A group of my fellow principals had just completed a dinner meeting. As we were walking out, one of my colleagues came up to me and told me that she had been approached by one of the patrons who asked her, “Is that Mel Riddile?” The individual gave her his business card, he was an orthodontist, and told her to tell me hello. “He was my principal at Lee High School, said the man.”

When my friend told me the story, I said in amazement, “I left that school in the 1970s! Besides, I was not the principal. I was the assistant principal.”

The next week, I was in a local supermarket and a woman approached me and asked, “Did you ever work for the school system?” I admitted that I had. She went on to say, “Weren’t you my principal at Lee High School?” Again, that was in the 1970s. “I never got in trouble, so you probably don’t remember who I am,” she continued.

I can’t believe the number of times I am approached by adults who introduce themselves saying, “I never got into trouble” or “I don’t get into trouble anymore.”

These meetings with former students reminded me of another time at another school where I was also an assistant principal. This large high school was divided into small learning communities each with its own office and staff. Each “subschool” as we called them, acted as a mini-school. The assistant principal, two counselors, and one secretary took care of everything students from attendance to record keeping for 700-plus. The school had over 3,000 students and the principal, who was very focused on the need to personalize the school environment, intentionally stood in the same spot at the top of the main stairwell every morning so that the students would get to know who he was.

On one of the last days of school, a student office assistant in one of the “subschools” who was completing a mock final exam that all the secretaries gave to their assistants, walked up to me and asked, “Are you the principal?” I replied, “That man who stands at the top of the stairs every day is the principal. You are a senior. Didn’t you know that?” He calmly replied, “I always thought that you were the principal.

Action Item: There are two important lessons here. First, it is a mistake to assume that all students know who you are or what you do. Tell them and tell them again. Visibility is important, but visibility does not equal recognition. One year, as a joke, I carried around a hand printed sign that asked, “Who am I?” Any student who came up to me and answered correctly received a gift certificate to the a la carte line in the cafeteria. You don’t have to wait twenty years to learn the second lesson. As far as some students are concerned, assistant principals are principals. To many students, the assistant principal is one if not the most significant adults in his or her life. Remember that, because they will remember you FOREVER!