School Principal Quotes & Sayings

I once called construction companies to bid on an addition to the school library so that there would suddenly be people outside, measuring the building. 'Who authorized this?' the principal would ask. The answer: 'Howie Mandel.' — Howie Mandel

Had all the world been a school and Wilson its principal, he would have been the greatest statesman in history. — Barbara W. Tuchman

While visiting Costa Rica, I was inspired to hear that someone had donated a playground to a local school. So when I returned to L.A., one day I just called the principal of a nearby elementary school and asked what I could do. Five years later, I've helped make over nine schools, repainting, renovating, and fixing up playgrounds. — Cheryl Hines

She dropped the matter, and his birthday remained May 28. Armed with the Social Security card, the birth certificate, and the letter from Principal Simpson of the Briarcrest Christian School, they drove the next day to the Department of Motor Vehicles. This time they had Collins in tow. Collins — Michael Lewis

Consciousness-based education, which I am helping to promote, is basically the same education that good schools are giving today with Transcendental Meditation added for the students, teachers, staff, and principal. — David Lynch

I had to get good grades and do well in school - my mother was an assistant principal and my father was a teacher - and they took this very seriously. — Roz Chast

In second grade, I told a bunch of kids there was a homeless person living between the portable classrooms outside our school. It caused panic, and the principal had to announce on the P.A. system that no one was living there. I pretended I didn't know who started the rumor. — Alessia Cara

The last time Assistant Principal Parker called, a girl in the school's locker room had accused Julie of being a whore during the two years she'd spent on the street. My kid took exception to that and decided to communicate that by applying a chair to the offending party's head. I'd told her to go for the gut next time- it left less evidence. — Ilona Andrews

I daydream about a high school where everybody plays the harmonica: the students, the teachers, the principal, the janitor and the cook in the cafeteria. — Richard Brautigan

The most important thing I would learn in school was that almost everything I would learn in school would be utterly useless. When I was fifteen I knew the principal industries of the Ruhr Valley, the underlying causes of World War One and what Peig Sayers had for her dinner every day ... What I wanted to know when I was fifteen was the best way to chat up girls. That is what I still want to know. — Joseph O'Connor

My father was also a principal of a school and mother was a curriculum advisor. Both were educators. — Edwin Moses

Is this what Principal Fontana meant by the phrase 'well-rounded'?
It's fucking spherical, Catamounts. — Sam Lipsyte

A true story. One afternoon when our son, Richard, was in fifth grade, my wife called me at work to say he had received a one-day suspension for losing his temper during recess. Because we both worked, this was more of a punishment for us than it was for Richard. He hated going to school anyway. I called the school immediately and attempted to reason with the principal. She refused to understand my point of view, and by the time I finished yelling at her, she had suspended Richard for two more days. — Tim Shortridge

There's a joke about the balloon boy who has a balloon mum and a balloon dad and he goes to a balloon school with balloon friends ad a balloon principal. And one day, the balloon boy decides to take a pin to his balloon school, which is, of course, a disaster. And he's called into the balloon principal's office, and the balloon principal tells him, 'You've let me down, you've let your school down, you've let your parents down, you've let your friends down. But most importantly you've let yourself down'. — Gabrielle Williams

There are at least two sets of Rules for Life, as far as I can tell. There are the ones that get you picked up by the cops or taken to the assistant principal's office if you break them: Don't leave school grounds, don't spray paint stop signs, don't drink, ,don't drop firecrackers in the toliets.
But there's a different set that you really can't break if you don't want your life to suck relentlessly. At the head of the list, Rule Number One: Don't get noticed. As long as you stay exactly the person everyone thinks you're supposed to be, you're fine. — Emma Bull

By learning to yield to the loving authority ... of his parents, a child learns to submit to other forms of authority which will confront him later in his life - his teachers, school principal, police, neighbors and employers. — James Dobson

A chiropractor is a doctor who performs adjustments on the spine," Rickey told the class before bending Gary backward and "adjusting" him, ripping off the false arm and spraying red hair dye all over the classroom. Gary howled in "pain" and collapsed dramatically on the threadbare school carpet, his legs flailing a bit before hitting the floor with a terrible, final-sounding thunk.
That was the first time they were sent to the principal's office together. They had to apologize to their teacher and explain to their classmates that doctor visits were unlikely to result in surprise dismemberments. — Poppy Z. Brite

We learn through stories and scenarios, and this book is all about stories and scenarios. The purpose of the scenarios in this book is to help you understand some typical situations that confront middle school kids and how you can address each situation. Each scenario has a story told from the multiple points of view of those most affected by the story's situation - by the kid, by the parents, by the teachers, and sometimes by a principal or other adult. — Dr. Kid Brain

I was cyber-bullied before all those Myspace-related suicides, so my school principal wasn't really impressed when my mom complained about what was happening to me on my Xanga blog and on AIM chat.
"Get your life sorted out, you fucking scitzo [sic] dyke tranny bitch," one comment might say.
Another comment would say something like, "I know she's reading this, she's so pathetic."
And, perhaps most frightening of all: "I'm going to fuck you up until your mother bleeds. — Nenia Campbell

Then, one glorious day, our principal announced that any student with a passing grade-point average could apply for a transfer to the new OASIS public school system. The real public school system, the one run by the government, had been an underfunded, overcrowded train wreck for decades. And now the conditions at many schools had gotten so terrible that every kid with half a brain was being encouraged to stay at home and attend school online. — Ernest Cline

My grandmother was a teacher, my sister was a teacher, my daughter was a teacher and is now a superintendent in northern California, and my son-in-law is a high school principal. I am surrounded. — Loni Anderson

Unprecedented yearning for fame. In a survey in 1976, people ranked being famous 15th out of 16 possible life goals. By 2007, 51% of young people said it was one of their principal ambitions. On a recent multiple-choice quiz, nearly twice as many middle-school girls said they would rather be a celebrity's personal assistant than the president of Harvard University. — Anonymous

I would urge that the yeast of education is the idea of excellence, and the idea of excellence comprises as many forms as there are individuals, each of whom develops his own image of excellence. The school must have as one of its principal functions the nurturing of images of excellence. — Jerome Bruner

I thought I would be a teacher; I think my eventual goal was to be the principal of my old high school. — Tyler Labine

My parents were told by the principal of West Barnstable Elementary School and my teacher that I was a bright boy whose spelling was in the retarded range and whose handwriting was the worst they'd ever seen. I find it embarrassing that I spell so badly. I will do almost anything to avoid being embarrassed, but no effort either on my part or on the part of any teacher has ever dented my utter bafflement when it comes to choosing which letters to put down, how many, and in what order. — Mark Vonnegut

When my principal interviews candidates for a teaching position at my school, regardless of whether it's a language arts position, he always asks them to discuss the last book they read. — Donalyn Miller

A mother is neither cocky, nor proud, because she knows the school principal may call at any minute to report that her child had just driven a motorcycle through the gymnasium. — Mary Kay Blakely

You show me a school with a principal behind the desk, and I'll show you a school without principal leadership. (Quoting Baruti Kafele) — William Sterrett

The schools play an important role when it comes down to protecting children against violence.Violence is one of the principal reasons why children don't go to school. It's also one of the causes of the alarming school dropout rates. — Shakira

I'm fully aware of the intense political pressures bearing down on education. The policies through which these pressures exert themselves must be challenged and changed. Part of my appeal (as it were) is to policymakers themselves to embrace the need for radical change. But revolutions don't wait for legislation. They emerge from what people do at the ground level. Education doesn't happen in the committee rooms of the legislatures or in the rhetoric of politicians. It's what goes on between learners and teachers in actual schools. If you're a teacher, for your students you are the system. If you're a school principal, for your community you are the system. If you're a policymaker, for the schools you control you are the system. — Ken Robinson

In the private system and the private schools, the principal is pretty much a dictator. He or she can hire whoever s/he wants. Of course, in the movie, in the story, she makes a mistake by hiring him. But, if she doesn't, I have no story. — Philippe Falardeau

It's Mr. Reese, the school principal. He wears the same outfit he wears every day. A beige suit, light blue shirt, red tie and hair that looks like it just went through a vacuum cleaner. He appears especially harried today, as his eyeglasses sit on his nose like they want to escape his face. — Ben Zackheim

Jenna walked in between desks and plonked herself down behind hers, noticing AGAIN that the teacher hadn't graced the class with his zitty presence. She thought Mr. Kennan needed to get fired, which said a lot, because she rarely paid attention to ugly teachers. She'd discussed this with the principal two weeks back when she'd been sent to his office after getting caught sleeping. She'd told him that if he employed more hot teachers like Mr. Daniels then maybe she wouldn't pass out from boredom. The principal gave her a week's detention because of that comment, saying that she needed to take things more seriously. But she WAS being serious.
Jenna Hamilton from Graffiti Heaven (Chapter 28). — Marita A. Hansen

When I first started with 'Twilight,' I didn't have any experience. I didn't know what I was doing. So I was pretty intimidated by the editors and the publishers, and I felt like I was a kid in school with the principal telling me what to do! It was hard for me. — Stephenie Meyer

Garris had pet names for all of them. Mahler was the Mad Doktor. Franz Liszt was Son of Lovecraft. Mendelssohn was Santa Claus Meets the Hell's Angels. Beethoven was the High School Principal. — Chet Williamson

I'm pretty sure my parents are
pretending they are sick.
I know because I taught them both
to do that little trick.
You blow your nose and hold your head
and claim your brain is breaking.
And so, a pro like me would know
my folks are clearly faking.
A little thing I learned in school
convinced me I am right.
My parents are supposed to meet
my principal tonight. — Ted Scheu

Maycomb did not have a paved street until 1935, courtesy of F. D. Roosevelt, and even then it was not exactly a street that was paved. For some reason the President decided that a clearing from the front door of the Maycomb Grammar School to the connecting two ruts adjoining the school property was in need of improvement, it was improved accordingly, resulting in skinned knees and cracked crania for the children and a proclamation from the principal that nobody was to play Pop-the-Whip on the pavement. Thus the seeds of states' rights were sown in the hearts of Jean Louise's generation. — Harper Lee

I came from a Hindi medium school ... the principal felt that I would not fit into an English medium college. Though I was top in my class in school, and I got admission in other colleges, but I really wanted to study in St. Xavier's. — Lakshmi Mittal

My husband was working as principal of an urban transformation high school - the kind of public charter school determined to do whatever it takes to give its mostly minority, low-income student body the education they need and deserve to be successful in life. — Vanessa Diffenbaugh

In the vast majority of cases, however, getting into trouble has nothing to do with one's self-esteem. It usually has much more to do with whatever is causing the trouble - a monster, a bus driver, a banana peel, killer bees, the school principal - than what you think of yourself. — Lemony Snicket

Mrs. Holt, however, is grinning. "I have a wonderful announcement," she says. "No practice test today!" Jimmy Russell shouts. "No tests at all!" Bobby Clifford shouts. Mrs. Holt's grin gets a little tight and she says, "Be careful, boys, or I might decide to have two practice tests today." Bobby and Jimmy cover their mouths with their hands. Lately school has been about as much fun as packing. That's because statewide testing is in a few weeks. Mrs. Holt and our principal, Mr. Robinson, have made it clear that doing well on the statewide tests is REALLY IMPORTANT. — Paula Danziger

I attended a very small junior high and specially in the end that became a disaster. The principal was pretty senile and a drunk, so the children more or less runned the school. — Jonathan Brandis

Parents teach in the toughest school in the world - The School for Making People. You are the board of education, the principal, the classroom teacher, and the janitor ... — Virginia Satir

My heroes always are mostly my parents - my father especially, and my mom, who's passed on already. My dad is a very strong man, and by him being educated, and a principal and school superintendent over 37 years, he plays such a big role in my life. — Dikembe Mutombo

Whatever people are doing, they're probably going to be doing it five years from now. You have your banker, your general store runner, the principal of the school, and things of that sort. It's nice to see that, and to get old with other people. — Valerie June

the assistant principal told me how he "loved to read a great novel and discuss the meaning of life." He smiled, sighed wistfully, and then turned suddenly serious. "But we can't do that at our school. We have to focus on basic skills and classroom management. — John Owens

Active scholars are uniquely attracted by a high-quality graduate school of arts and sciences. Faculty members consider the teaching and training of new generations of graduate students as their highest calling. They believe that working with graduate students maintains and develops their professional skills more effectively than any other activity. It may be the main reason for the great attraction of academic jobs. Laboratory scientists have told me that the opportunity to work with graduate students keeps them in the university. For them, other options would center on research in commercial laboratories, but there the principal investigator would be assisted by technicians, and that is considered a far less creative interaction. — Henry Rosovsky

As with most voluntary school integration programs, dispersal of the black children was the norm. In Portland, no more than forty-five black children were bused to any single elementary school, and white schools of four-hundred to five-hundred pupils received as few as four and in most instances only ten to fifteen black students. Brush Elementary, the all-white school Rist selected for daily observation, received about thirty black children.
The principal, along with most of his all-white teaching staff, had never taught a black child. He hired a black school aide because he felt that most of the white students had never spoken to a black person. His lack of racial sensitivity was illustrated in a staff discussion about the collection of milk money, when he said, "I guess we had better not call it chocolate milk any longer. It would probably now be more appropriate to refer to it as black milk. — Derrick A. Bell

Today, only a fool would offer herself as the singular role model for the Good Mother. Most of us know not to tempt the fates. Themoment I felt sure I had everything under control would invariably be the moment right before the principal called to report that one of my sons had just driven somebody's motorcycle through the high school gymnasium. — Mary Blakely

A priest friend of mine has cautioned me away from the standard God of our childhoods, who loves you and guides you and then, if you are bad, roasts you: God as a high school principal in a gray suit who never remembered your name but is always leafing unhappily through your files. — Anne Lamott

I've always been comfortable with people who run things, whether it was the principal of my high school or the president of the university. — Stephen A. Schwarzman

[a] girl one day flared out and told the principal "the only mission opening before a girl in his school was to marry one of those candidates [for the ministry]." He said he didn't know but it was. And when at last that same girl announced her desire and intention to go to college it was received with about the same incredulity and dismay as if a brass button on one of those candidate's coats had propounded a new method for squaring the circle or trisecting the arc. — Anna Julia Cooper

Mama, before she got married, according to Aunt Emilia, was a firecracker, a tempestuous redhead, with thoughts of her own about liberty and equality for women. But then along came Papa, very serious and tall, with thoughts of his own too, about... liberty and equality for women. The trouble was in the coinciding subject matter. There was a collision. And nowadays Mama sews and embroiders and sings at the piano and makes little cakes on Saturdays, all like clockwork and cheerfully, She has ideas of her own, still, but they all come down to one: a wife should always go along with her husband, as the accessory goes along with the principal (my analogy, the result of Law School classes). — Clarice Lispector

The senseless killing of 20 children and their teachers and principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School was not part of God's grand plan. It was a thwarting of God's plan. It was the misuse of human freedom. — Adam Hamilton

Constantinople was the principal seat and fortress of Arianism; and, in a long interval of forty years, the faith of the princes and prelates who reigned in the capital of the East was rejected in the purer schools of Rome and Alexandria. — Edward Gibbon

When I was in lower school, I graduated from fourth grade, and the principal gave us a summer assignment to take a 30-minute reflection period every day. And, of course, there were no cell phones at the time. She said to just think. And that's lost. It doesn't exist anymore. Just imagine being on a couch and just thinking. — Ansel Elgort

We have a dangerous trend beginning to take place in our education. We're starting to put more and more textbooks into our schools. We've become accustomed of late of putting little books into the hands of children, containing fables and moral lessons. We're spending less time in the classroom on the Bible, which should be the principal text in our schools. The Bible states these great moral lessons better than any other man-made book. — Fisher Ames

I was just a goofy little funny kid, who was always getting sent to the principal. It wasn't serious because I was smart. I wasn't like a true troublemaker, just rambunctious - like, talkative and trying to be funny. That was me in middle-school. — J. Cole

Many people avoid talking about death, but it never bothered me. The principal of my high school was an excellent teacher. One day he was writing on the blackboard when he suddenly turned around and said 'Life is a great adventure and death is the greatest adventure of all,' then went back to the board. I have never feared death since then. — Kathryn Tucker Windham

Those in society who are in charge of schools must never forget that the parents have been appointed by God himself as the first and principal educators of their children and that their right is completely inalienable. — Pope John Paul II

It would be a shame to get expelled from school (or arrested) for trying to stab the principal with a ballpoint pen just because he doesn't use enough deodorant. — Rick Riordan

My parents moved to American Samoa when I was three or four years old. My dad was principal of a high school there. It was idyllic for a kid. I had a whole island for a backyard. I lived there until I was eight years old and we moved to Santa Barbara. — Eric Stoltz

Joe was so tired that he had slept through first hour Spanish, second hour history, and most of third hour English. The English teacher, Mrs. Lane, hadn't taken a liking to that. She decided to send Joe to the principal to discuss why he was so sleepy, which Joe hadn't taken a liking to. — Belart Wright

They were growing up in the golden age of comic books. Comic strips, or "funnies," had begun appearing in the pages of newspapers in the 1890s. But comic books date only to the 1930s. They'd been more or less invented by Maxwell Charles Gaines (everyone called him Charlie), a former elementary school principal who was working as a salesman for the Eastern Color Printing Company, in Waterbury, Connecticut, when he got the idea that the pages of funnies that appeared in the Sunday papers could be printed cheaply, stapled together, and sold as magazines, or "comic books." In 1933, Gaines started selling the first comic book on newsstands; it was called Funnies on Parade. — Jill Lepore

It's helpful to know that Eden drew his inspiration from a classic study led by the Harvard psychologist Robert Rosenthal, who teamed up with Lenore Jacobson, the principal of an elementary school in San Francisco. In eighteen different classrooms, students from kindergarten through fifth grade took a Harvard cognitive ability test. The test objectively measured students' verbal and reasoning skills, which are known to be critical to learning and problem solving. Rosenthal and Jacobson shared the test results with the teachers: approximately 20 percent of the students had shown the potential for intellectual blooming, or spurting. Although they might not look different today, their test results suggested that these bloomers would show "unusual intellectual gains" over the course of the school year. — Adam M. Grant

Principal Principal: Where's your late pass, mister?
Errant Student: I'm on my way to get one now.
PP: But you can't be in the hall without a pass.
ES: I know, I'm so upset. That's why I need to hurry, so I can get a pass.
Principal Principal pauses with a look on his face like Daffy Duck's when Bugs is pulling a fast one.
PP: Well, hurry up, then, and get that pass. — Laurie Halse Anderson

I've gone to prom multiple times, had fights with the principal, a relationship with my teacher. When people ask if I wish I had gone to high school, I tell them that I've acted all of that stuff out, and it just doesn't seem like fun. — Britt Robertson

There were moments of racial unity. Lawrence Goodwyn found in east Texas an unusual coalition of black and white public officials: it had begun during Reconstruction and continued into the Populist period. The state government was in the control of white Democrats, but in Grimes County, blacks won local offices and sent legislators to the state capital. The district clerk was a black man; there were black deputy sheriffs and a black school principal. A night-riding White Man's Union used intimidation and murder to split the coalition, but Goodwyn points to "the long years of interracial cooperation in Grimes County" and wonders about missed opportunities. — Howard Zinn

I used to work at a school as a teacher's assistant, and my mom is a principal at an elementary school. I don't know, I think that's a pretty good life, teaching kids. — Conor Oberst

Do something. Either lead, follow or get out of the way. — Ted Turner

Around here news travels faster than mono, and by the end of the day, the whole school had heard about Todd's and my standoff with Principal Miller and Maggie Klein. By the time the story circulated and came back around to me, I had apparently bitch-slapped Maggie Klein and then tongued Todd in front of Principal Miller.
Oh, and Mom was a former showgirl in an all-gay revue. — Kristin Walker

If i wouldn't have done comedy, I would have been a teacher. I was really good when I took an exploratory teaching class in high school, at getting kids' attention, and delivering lesson plans. Though my principal even told me that this was what I was meant to do. And that being a big-mouth comedian was a waste of time. — Gabriel Iglesias

In art there are two principal schools between which each aspirant has to choose
one distinguished by its close adherence to nature, and the other by its strenuous efforts to get above it. — Christian Nestell Bovee

In the book i'm reading (The Principal) the main chareter best friend has to go to a differnt school. I can picture them waiting at the bus stop together crying. — Jerry Spinelli

We lived on a farm outside a town of about 900 people. My father was the principal of the elementary school. It was a typical Southern town - there are a lot of churches, and it's dry. — Robert Boswell

You've used up all your school sick days," he said, persuing my file. "You've requested to leave school one hundred and thirty days out of the one hudred and forty days of school so far."
So thirty-one might be the magic number?"
Principal Reed and Raven — Ellen Schreiber

In every case where I've seen a transformational school, there's a principal who really has the foundational experience of having taught successfully. — Wendy Kopp

But there's only one other person besides me in the Monterey Bay area who could pick up on spectral sound waves-especially now that Jesse is going to school so far away-and that person happened to be away at a seminarian retreat in New Mexico. I knew because Father Dominic likes to keep his present (and former) students up to date on his daily activities on Facebook.
The day my old high school principal started his own Facebook account was the day I swore off social media forever. So far this has worked out fine since I prefer face-to-face interactions. It's easier to tell when people are lying. — Meg Cabot

As important as it is for all members of a leadership team to commit to being vulnerable, that is not going to happen if the leader of the team, whether that person is the CEO, department head, pastor, or school principal, does not go first. If the team leader is reluctant to acknowledge his or her mistakes or fails to admit to a weakness that is evident to everyone else, there is little hope that other members of the team are going to take that step themselves. In fact, it probably wouldn't be advisable for them to do so because there is a good chance that their vulnerability would be neither encouraged nor rewarded. — Patrick Lencioni

I read a lot this week but my favorite character that does not appears very much but has a nig part is mr.krupp he is a mad and old principal that treats bad george and harold if he would not had appeard in the book it wouldn't had too much fun the book but with him it is a good book and cool to read.my favorite part when mr.krupp appeared was when george and harold made a joke on the cafeteria ladies and all the school turned green and sticky.
my book is captain underpants
By dav pilkey — Dav Pilkey

It is perhaps the principal admirableness of the Gothic schools of architecture, that they receive the results of the labour of inferior minds; and out of fragments full of imperfectionraise up a stately and unaccusable whole. — John Ruskin

You can have great teachers, but if you don't have a good principal, you won't have a good school. — Eli Broad

A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district; all studied and appreciated as they merit; are the principal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty. — Benjamin Franklin

gave rise to a selection process in which the survivors were predominantly those with greater capacity to retain sodium in their system, while those with lower capacity perished. The selection mechanism was dehydration. Wilson and Grim hold that the black populations that grew out of the slave imports came to be dominated, through genetic inheritance, by people with extra capacity to retain salt in their system. And this, they conclude, is the main factor that explains the phenomenon in question. This explanation is disputed by other medical scientists. The conflicting views of the contending scientists were summarized recently by Daniel Goleman (1990). According to Goleman, Elijah Saunders, a cardiologist at the University of Maryland Medical School and coauthor of a leading textbook on the subject, Hypertension in Blacks, holds that anger against racism is the principal cause of hypertension among blacks in the United States. Shirley Brown of the University — Joseph E. Inikori