Which comes first: the principal or the school?

The answer to school construction's "chicken or the egg" conundrum these days is beginning to lean toward chicken. That's because superintendents like James Geisler at Walled Lake (Mich.) Consolidated Schools have discovered the benefits to designing a new school with leadership and staff already in place.

Geisler stumbled onto this revelation with the first elementary school built under his watch last decade. "I anticipated parents would clamor to get their kid in and pressure us to redistrict in their favor. It was just the opposite," he says. "People perceived the new school would limp through its first few years.... We had to [show that the building would open] full steam ahead."

Geisler has since OK'ed six additional facilities, giving elementary and middle school leaders six months to concentrate on building their new positions; high school principals take a year. "My observation is that they never lack for things to do. This isn't like winning the lottery and cashing a paycheck while looking to fill time," he notes.

Mike Washburn, superintendent of Forest Hills Public Schools in Grand Rapids, Mich., located a few hours from Walled Lake, is more generous still. He names a new school's principal at least a year prior to opening; high school crews get a year and a hall. For his investment, he has reaped a treasure trove of good ideas in action--an elementary building with portable walls that could convert it to a middle school structure down the road, for one. To better imitate the business world, Forest Hills Eastern High School features rectangular classroom spaces to accommodate a teacher in the center of the room, with wireless data accessible through the floor.

Perhaps even more importantly, he bought buy-in. "When the staff forms a unit 18 months before they see a kid in a classroom, it's their school. They sell that to the parents, to the kids," says Washburn.

Janelle McGuire, principal of Walled Lake Northern High School, dubs this route "the only way to go if you want a smooth opening to a new facility." She and Joan Heinz, principal of the district's Walnut Creek Middle School, spent their advance time overseeing everything from color selection and furniture delivery to PTA elections, tire drill maps, union contracts and building key assignments.

Even architects put in a plug for putting the chicken before the egg. "The principal needs to devise a strategy to get the rest of the staff up to speed," says Michael Van Schelven, senior project designer at URS in Grand Rapids. "If someone hands you a new laptop computer, you're not completely familiar with all it can do right away. You need time to understand how to use this new tool. School buildings are the same way."

However, district administrators do need to trust these principals. "You can't just appoint somebody and then constantly meddle," Heinz advises. "It's a big leap of faith, but you can't do this unless you take it."

It's also a big chunk of change. In Washburn's experience, urban districts with limited resources rarely have the flexibility to take a principal off line but not off the payroll. "My sense is that the places able to move in this direction are more in the suburbs, and in locations where the population is booming and building," he says.