Have you ever wondered what principals go through, or what our principal does? Well, our principal has to go through many hardships like paperwork, dealing with concerns from our school’s society, helping get academic scores up, helping students, giving feedback, giving assistant principals some guidance, giving operations and instruction, managing time, dealing with emails, dealing with calls, and handling school issues. That’s a lot for one person.
Desiree Veloz, principal at Pahrump Valley High School, has a main goal to get academic scores up. Veloz tries her hardest to help the school scores, helping students and the school to do so. She works to make students more confident and competent. She just wants to get higher and better academic scores for the school.
Kristin Baker, assistant principal, states, “Mrs. Veloz also struggles with her to-do list! She works long hours and is often the last staff member, aside from our evening custodians, to leave the building. At the end of the day, what happens is on her shoulders. Mrs. Veloz has to balance parent, student, teacher, staff, and community concerns along with ensuring that her APs are supported and receive appropriate guidance.”
Veloz has to deal with everyone’s concerns, including teachers, staff, and the community, having to balance them. She has everything, almost every issue, lying at her feet for her to solve. She has to make sure everything is handled properly and appropriately. She has to ensure that everything gets handled right.
Veloz even works long hours, often almost being the last person to leave the campus, excluding evening custodians. Veloz has to give the assistant principals guidance and support, as well as feedback. In turn, the assistant principals help Veloz with mostly operations and instructions. The assistant principals also help Veloz with district leadership. Veloz struggles with managing her time due to her quite packed up to-do list and schedule.
As the principal, she has to deal with many calls, emails, and paperwork. It is a bit exhausting and overwhelming, though Veloz only has a hard time here and there. “I only take scheduled breaks.” Veloz exclaims. On top of everything, Veloz only takes scheduled breaks, meaning she only takes school breaks like Winter Break for example, or Thanksgiving Break like we do. She refuses to do any other breaks that aren’t scheduled.
“I love it, but it is stressing.” Veloz admits, saying her job is stressful.The work of being a principal started off way more stressful and very overwhelming, until Veloz got the hang of it eventually, fitting into the job. Veloz works very hard, very robust for this school, and knows that most of us have a short attention span due to our devices and our non-stop scrolling. Back when Veloz was a student, she never had any phones or social media to help her. No YouTube, no TikTok, or Instagram. She only had her brain and her smarts. If she wanted help,she had to ask a teacher or an adult.
Nowadays, kids can just use their phones and find information quickly. They could even use search engines or just scroll on their phones. The staff see Veloz as authentic and a good guidance. They see her as someone who’s invested in solving problems as a team.Many other principals go through the same thing.
Basically, our principal works hard for us, and we should appreciate that. She has tons of work and lots on her shoulders.We should appreciate principals and staff for what they do for us.
