Learned opinion supports the relevance of satisfaction with job facets in studies of job satisfaction, but an analysis of the perceived importance of these facets concerning overall job satisfaction in education has largely been ignored. The relationships among Alberta (Canada) elementary and junior high school principals' job facet perceptions and the importance of the facets for their overall job satisfaction are examined in this study based on mailed questionnaires and followup interviews. Questionnaires were mailed to a 20 percent random sample of 131 elementary school principals and to 94 junior high principals. Response rates were 85.5 percent and 89.4 percent. The two groups of principals ranked both mean satisfaction with facets and mean importance of facets similarly."Working relationships with teachers" ranked first or its equivalent on all scales. The three highest rankings of mean importance for facets for both groups were working relationships with teachers, teaching competence, and staff morale. Much lower correlations were obtained between satisfaction and importance for both groups, which disputes the claim that importance is inherent in measures of satisfaction and need not be separately assessed. Tables and figures provide a conceptual relational model, summary statistics, and sample characteristics. (45 references) (LMI)