I always wanted to be a teacher. I know it makes me sound like a nerd, but I have always loved everything about schools. Well, maybe not the principal. Principals made me feel uneasy, even if I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I would rather remain unseen, under the radar, than even encounter the principal anywhere in school. Even as a teacher. So how is it that I became one? God surely has a sense of humor. I was the principal for sixteen years in the same school where I spent three decades. The truth is I loved my job and got to work with the best middle school students and teachers. I knew when I retired that I would finally have a chance to do some writing and follow my own advice to learners in my language arts classes: “Write about what you know.” There is much more to the role of the principal than meets the eye, and I wanted to capture that through my own experiences. Along the way, my memoir chronicles how almost everything about schools has changed in the last decade, in ways that are good and not so much. I hope you find my writing to be honest and moving, and my experiences informative and enlightening.