity! haha she has turned things around, so she is doing better now. but starting out she was making bad grades and in trouble, so she got to meet everyone real quick!</p>
<p>D2 attends HS with over 2000 students. She is a multiple sport athlete, been to state multiple times, every academic award possible, teachers know her, GC knows her, some Asst Principals know her but I don’t think Head guy does. This is just his second year in that position. I may be wrong but I don’t think so.</p>
<p>My D’s school used to be run by someone who made it her business to know the name of every single girl. Because of her advanced age, she was given the position of President, while someone else was appointed as principal to run the day-to-day operations of the plant. The President knows my D, while the principal seems only to care about those girls whose parents are major contributors to the school.</p>
<p>I went to a high school with 1,500 kids and all the major administrators knew me by face and name and would actually greet me in the hallways first----but this was because I was part of the school newspaper and was one of the(if not the only) students in the class who was willing to interview them for news stories. None of my friends, however, who were also the high-achievers who went on to fantastic colleges, were known by the major administrators and I doubt it made a difference or that it benefited me in college admissions or anything so I don’t think there’s this huge need to “remedy” the situation. </p>
<p>Like others have said, administrators usually only on students who are in trouble, student government leaders(because that’s part of the position), and misc. students like the random journalism kids who interviews you for a bunch of news stories(like me).</p>
<p>Getting good teacher recs is far more important, imo.</p>
<p>My son’s public school was about 2300 students in grades 10-12. My son raked in awards at every level, was involved in too many things to count, was known to many teachers he never even took a class with–who would stop me in the hall to tell me a story about him–but the principal had no idea who he was. The guy announced to the world the same week he was hired that he took the job because the university was in the same town and he wanted to get his doctorate. I guess it takes up a lot of his time.</p>
<p>My daughter is in the other public school in town, a slightly smaller school. The principal may know her, I’m not sure. Her counselor knows her well, thinks the world of her and is wonderfully helpful. So, I don’t care if the principal knows her, I guess.</p>
<p>I agree abasket, that is probably a big reason.
The principal at a inner city public school of approx 1800 knew her for a couple reasons.
One he came to all the PTA meetings ( or as many as I did )
I saw him at sporting and other events, club activities other than sports teams, probably a big factor was that she was involved in the school and so were many of her friends- ( outside of class)</p>
<p>My D attends a medium sized suburban high school (about 1700 kids). The principal wouldn’t know her if he tripped over her. She would recognize the principal because he’s spoken at assemblies, but she wouldn’t recognize many of the administrators at the school. I have never laid eyes on the principal, notwithstanding that I go to many school events. I personally don’t think it matters if this principal knows her. Her elementary school and middle school principals knew her, FWIW.</p>
<p>I would say the principal knew my kids because of my presence in the school as a volunteer. Sometimes I felt like I spent more time in that school than my kids did. School is about 2200 students, 9-12. My kids were also involved in activities that helped draw attention to them, such as news editor of the student newspaper, and D2 was one of two NMF in her class. They were never afraid to approach the administration about anything.</p>
<p>Our school is pretty big, about 2700. I’m pretty sure the administrators never knew my kids. During S2’s four years of high sch., there were three different principals.
There are a lot of discipline problems and that seems to take up most of their time.</p>
<p>The principal and asst principals know both me and S for a variety of reasons. They know me because I am a trustee and officer of the local education foundation. They know S for both good and bad reasons.</p>
<p>The good is that he’s in the top 1% of the class and has to receive special approval for the online college level math classes he takes. He’s also a two sport athlete, math tutor and Link Crew leader. </p>
<p>The bad, not his fault, was when he and a friend were robbed. Since the miscreants were likely teenagers, I alerted the principal, who asked the boys, confidentially, to come in the office to look at student photos to see if they could identify any of them. Thankfully, the robbers did not attend the school and two of three were subsequently caught. I think the boys rebounded faster than the parents from the incident (no bodily injury and my S was a happy camper to get a replacement iPod.)</p>
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