News : School reports: VSHS principal discusses his homework

As parent-teacher conferences conclude at Vinton-Shellsburg High School, Matt Kingsbury is still finishing his papers before the deadline.

Like the students at VSHS, where Kingsbury became principal this year, there are many reports to finish.

Principals must report to the Iowa Department of Education how well the students are doing in classes and on test scores. The reports include dozens of pages and detailed break-downs of student progress. While on one hand, educators seek to break down the ethnic and socio-economic differences among students while educating them, the report that Kingsbury is required to file with the Iowa DOE specifically lists several ethnic categories: Asian, Hispanic, African-American and American Indian. Also included in the reports are data comparing the performances of students who are considered low-income (those who qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches).

"We do these twice each year," said Kingsbury. "Once in the spring and once in the fall. It takes us about two months to finalize them."

If the Iowa DOE does not find the reports complete enough, it then sends them back to the principals for more work.

Each building principal has similar reports to file; the DOE compiles them into its data base for Iowa.

See the complete Vinton-Shellsburg report HERE at the DOE web site. Click on the blue underlined links for a particular data list.

Kingsbury said that everything that principals and assistant principals do is education-related, but much of what they are required to do takes them away from the classroom.

In addition to the reporting, principals are the official truancy officers for the district, responsible for making sure students attend class.

Discipline is also a big part of the job; Kingsbury said that while fights and bullying have always been an issue for public schools, this year he thought the problem was serious enough to call for a school assembly to deal with the issue. That discussion seemed to help, said Kingsbury.