Walking the Hallways In Some Big Shoes

I know the secret to being a New York City elementary school principal. It's just four words: "Where do you belong?" The question is uttered in a tone at once stern and fond to any child, however small and winsome, found wandering the halls of school between periods.

I discovered this on a recent Thursday when I was officially principal of P.S. 154, on West 127th Street in Harlem. I learned it from Elizabeth Jarrett, 41, the school's everyday principal, a soft-spoken former special-ed teacher who has turned the school around from one that was getting failing grades only three years ago to one that is bright and cheerful and scoring above the state average.

Every morning at nine, Jarrett slips on a pair of flats and begins roaming the three floors of P.S. 154. After observing her ask The Question a number of times of wayward small folk, I tried it myself. When I spotted five-year-old Kenny in baggy jeans slinking along the wall on the second floor, I strode up to him and said, "Where do you belong?" He looked down, shuffled his little Nikes and mumbled the number of a classroom before shooting me a look that said, "Where do you belong?"

Good question, Kenny. I belonged to a group of 1,050 New Yorkers who participated in the annual Principal for a Day program run jointly by the Board of Education and a nonprofit group called PENCIL (Public Education Needs Civic Involvement in Learning). The idea is simple: get corporate and civic leaders involved with the city's public schools. This year's participants ranged from First Principal Hillary Clinton to actor Billy Baldwin. The program is part p.r., part guilt alleviation for well-heeled New Yorkers and part real insight into the New York City school system, which is the nation's largest, with 1,136 schools, more than a million students, 63,000 teachers and an annual budget bigger than the combined military spending of nato's three newest members: $8.9 billion.

Principal for a Day is in its fifth year, and has become a ritual for some of New York's Armani altruists, whose charity is usually limited to black-tie benefits. But seeing kids and teachers struggling to do the right thing in crumbling old school buildings has got industrialists and corporations to cough up real money for new playgrounds and gardens and reading and tutoring programs, including $10 million for new books. This year, for the first time, Los Angeles and Chicago have initiated copy-cat programs. Principal for a Day is one of the few areas of harmony between New York's warring Rudys: Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew.