Expert: Stephanie R - 8/6/2006

Question
Dear Stephanie,

  I am hoping you might be able to give me some insight on my future as an educator.  Currently I am finishing up my masters in business education in New York State.  I plan on working in NYS for three years, while waiting for my fiancé to finish dental school.  We plan to move out of New York, to perhaps North Carolina.  The reason I wanted to go into teaching is to help develop students for their next phase in life.  My question to you is this.  I want to pursue further education in educational leadership.  With this education I would want to become a principal or assistant principal.  The one thing I want to avoid is working behind a desk doing administrative duties all day without interaction with student affairs.  I feel that I would make one heck of a Dean.  How long should I wait till after I have my masters to pursue this further education?  Do school administrators look to hire former teachers over someone else?  Are there any other roles I should be considering other than the ones mentioned above?  Finally is there any advice you would give a twenty five year old male beginning his teaching career?

Thank you so much for any advice you might be able to provide

Sincerely,
     Tom S.


Answer
Hi Tom,

As soon as you've receieved your Masters, get into the pool, or screening that you need to do ASAP. I will tell you this... before you can become involved with student interaction, especially at the high school level, you must be a curriculum dean/AP (at least in the state of Florida). Administrators DO look at their internal staff to hire before they look outside. Now, if you have just started your teaching career, then you need to teach at least 5 years before I would say to become an administrator. Hope this helps!

Stephanie