It’s 7:45 pm and I’m sitting at my desk in SLA, working on our School-Parent Compact. I’m taking a break because I just was reminded how important it is to have critical friends in this profession. I had to call another principal here in Philly to ask him a quick question. I called his cell, and sure enough, he was still at school too.

We agreed to call each other in two hours and kick ourselves out of the office. This is why it’s important to have critical friends. As principals, we need the people who will always be on the other end of a phone or across a table, beer in hand, who are there to keep us sane, even when little about the amount of work it takes to realize the dreams of our schools is sane.

To all of us who are educators in the blogosphere who will be up late tonight reading, planning, grading papers or doing any of the three hundred things on our to-do lists… I’m glad you all are there to share the evening with me.