The Co-Principal: Looking at Realities

modernization. And, in a time when many observers are concerned with improving instructional leadership in our schools, attention is once again being drawn to that last island of educational continuity, the school principalship. Today's American school principalship is a job of vast dimensions. Principals count among their manifold tasks the duties and responsibilities of instructional leader, building level supervisor, school treasurer and accountant, transportation coordinator, cafeteria manager, purchasing director, and building manager. Each of these areas has its own sublist of responsibilities that would give any business student a thesis topic in trying to design an organizational chart detailing the functions of a school principal. Principals, then, are survivors of a vanishing breed. They are the jack-of-all trades, the generalist, in an increasingly technical society. They are