AP = “All Purpose”: Creating Community Among School Leaders

In honor of National Assistant Principal Week, we’re excited to spotlight AP Julio Alvarez from Jungman STEM Elementary and AP Michael Krzysztofiak from Hubbard High School. Both of these school leaders feel strongly that their colleagues helped them get to where they are. So now, as a way to pay it forward, they are putting their knowledge and experience to work, lending a helping hand to their colleagues as co-facilitators of the District’s AP 101 workshop series. 

“For someone who is new to an AP role, they’re likely the only person in their school with that position, so it can feel lonely,” says AP Alvarez. “That’s why one of the biggest goals for the AP 101 series is to build a community among these newer leaders.”

Created by the CPS Department of Principal Quality (DPQ), another goal of the AP 101 Series is to help assistant principals prepare for the fact that their role may resemble “baptism by fire”.

 “The assistant principal role is a strange one,” explains AP Krzysztofiak. “You’re not equipped for this role until you jump in and start doing it. So we try to provide APs with some tools and strategies that we’ve learned from our own successes and failures, which we hope will accelerate their growth.” 

Learn more about these leaders and the AP 101 Series below! 

What are your top priorities as a school leader? 

AP Alvarez: Living our core values, which are based on Jungman’s school mascot, the Eagles. E stands for equity, A stands for action-oriented, G stands for having a growth mindset, L stands for demonstrating leadership, E stands for striving for excellence, and S stands for STEMists. We’re a STEM-themed school, so that last core value is what really drives our mission. 

AP Krzysztofiak: At Hubbard, we really try to live by the mantra that we put our students first. Our primary responsibility is to them, and that’s what drives the work that we do. When we look at the effectiveness of an initiative, we are careful to analyze how exactly it is serving our students. 

What is your advice to students in these final months of the school year?

AP Alvarez: My message to students is to work hard and play hard. We start and end the school year with enrichment-based programming, like robotics and Zumba, to pique their curiosity and encourage them to stay and come to school every day. Sometimes it’s easy to slip out of that mindset towards the end of the school year, but we’re here to remind our students that there’s still a quarter to go and still a lot of good times to be had at school.  

AP Krzysztofiak: Regardless of what point we’re at in the year, my message to students is the same: Always make the most of this experience, because high school will feel like a blur when they look back on their time here. I always encourage students to enjoy the social aspects of school, but also to embrace the academics and think about how they can really challenge themselves. Our goal here at Hubbard is to prepare students for success after high school, whether that's college, military service, or a career, and that means helping them build resilience and teaching them to accept and incorporate feedback.

What do you like most about your involvement with the AP 101 Series? 

AP Alvarez: This series has provided continuous learning for me. Even though we’re the ones preparing and facilitating the sessions, the questions asked by our participants really make me reflect on my own practice. Having a role in this series has driven me to be more intentional with my approach, whether it’s with our participants in the AP 101 series or with my school community.

AP Krzysztofiak: It's an honor to be able to present to these folks, and we learn a lot from them. At our last session, I remember hearing an idea from one of our participants and thinking about how I could incorporate that at Hubbard. It’s like a two-way street! Even though we're the more experienced APs, our participants are bringing a lot to the table and giving us things that we can then adopt to make our own practice stronger.

What is your message to your colleagues during AP appreciation week? 

AP Alvarez: I’ve heard people reference being an AP as being “all-purpose.” So if you don’t feel like both your feet are firmly planted on the ground, it’s because of that. You’re all purpose! You have your hands in lots of different things, and you're trying to support your school community in as many ways as possible. 

AP Krzysztofiak: We may not always feel appreciated, but it's those moments of positive student interaction, and those times when we see staff really elevating their game, that show us we're doing the right things. We have to remember to celebrate those wins and not dwell on the challenges. Continue giving yourself grace, and know that you are doing an awesome job, even if you don’t feel that way every day.