A Valuable Learning Experience : Simi Valley: Community leaders shadow school principals for the day. Most are surprised by workload and responsibility.

Simi Valley veterinarian Michael Gerardo never imagined how much work it takes these days to be a public school principal. Then he spent Monday shadowing the boss at Simi Elementary School.

“We didn’t even have time to go to the bathroom,” Gerardo said after following Principal Barbara Patton for half a day.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I never even showed you where it was,” Patton quipped.

About two dozen community and business leaders Monday fanned out to schools across Simi Valley to see firsthand what it’s like to manage a staff, dole out praise and discipline to students, and efficiently handle unexpected problems that arise.

Most of the “principals for a day” walked away surprised at the workload and responsibility level.

“In the three hours I’ve been here, the number of interpersonal situations she’s gone through has exhausted me just watching,” said Cindy Pandolfi, president of Med Center Medical Group, who spent the day at Sequoia Junior High School with Principal Jan Britz.

“It’s very emotionally draining.”

Jim King, executive director of the Simi Valley YMCA, received a few special gifts from students at Mountain View School who wanted to welcome the new guy. Sixth-grader Ricky Waldriff ran up to give King his offering during recess.

“He’s new for a day, so I thought I’d draw him a picture,” said Ricky, 13.

“It’s a very serene setting to calm me down,” King said as he admired Ricky’s drawing of a sun setting behind a palm tree and reflecting off the ocean.

Administrators hoped for a not-too-hectic but not-too-slow day for the third annual event, Assistant Supt. Susan Parks said. If it’s too hectic, it can be overwhelming, and slow days are uncommon, Parks told the would-be principals at a debriefing.

“We don’t want you to go home and say, ‘Oh, that’s a piece of cake,’ ” Parks said. “The research is very convincing that you can have a good school without a fine, excellent principal, but you’ll never have a great school without it.”

*

The principals for a day visited classrooms, supervised recess and sat in on conferences with parents whose children were having trouble at school. One watched as a police officer escorted two fifth-grade girls into Berylwood School after they were caught skipping school.

As the officer stood briskly at attention nearby for fullest effect, Berylwood Principal Dolores Pekrul gently scolded the girls, whom she described as normally good students who wandered off to deal with one girl’s family problems.

“You never know what’s going to come in your door,” Pekrul said. “It could be anything.”

Pekrul’s shadow for the day, insurance consultant Ovedia Santos, said she had no idea how much a principal had to be prepared to handle at a moment’s notice.

“They’re not playing games here,” Santos said. “They’re here to educate children and get them out into the world to do the best they can.”

But the principal did not only handle discipline, said Ken Kolz, a Simi Valley dentist who spent the day at Justin School. Principal Frank Chapman knew many students’ names and interacted with many of them on a friendly basis, Kolz said.

“I was impressed, because when I was in elementary school, the principal was one of those faraway people that you really didn’t want to visit,” he said.

Many of the stand-in principals also noted the financial constraints limiting schools.

*

King, whose experience overseeing the budget of the nonprofit YMCA made him sympathetic to the financial plight of schools, lamented the lack of money for new equipment from playground toys to computers.

When a sixth-grader at recess suggested to Principal Karyn Crytser that students should be considered to serve as principal for a day, King’s fund-raising expertise kicked in.

“Each student could pay $5 for a lottery ticket and the winner gets to be principal for a day,” King said excitedly.

“I’d call summer vacation,” responded Elizabeth Cormick, 12.