COUNTYWIDE : Executives Try Skills on Campus

More than 50 top business executives in Orange County played “principal for the day” Tuesday as part of the state’s Educational Partnership Week.

After a grueling day of dealing with high school students in neon clothes and boisterous elementary school children, the consensus among the business community was that being a principal is tough but rewarding work.

“In the business world, you can get meeting-ed to death,” said former Irvine Co. president Thomas H. Nielsen, who returned to his alma mater, Fullerton High School, Tuesday to serve as its principal for a day. “Here, you get to talk to a teacher or to a child. It’s really much more fun.”

Seeking to forge a closer link between themselves and students who will be future employees--and perhaps future executives--the corporate moguls fanned out to experience the joys and difficulties of commanding a school.

“Fifteen years from now, we’re going to be hiring these kids as our employees, and the gap has been so wide between education and business,” said J. Robert Fluor II, vice president of corporate relations at Fluor Corp., who served as principal at Kaiser Elementary School in Costa Mesa. “It’s so important for our employers to get in on this level.”

Instead of high-powered lunches, the business executives monitored cafeterias. Rather than attend closed-door conferences to discuss their financial goals, they counseled worried teen-agers or disciplined bullies.

About the only difference between the substitute principals and the real principals was salary. A public school principal earns less than $80,000 a year, while some of the county’s top executives make that in their first year.

There are, however, some fringe benefits to being a principal.

Within three hours, Nielsen, who once headed more than 1,800 employees at the Irvine Co., tickled a piglet in the school’s agricultural program, advised a senior on what classes to take, made announcements over the campus intercom, and chatted with several teachers and dozens of students.

During school break, Nielsen chomped on an apple while he asked high school seniors how they could afford the prom. One student thought he was a politician.

“What’s he running for?” asked Becky Farrel, 17.

For Nielsen, a 1948 graduate of Fullerton High, one of the biggest differences from his school days is demographics. When Nielsen attended Fullerton High, the student population was almost entirely white. Now, minority pupils make up more than half of the student population.

“It struck me how teachers are helping students who are non-English-speaking become an integral part of the school,” Nielsen said. “It’s a difficult task and an admirable one.”

Fullerton High School Principal Ed Shaw conceded he scheduled an easy day for Nielsen, who didn’t have to call parents to ask about truant students.

“It can get quite busy here,” Shaw said. “You’re constantly juggling everything at once. But he (Nielsen) is doing a pretty good job.”

In fact, the only time that Nielsen looked bewildered was when senior Dan Penrod shoved a microphone into his hand and asked him to make the school announcements. Nielsen used the opportunity to exhort the students to throw litter into trash bins.

“Wow, he really acts like a principal, doesn’t he?” Penrod said after the announcements. “He gets a B-plus for trying.”