He had suffered a heart attack. He had lost his hair. He was wearing a hearing aid. At 58 years old, Principal Robert Yeager decided it was time to retire.
But he ended up resting for only a year. Committed to helping George Washington Middle School in Alexandria, the city's most economically diverse school, he found himself drawn back to the always intense, always wild role of middle school principal.
Returning Principal Robert Yeager explains his plan for improving the community relations and test scores of George Washington Middle School Wednesday afternoon.
(Kevin Clark - The Washington Post)
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This time he would take the lead of a school that has endured astonishing turnover: four principals in seven years.
Yeager brought with him a love for his job and a deep sense of responsibility to GW and the city, but the constant churn at the top of the school illustrates a larger national problem: principal burnout.
Today's principals face what seems like a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job, one that's big enough for a committee. They deal with safety issues. They oversee buses, the lunchroom, sports programs, construction and maintenance staff.
They dole out medicine when the school nurse is overwhelmed. They are in charge of making sure the school passes state and now national achievement tests and standards being put into place by President Bush's education bill. The principals also must market their schools in competition with private, charter and even home-schooling alternatives. They have to please low-income parents and high-income parents. And in the end, they are the ones everyone holds responsible for making sure all of it works.
"They are expected to do everything, and they are also very isolated in their jobs, since they are the only ones who have to do all of this," said June Million, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Elementary School Principals. "Stress, testing and social problems are all in the schools now. AIDS education, security, parenting classes, language programs. There are so many things that they are responsible for that they might not have control over, and it's led to concern about principal burnout."
Add that to this fact: More than 40 percent of the nation's principals will be eligible for retirement in the next five to 10 years, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
A national survey of 400 superintendents in 2000 showed that half of them believed that they had too few candidates for principals' jobs.
Last year, the Maryland State Board of Education endorsed 24 recommendations that could help the state's school districts better address the shortage -- suggestions ranging from improving compensation to adding staff members who could handle administrative tasks.
In Houston, some schools want to split the job of principal. One co-principal could be a business manager; the other could be in charge of academics.
In New York City, which has a huge shortfall of principals, educators are looking at bringing in programs to help principals cope with burnout. At the same time, Bush's education bill includes $10 million to look at and address the shortage.
"We are just starting to pay attention to this," said Michael Carr, spokesman for the National Association of Secondary School Principals. "There are a lot of things that are causing burnout and the shortage that we can examine."
The strategies that principals can use include spending more time with the students, delegating tasks and standing up for themselves on issues that are essential to their control over their schools. Yeager has learned these lessons well.
As he patrols GW's halls, he chats with students, patting those he knows by name on the back. He jokes that he has to turn his hearing aid down when he enters the halls.
Yeager seems old-fashioned and addresses the boys as "young men." Girls are "little women."
"Little women, stop running," he said to a group of girls skipping through the halls.
The students like being called young men and women. They giggle when he speaks to them. More important, they listen.
"He has respect for us," student Ernesto Chavez said, even as he was being made to sit out gym class, in part because he did not want to change his shirt.
"I wanted to look good for the ladies," Ernesto, 13, explained to Yeager, raising his eyebrows and smirking.
"Young man? Excuse me?" Yeager asked, sternly.
Chavez looked nervous.
He changed his shirt.
"I absolutely get energy off the kids," Yeager said. "I just like walking the halls saying hello and goodbye and talking with them. It keeps the job fun, even though you have a lot of work to do."
Yeager is also known as a no-nonsense principal who understands the city's class and race issues. He stood up to middle-class white parents who pressured teachers to change their children's grades.
Last year, GW Principal Rob Weinkle resigned in frustration after only 19 months at the school after a group of vocal parents pressured him into moving a popular math teacher to instruct advanced classes. Weinkle felt that all the school's students deserved to benefit from the teacher's skill.
Yeager said he won't stand for such requests. "Period."
Although Yeager is sometimes criticized as being a "my way or the highway" kind of leader, teachers said they respect his experience and opinions even if they disagree with some of his ideas.
"He does want things done his way," said Pete Whelan, 29, who has taught social studies at the school for three years. "But the thing is, he is willing to listen. And he seems to have a very strong history here and a very clear focus of what needs to be done."
In fact, Yeager was principal at GW from 1987 to 1989. He started his career as a teacher at GW, back when it was a high school. His first year there -- 1965 -- was also the year the school was integrated.
He went on to hold various jobs in the school system, including his most recent post as principal of Hammond in Alexandria's west end. After suffering a heart attack in 1999, he retired for the 2000-01 school year to spend time with his wife, Rebecca. But after she died of cancer, he came out of retirement.
Yeager said he missed working and knew that he loved the job. He knew what he would do to avoid burnout.
He would combat stress over test scores by setting down specific test score goals and hiring several people to help him achieve those goals. He started giving students quarterly exams to measure their progress and has started testing teachers by sampling the writing assignments they are giving students.
"The school lost focus," he said. "I think when you change principals so much, there are different directions and there is real confusion and a lack of direction."
