After spending the morning at Kessler Elementary, the school's principal, Karen Stout-Suenram, worked at the post office with Turner for the afternoon. The pair went to a meeting at the Myrna Loy Center of Performing Arts in the hopes of scheduling events around a stamp coming out in September commemorating the actor Gary Cooper, who was born in Helena.

The principal-postal worker team was one of a dozen pairs of school administrators and local business folks that participated in the Helena Education Foundation's annual Trading Places event.

Cordingley said educators often spend their entire work days inside their schools, and Trading Places gives them time to get to know the businesses and workers in other parts of the community.

"Administrators' jobs aren't always readily perceived by the community as complex and as important as they are," she said. "They don't always know how critical the role of administrators is to keep education operation at a high level of function. For business leaders to get into the school and gain a better understanding of how critical the role of administrators is helps us get the word out to the public."

Read more in the Independent Record.