His first day at Hudson Middle School he sat down at an empty cafeteria table and felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to find a Hudson student telling him, ‘You’re not supposed to be over here.’ Principal Dan Cummings did not know they were supposed to sit in assigned seats. He was hopelessly confused, but luckily he was only there for the “Student for a Day” project.
According to a story by GISD Communications, “Student for a Day” is a new project launched by Superintendent Bob Morrison that sends principals, department heads and other administrators to campuses where they participate as a student. Cummings said the goal was for participants to get the feeling of the life of a student.
According to Cummings, the participants could choose which school they wanted to attend.
“I chose Hudson, because that’s the only middle school that I had never been to,” Cummings said. “So I said, ‘Heck, I might as well go.’ All the other ones I’ve already been to one time or another.”
Many people signed up to complete their assignment at North. Cummings could only take the first seven people, and they gave positive feedback about the students.
“Everyone that was a ‘student’ at North Garland had an amazing time,” Cummings said. “Matter of fact, in Team GISD, the lady who oversees the Culwell Center bragged about the kids, the teachers and the school here. And she was really nice to everybody.”
When Cummings began the “Student for a Day” project, the student he was following did not mind that he was with him.
“The one I was following, he knew about it,” Cummings said. “His mother works at the school. She was a math teacher, so she gave him a heads up. From what I understand some of these [students] would go about three or four periods and say, ‘I think that person is following me!’ With my student, I introduced myself and told him what I was doing, so that there was not any confusion.”
Students did not sign up to be followed. Instead they were picked at random. At Hudson and NG, each participant picked up schedules and went to one kid’s classes.
“I just went to class and did everything they did,” Cummings said. “So I ate lunch at the cafeteria when it was lunch time.”
Though Cummings didn’t have an eye-opening experience as others might have had, he enjoyed it anyway, he said.
“I enjoyed the school, just because I learned new things,” Cummings said. “I guess going to where I was, it was reflecting back on things. And I just enjoyed the people. It was nice to interact and meet some new and younger people.”