Elizabeth A Fuller

EDUC 650
6/3/21
Supervisor of Instruction Shadowing Reflection

I shadowed Mr. Robert Archer, the Curriculum Principal (and my direct supervisor) at

Huntington High. I met him at his morning duty at 6:30 in the morning. His first responsibility it

to check the sub list and make sure all teachers have coverage. He has Mr. Sharp, the

Environmental Science teacher helping with this daily. Mr. Sharp oversees the greeting of all

student teachers and substitutes. His duties include helping them get to their assigned rooms,

getting their sub folder to them, and explaining when it is time for their lunch. I thought this

was a great idea because we have such a large high school of over 1700 students with 125

teachers. Then at 6:45 we walked to the main arena awaiting students’ arrival off the busses.

Due to COVID restrictions, the students go get their “grab-n-go” breakfast from the carts and go

directly to their 1st mod classroom. The main responsibility of this duty is to make sure students

get their breakfast and get to their 1st mod (to have their temperature taken and eat) in a timely

and quiet fashion. Some students want to talk to all their friends in the hall etc; however, they

cannot do this at this time due to COVID restrictions. When that duty was over, we walked back

to the main office where he began showing me where he checked on subs with secretaries.

Luckily, we only had two teachers that weren’t covered for the day. Mr. Archer and Mrs. Lewis,

our secretary, began calling some teachers for “teacher for teacher” coverage. Teacher for

Teacher is when teachers may give up their prep (pay is 45 dollars) to “cover” that mod until

either they can get a substitute. After we got the subs lined out, there was a commotion in

front of the main office and some loud laughing as water exploded all over the main arena. I
have never seen men jump up and run out of that office so fast in my life! However, they didn’t

run as fast as the culprits. Dennis (the head custodian) was called on the radio to come to the

arena. I thought Dennis would be super angry, but he just laughed and said, “Well, that was a

good prank”. After patrolling the upstairs to see if the students were still around (which they

were long gone), Mr. Archer took me to the video surveillance room to check the cameras. It

was quite easy to see that the main culprit was one of my students. Uggggg! I easily identified

her. It appeared that she (along with two other female friends) had taken a trash bag from the

upstairs girl’s bathroom and filled it with water like a giant water balloon and threw it over the

balcony into the floor of the main arena. Upon checking the bathroom upstairs, we found they

had also TP’d the bathroom and had drawn a large (about four foot), very descriptive penis on

the wall in lipstick. Dennis was NOT laughing about this one. The girls were called to Mr.

Archer’s office. I listened from the next room (since I am the current counselor of record for

two of the girls) as Mr. Archer called parents and notified them that the girls would be receiving

3 days of out of school suspension. The main culprit received 10 days and was going to go up

for expulsion due to her probation violations. Mr. Archer showed me the multiple papers he

had to fill out for each girl. I also didn’t realize how much more paperwork it was for the

student who had an IEP. WOW! After the girls were picked up, he talked to me about cameras

and how it would be hard to figure out who is responsible for without them, because kids are

so fast and street smart. Another way to find the responsible student is social media. There

were two students videoing the main student throwing the water and completing the “art

work” on the bathroom wall. Luckily, the rest of the morning was very fast and uneventful.
 Next on the principal agenda was lunch duty. There are currently five sections

throughout the school building where students must eat lunch this year. These places were

made due to the 6-feet social distance restriction at the beginning of the year. After lunch

there was a teacher meeting that I was not allowed to attend, but it involved the teacher not

dressing professionally and various social media posts. During the meeting, I spoke with Mr.

Eastham, the 9th grade academy principal, about what he thought the biggest obstacle was for

him and his academy this year. He stated that virtual school had a very negative impact on 9 th

grade and that, due to failures, he was going to have a huge number of returning freshman for

the 2021-2022 school year. He asked if we (meaning the counselors) would be able to get the

summer school word out to parents, so maybe some would be able to recover credits and move

on. I told him, absolutely! Next, Mr. Archer explained that he is not the best at checking his

emails and knows that is something he needs to work on. He told me that every time he checks

his emails there are a bunch! No matter how many times a day he checks them. I looked at his

screen and he had 74 messages, which that would drive me crazy!!! He says that daily, during

6th mod, he tries to check his emails and voicemails again to see if he missed anything while the

dealing with the happenings of the day! During 7th mod, we met with Mrs. Kammer who is an

assistant principal, about moving a teacher’s homeroom. Mr. Archer gave me a small word of

advice, when you make a schedule, stick to it, and try not to deviate because it creates a ripple

effect with multiple other people’s schedules.

In conclusion, Mr. Archer is our Curriculum principal, but as the associate principal, he

wears many hats, and his job has so many different responsibilities. It is difficult to focus solely

on academics. He does a great job handling the multiple responsibilities that are handed to him
on a daily basis combined with his list of yearly responsibilities. It was nice shadowing him, and

getting to see him in a different light (beyond being my immediate supervisor as a counselor).

He is very professional and is very respected by the staff throughout the building. I believe he is

a huge asset to Huntington High because of all the roles he serves and all the problems he fixes.

I learned a lot today about curriculum and instruction, but more importantly about interacting

with people and managing difficult situations. It was also solidified that there is no employee at

this school that loves Huntington High more than Mr. Archer!