'Principals for a Day'

MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake Christian Academy principal Mark Agrellas was going over the criteria for teacher evaluation with his assistant principals – principals for the day, at least.

“Respect, rapport. What does that mean?” asked fourth-grader Dylan Hampton. Dylan and his fellow fourth-grader Ryker Lundgren were Principals for a Day at MLCA Wednesday.

The Principal for a Day program is an auction item at the school’s annual fundraiser. “Our parents, they went to the auction this year and they bought us it. And he (Agrellas) let us do it,” Dylan explained.

The idea behind Principal for a Day is to show kids what school administrators do, Agrellas said. By mid-morning, the principals for the day had helped Mr. Agrellas talk to kids and parents as they arrived at school. Along with that, “we moved chairs around,” Ryker said, and they helped hand out awards at the morning chapel.

The principals for a day didn’t know they had the prize. “I didn’t have no idea,” Ryker said. So they were a little concerned when Mr. Agrellas wanted to talk to them. “I thought I did something wrong,” Dylan said. The were happy to find it was good news.

Both boys said they didn’t really know what the principal actually does.

“I kind of thought you might talk to people in the principal’s office,” Dylan said.

“And go in the front and open doors for people. And doing stuff on computers,” Ryker said.

The principal does do stuff on computers and talk to people in his office, Agrellas said. But he talks to parents, too. And to people who might be interested in enrolling a child at MLCA, or to kids who got in trouble. “It’s different every day,” Agrellas told the kids.

The two principals got to participate in some of those activities, as Mr. Agrellas scheduled a talk with a student with failing grades and a phone call with a parent, among other tasks. (The other tasks included a fire drill.) They took their clipboards and observed a teacher in her classroom.

The principals had a “working lunch” from McDonald’s, where Mr. Agrellas asked them what things the school was doing well and what could be improved.

The boys did have to miss their Wednesday computer lab to participate. “Being principal is probably funner,” Dylan said.