It is 7 a.m. on a weekday and Principal Jennifer Baker arrives at school. After checking her email and responding to urgent matters, such as malfunctioning equipment, in the building, she goes into the halls and greets students. For most of her day, Baker conducts meetings with staff, members of her administrative team, students and parents. However, she also occasionally leaves the school to attend meetings elsewhere, sometimes with other MCPS high school principals or various committees.

From day to day, Baker’s schedule varies.

“The thing I like about this job is that it’s different almost every single day,” she said. “It’s almost easier to look at my job in a week, as opposed to in a day.”

Each week, Baker has a few pre-planned meetings. These are often with her leadership team, composed of all the department chairs in addition to the administration. In these meetings, many of which occur after school hours, Baker and the team work to plan upcoming events. Issues such as the need for police or security for a school event will be discussed.

Around 5 p.m., Baker goes home and eats dinner before heading off to some sort of WJ event or sports game.

“Anytime I’m out at an event, I interact with parents or students, and I love that,” she said. “That’s one of my favorite things to do.”

Baker notes that going to school events and games may be one aspect of her job that many students overlook.

“Sometimes people seem very surprised [when they see me at events],” she said. “I’ll have students say, ‘You’re at everything!’”

Apart from organizing and attending school events, Baker also feels a strong responsibility to protect WJ’s academic standing, particularly among colleges and universities. She regularly observes WJ classes and provides feedback to teachers.

“You want colleges to look at a student coming out of WJ, and say, ‘Hey, that school has a great reputation,’ so preserving and protecting the reputation of the school [is important to me],” she said. “I want people to view our school as a school that can educate a bunch of different types of students, can offer a lot to students, and has really high academic standards.”

Baker feels that, although some days may be full of conflict resolution and disciplining students who make “bad decisions,” she still enjoys her work.

“I still look forward to coming to work the next day because I know that a lot of amazing things can happen [at WJ],” she said.