Jill Levy, the president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, recently spoke with The New York Sun’s about the problems facing her members and what she’s doing to fix them.

Q. How would you describe your style as the head of the principals’ union?

A. I am very much member-oriented. I am in touch with my members all of the time – by e-mails, by school visits – and that’s what drives me. I am first and foremost an educator. I am very serious about leadership and helping my members develop the appropriate leadership attitudes and skills they need to have to run very difficult organizations.

How often do you communicate with your members?

Every day and night.

What are the top few complaints?

The mandates coming out of Tweed, the paperwork, the foolishness of telling them what to do and then rescinding it. Also, budgets, overcrowding, and enrollment.

Is there anything you can fix through contract negotiations?

There’s nothing in what we just said that’s related to contract negotiations, unless the Department of Education is willing to address the issue of working conditions, which they have been resistant to addressing at all.

What do you mean by that?

They are interested only in more productivity. They are not interested in providing the appropriate resources to principals who run their schools or assistant principals, who help principals run their schools.

What stage are you at in negotiations?

We are not formally at the table at this time, but we expect to be back to the table in the fall, and that is we’re talking about two associations, Daycare, which is September 7, and the DOE, where we do not have a date yet.

The city says it can solve many school problems once the state complies with the Campaign for Fiscal Equity court mandate and sends more money to city schools. Do you think more money will fix things?

It depends upon how the chancellor and the mayor want to distribute that money. Sometimes, with more money, things get more complicated. For instance, there is a lot of talk about class size and teacher retention. There has been no talk about supporting and increasing leadership at the schools. Unless there is a target for leadership support you’re still going to have a problem, no matter how much you spend.

You threatened to sue the Department of Education after it released a list of 45 principals it said it had fired. Are you still planning legal action?

Our attorneys are drawing papers together.

Will the action be on behalf of individuals on the list or the CSA as a whole?

It will be in the name of those principals who were so embarrassed and defamed.

When will it be filed?

I would expect it will be filed early in September. It may even be sooner.

Why are you moving forward with it?

I think what Joel Klein did was reprehensible. It was a bully tactic. It was never done before. He must have learned his lesson, though, because when his 20 some odd [local instructional superintendents] are leaving, he did not advertise their names in the papers, for which I’m grateful.

How many principals voluntarily left after this school year?

I can’t answer that. I will not know that until we get our first payroll run this fall.

Can you estimate?

I don’t know. But this is the first year we’ve had people leave during the year. This year, people were walking around with their retirement papers in hand, and turning them in when they’d had enough.

Why were people carrying around retirement papers?

The working conditions and the culture for school leadership in this system are on the negative side. People feel there’s not enough support for the work they do. They are being inundated with work. They don’t need to take it anymore.

Is there anything the education department could do to retain experienced principals?

The Department of Education should in reality respect and understand the role that principals play in these schools. Until they do that, principals are never going to stay in this system.

Half of the new principals the city brought in from out of town didn’t survive the year. How do you think the 40 out-of-town principals recruited this year will do?

I have no idea, because I don’t know the criteria. I certainly hope that they do well. We need stability in this system. We want them to stay. This union will support our new members as well as our ongoing members.

How do you think the first year’s graduates of the Leadership Academy will do when they get to schools?

I hope they do well as they think they’ll do. And we will support them as well as we can.

What does it take to learn how to be a principal? Is the Leadership Academy giving aspiring principals quality training?

Since I am not invited to any events at the Leadership Academy and my invitation to teach was somehow lost in the mail, I don’t know.

At first it seemed like a lot of schools were short a lot of money. Now, how are school budgets looking?

We still see some schools that have huge shortfalls. At some schools, funds are still trickling in…. We have to wait to see how the new state money will be allocated and spent by the city. We’re also monitoring very carefully any management expenses – six-figure hirings they’re going to do.

The teachers union is considering starting its own charter school. Would the CSA ever enter the charter school movement?

My members already run schools. We don’t have to prove anything to anybody.

Are there any major challenges on the horizon for you?

Meeting the same standards and the same expectations with lower budgets, with over-enrollment and crowded buildings, small schools within larger schools, safety and security, and that’s enough, don’t you think?