— NAESP Presents —

Early Career Resources for Principals

First Edition

This ebook is brought to you in partnership with The Wallace Foundation.

Early Career Resources for Principals. Copyright ©2023 by National Association of Elementary School Principals. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address NAESP, 1615 Duke Street, Alexandria, VA, 22314. publications@naesp.org

— Contents —

Foreword

What Principals Need to Know in Their First Years on the Job

I. The Principal’s Role

The Principal’s New Gig

You’ve Landed the Job! Now What?

Delegating for Time Management

Stress Reduction for the Selfless

II. Managing People

But First, Relationships

Human Resources

Invest in Onboarding

Two Tracks Toward Wellness

The Wallace Foundation: Empowering Assistant Principals to Lead Learning Communities

Growing the Capacity of Assistant Principals

At the Root of Professional Excellence

III. Leading Instruction

Inspiring Instructional Innovation

Resources for Instructional Leadership

Home Skilled

Cooking Up Adults’ Capacity for SEL

Through Play-Colored Glasses

In It to Win It: Behavioral Strategies to Win in Discipline

Rethinking Leadership Behaviors—A Research-Based Approach to Improved Student Outcomes

Turnaround Schools

IV. Leading the Organization

Safe Environments for Student Success

Taking Social Media by Storm

Communicate Student Data Constantly

Supervision and Evaluation

Master the Money

V. Sowing Seeds of Success

How to Form Strong Networks

Strategies, Ideas, and Lessons for Early Career Principals to Be Successful

Foreword

A landmark 2021 research synthesis commissioned by The Wallace Foundation, “How Principals Affect Students and Schools,” says that the impact of an effective school leader has been greatly underestimated in years past. And while a teacher might have a significant impact on a few dozen students at a time, the principal affects the performance of the entire school.

Crunching the numbers on six studies involving more than 22,000 principals, the report found that a single standard deviation increase in principal effectiveness delivered comparable increases in student achievement. For comparison’s sake, this means that students in a school with an above-average principal get the benefit of almost three more months of learning every year than they would in a school led by a below-average principal.

As the building leader, the principal’s influence goes well beyond academic achievement. Some principals are more effective at reducing absenteeism, some are better at retaining teachers, and some are better at creating alternatives to exclusionary discipline. Supervisor and teacher ratings of principal effectiveness are an excellent predictor of student achievement and other outcomes. “Principals really matter,” the review says. “It is difficult to envision an investment in K–12 education with a higher ceiling on its potential return than improving school leadership.”

Effective principals build a productive school climate, facilitate collaboration, guide teachers on instruction, and manage school personnel and resources strategically. Such skills fall into three “buckets,” the report says: People (human development and relationship skills), Instruction (skills to support teachers and classroom instruction), and Organization (management skills such as planning, budgeting, data use, and resource allocation).

Most new principals have had substantial amounts of training and preparation to take on the building leadership role as assistant principals, through formal pipeline programs, or through specialized education. But longtime administrators agree that there’s nothing that can prepare a person completely to take the reins as a building leader; some experiences will always need to be navigated on-the-job and in the moment. Complicating the process is that the principalship is a complex role that continues to evolve, and the person in it must evolve with it.

Culled from NAESP’s vast archive of professional resources, this ebook is intended to help those new to the principalship embrace, adapt to, and excel in the role. Focusing on skills development, it offers a primer on the principalship and some of its major responsibilities, as well as practical advice on some of the position’s most salient challenges.

You’ll read about the realities of the principal’s role and where to look for opportunities when you’re new to it, as well as advice on delegating tasks and attending to your own well-being. You’ll hear how to build empowering, supportive relationships with other administrators, teachers, staff, students, and parents. You’ll find resources and advice on leading a curriculum and dispensing discipline equitably, alongside practical advice on budgeting and assessments. And finally, you’ll access advice on finding the support and resources you need to continue your own development as a leader.

No written compendium can completely anticipate the day-to-day challenges a new principal will face. But armed with the knowledge inside this ebook, more principals might ultimately realize the kinds of schoolwide impacts research identifies and have more triumphs to celebrate.

—Kaylen Tucker, Ph.D.

Associate Executive Director, Communications

NAESP

— Executive Summary —

What Principals Need to Know in Their First Years on the Job

Veteran educators on internalizing the traits that make leaders effective

By Kaylen Tucker and Gracie Branch

Principal leadership matters to student achievement. Principals can master certain skills and behaviors to have the highest impact, according to research commissioned by The Wallace Foundation.

Regardless of a principal’s preparation, there are still voids. Christopher Bailey, principal of Clack Middle School in Abilene, Texas, notes that strong principal preparation programs build the foundation, but “each principalship is unique, and the incoming principal is responsible for listening, analyzing, and prioritizing the needs of their new role.”

Regardless of a principal’s preparation, there are still voids. Christopher Bailey, principal of Clack Middle School in Abilene, Texas, notes that strong principal preparation programs build the foundation, but “each principalship is unique, and the incoming principal is responsible for listening, analyzing, and prioritizing the needs of their new role.”

“When I mentor new principals, a common stressor I hear is how to manage competing priorities and not get mired in the minutiae of the moment,” Bailey says. “Knowing how to empower others to support the work is another common need among young principals.”

NAESP has been studying the voids early career principals (ECPs) experience and attending to their needs, cultivating a network of support for them. NAESP is committed to strengthening the principal pipeline.

The principal pipeline gave Equetta Jones, principal of Love Creek Elementary School in Lewes, Delaware, the opportunity to network and grow with “a team of individuals I can lean on when I am the most vulnerable.

“I learned that the job of principal is ever-changing and that you have to be willing to learn and grow every day,” Jones says. “I am reflective and willing to take risks. I am open to new ideas. I realize that I am a part of a team. I realize that it is okay to make mistakes, but you must be honest with those who support you and those you will be supporting.”

Five years as an assistant principal taught her intentionality and, as principal, Jones will include her own AP in “all aspects of my journey,” she says. “We are both instructional leaders.”

Jones is a facilitator of NAESP’s early career principals community of practice with Laura Gazda, who urges early career principals to overcome loneliness and isolation by connecting with other principals in their districts and in NAESP for support. She also advises ECPs to build trust by doing what they say and saying what they mean, and by “checking your ego at the door.”

“At times, feedback can be or feel very personal, but know that it is more than likely not about you,” Gazda says. “By focusing on supporting others and seeing their perspective through reflection, this will shift your mindset and transform from ‘me’ to ‘we.’”

A Changing Role

The pandemic also changed the principal profession and the skills and behaviors needed for success. NAESP published the Leaders We Need Now research series against the backdrop of the 2020–2021 school year, when school leaders confronted unprecedented turmoil and ambiguity as they responded to the pandemic, social injustice, and increased demands to address inequity.

According to the series, principals reported that new, pandemic-imposed demands included crisis management and social media and communications management among families and communities within highly politicized environments.

“Pandemic principal” Farrell C. Thomas Sr. entered the principalship amid those daily disruptions and uncertainties. With constant communication as his mantra, he reinforced a sense of school community by sharing morning announcements, awards, weekly highlights, and upcoming events on social media channels.

“These are things I continue to do today, and the parents really love the interaction,” says Thomas, principal of Gray Court Owings School in Gray Court, South Carolina. “The need for effective communication to parents was a tremendous need that has not gone away. I continue to do what I call ‘overcommunication,’ because I believe it is better to overcommunicate than to undercommunicate, and this has paid major dividends with my school community.”

The Power of Principals

Despite such challenges, you wouldn’t be in the role now if you didn’t believe in the power of principals to make a difference. As a 2021 research review commissioned by The Wallace Foundation, How Principals Affect Students and Schools, says, school leadership is a driving force for student learning.

Effective principals have a greater impact on student achievement than previously understood, and enjoy a broad impact on outcomes for teacher satisfaction and retention, student attendance, and reductions in exclusionary discipline.

Since 2020, that conclusion has snowballed into an imperative, driven by the pandemic and shifting professional expectations. You’ll need a personal GPS to help you navigate the hazards and adapt with ease.

That’s where How Principals Affect Students and Schools is more than a research review: At its core are three skills and four behaviors of effective principals derived from more than 20 years of research—an articulation and encapsulation of what leaders need to become powerhouse changemakers and educational leaders.

New principals who internalize and develop these skills and behaviors have their GPS switched on. When new dilemmas materialize and “mission drift” starts watering down school priorities, one or all can point you toward a solution.

Three Essential Skills …

The essential skills fall into three overlapping realms, with the positive effects demonstrated by rigorous research:

Instruction. Effective instructional leaders acquire expertise in high-quality instruction that equips them to observe and evaluate teachers and classrooms constructively. They have the skills for effective, structured feedback that motivates teachers to refine their practices, and they recognize the elements of high-impact professional development.

People. Effective educational leaders forge relationships through the judicious modeling of three competencies. First, they demonstrate evident caring through proactive guidance to promote increased student support and teachers’ sense of collective responsibility. Second, they communicate with purpose and predictability, showing a willingness to hold difficult conversations when necessary to forge shared expectations and increase parental involvement. And third, they build trust—a necessity that precedes any collaborative efforts—to give teachers a feeling of empowerment and a satisfying sense of autonomy.

Organization. Strong management skills transcend schools, dependent on the same factors used by leaders of private businesses or nonprofits. Key organizational management skills include interpreting data for use across all domains of decision-making, setting goals, and thinking strategically about available resources. By corralling the skills needed to manage a complex organization, research says, educational leaders can facilitate a “high-functioning learning environment.”

Chances are, your skills and talents in some of these areas exceed others, but effective leadership and adaptability demand that you sharpen your facility in all three areas to create a school atmosphere that’s steeped in improvement.

… And Four Key Behaviors

The three skills then inform the four key behaviors that fuel effectiveness:

Engaging in instructionally focused interactions with teachers. In this space, the effective principal focuses instructional leadership on productive practices proven to yield results. You’ll need to engage teachers on instructional practice, provide feedback and instructional coaching, and establish a data-driven, schoolwide instructional program.

Building a productive school climate. Climate encompasses the school’s physical aspects, the characteristics of its people, its social relationships, and a shared set of beliefs that is incorporated into school culture. In this atmosphere, effective principals help staff feel safe, valued, and supported. Their trust in the principal’s caring leadership is connected to organizational learning and, in turn, to student achievement.

Facilitating productive collaboration and professional learning communities. Effective collaboration is voluntary, co-equal, and involves working toward a common goal with shared resources, responsibilities, and accountability. Teacher collaboration can drive higher student achievement, as well as reduce teacher turnover.

Managing personnel and resources strategically. Strategic management of scarce resources means allocating and applying them effectively to support teaching and learning. Management of tangible resources, such as staffing and budget, can predict positive school outcomes. Better management of the intangible resource of time give principals opportunities to spend more on instruction and in classrooms, while also harnessing the school schedule to pursue larger goals.

Viewed as a set, these skills and behaviors contribute to the power of the principalship to impact student achievement—a power nearly as great as that of individual teachers, but broader in scope because it touches every student in a school—not just those in distinct classrooms.

Helping You Adapt and Achieve

In the day-to-day rush of running an elementary school, it’s easier said than done to foster and grow all of these skills and behaviors at once. But adaptability and agility are the keys to achieving the kind of impact identified by How Principals Affect Students and Schools.

Where to get started? NAESP has prepared this handy ebook as a how-to manual, developed for new principals and other school leaders wanting to refresh their skills in a rapidly changing profession.

Each section compiles research, resources, and the wisdom of veteran educators on the principal’s foundational role, and on instilling the skills of managing people, leading instruction, and operating a safe and efficient organization. You’ll also find tips on forming strong networks—essential to your professional growth and personal well-being.

There’s a lot to absorb, but it’s all in service to helping you conclude every day knowing you had an impact on someone and your school. With the parameters afforded by what research shows to be the three skills and four leadership behaviors of effective principals, you can steer your way to success that’s measurable and meaningful, while inspiring your team to new, more collaborative heights in helping students reach their fullest potential.

I. The Principal’s Role

— I. The Principal’s Role —

Principal magazine article

The Principal’s New Gig

Seasoned administrators share strategies to cope with the pandemic’s new management demands

Good principals manage their buildings. They deftly handle flu outbreaks. They deal calmly with anxious parents.

But they didn’t train to be health managers. They weren’t prepared to divert time away from the pursuit of educational excellence and toward assuaging the overwhelming concerns of students, families, and staff. Thank the COVID-19 pandemic for an upheaval that makes the job of principal feel new.

“Could you possibly have predicted the last—what are we up to now—two years?” says Todd Brist, principal of Watertown Middle School in Watertown, South Dakota. “I’m not as focused on instructional leadership. I’m not as focused on coaching and evaluating, and I do worry about some of the long-term effects. All of those things that really keep a school on top are on the back burner, or even sometimes in the warmer.”

Now is the time to revisit coping strategies. Experienced principals shared their tips and techniques for managing their “new” jobs while remaining rooted in old-job values. Here is wisdom from Brist; Edward Cosentino, principal of Clemens Crossing Elementary School in Columbia, Maryland; James Frye, principal of Claremont Elementary School in Claremont, North Carolina; Courtney Goodman, principal of Field Elementary School in Elmhurst, Illinois; Lisa Higa, principal of Nānākuli Elementary School in Wai‘anae, Hawaii; and Veronica Kaypaghian, early childhood and elementary school principal of InterAmerican Academy in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

What’s New With You?

NAESP’s Leaders We Need Now Brief No. 2, “Evolution of the Principalship: Leaders Explain How the Profession Is Changing Through a Most Difficult Year,” focus-grouped 188 principals nationwide about the seismic shifts brought on by the pandemic. As a group, they described a “layering” effect of new duties piled on traditional responsibilities, compounded by a lack of supports that would help them regain control.

Participants said they sense two new sets of duties, neither of which is fully represented in the 10 PSEL standards that frame the drive for excellence:

Social media and communications management. Effective principals have always prioritized communication, but the pandemic pushed this responsibility to the forefront while churning up a highly politicized environment.

Crisis management. The pandemic created a need to manage change through uncertain and frequently changing conditions, often on an emergency basis.

As for the PSEL standards, principals said they continue to emphasize all 10, but just four are now sizzling on the front burners: Community of Care and Support for Students, Professional Community for Teachers and Staff, Meaningful Engagement of Families and Communities, and Operations and Management. The rest—Mission, Vision, and Core Values; and Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment—have been moved to the back burners.

Changing the Communications Lens

Veteran principals agree: When it’s time for a hard conversation, a previous investment in trust and shared goals helps deliver a positive outcome. “I know a majority of the people in our school community,” Cosentino says. “When you build relationships where they trust you, the things that you say and the mistakes that you make are received with grace and understanding.”

In pandemic conditions, hard conversations take on added urgency. More than ever, the troubles of a teacher or student could be rooted in struggles beyond the school walls, so it’s best to start difficult dialogues by listening and showing empathy. Then be straightforward with expectations. “Being clear is being kind to anybody you have a hard conversation with,” says Frye.

The hard conversations of the “new” job might also include talks with parents resistant to masking in school or virtual learning. In these cases, share the district or state policies behind the protocols. Don’t embellish or politicize. “We just try to communicate with parents about the intentions of our educational plan or educational philosophy,” Brist says.

During crisis, these tips can help establish dependability in communications:

Think from the perspective of parents, teachers, and staff. What do they need to know, and when do they need to know it? In a new role she calls “communications director,” Goodman has been known to issue five or six messages in a day informing homerooms and the entire building when a student has tested positive for COVID.

Establish expectations. Issue regular communications—perhaps a weekly newsletter that delivers essential information—and don’t veer from the schedule unless families and staff need to hear an urgent or time-sensitive message.

Avoid information overload. Hone messages to targeted populations; for example, send fifth-grade news only to fifth-grade families. “What I’m hearing is the need to get down to brass tacks in terms of outreach, customizing the message, and customizing again,” says Brist.

Reach people where they get their information. Most will have a preference for messaging via email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or print.

Customizing Classes

Students returning to reopened school buildings arrive with new sets of expectations. Many have grown accustomed to lower levels of academic rigor. Others arrive with emotional scars from tensions at home. In the meantime, their parents learned to appreciate the convenience of a la carte education. Some parents take sides in the debate over pandemic protocols, asking to opt out.

How can a principal best accommodate customized learning and parental demands?

Monitor parent groups. Listen for common threads in your conversations and on social media. When concerns, questions, or gripes gain steam, get ahead of the issues by addressing them in your communications outlets.

Acknowledge discrepancies between goals and realities. Are you telling parents that attendance matters while also emphasizing the importance of keeping sick kids at home? Be upfront: Recognize mixed messages and share the reasoning behind them.

Establish 504 plans. Students dealing with pandemic-induced anxiety will need customized, community-based services for physical and mental health. “It’s not just a one-sided school-parent thing anymore,” says Brist.

Be available. Parents, teachers, and students will reach out at all hours. “Listening to and collaborating with others allows us to make the best decisions together,” says Kaypaghian. “I do work long hours and weekends, but I know I have the support of a strong team.”

Core Concepts: Starting Over

Many school leaders have been forced to put PSEL standards on the back burner to attend to communications and crisis management.

Communicating urgent information and having “difficult” conversations are rooted in trusting relationships.

Variations in scheduling and comfort with in-person learning has led many families to request customized learning solutions.

Proactive management of daily routines and shared leadership can help principals stay on top of new demands.

Managing Crisis Management

Management. Crisis management. Is there a difference? Yes, say principals, but one clearly comes first. Sure-handed management of daily routines creates the foundation for “sticky” crisis management that can bend but not break when the winds get rough.

“We’re trying to get all the same things done but not in the same time allotment,” Cosentino says. “That flexibility is critical.”

To be proactive in this atmosphere, strong managers:

Plan everything. Want a crystal ball? Spend the summer planning everything foreseeable, down to the day and hour—PTA meetings, back-to-school nights, parent-teacher conferences. Things will change, of course, but a pinned-down calendar provides a peek into the future and reduces the need to shoehorn events into the schedule.

Choose their battles. Recognize when stressed teachers and families don’t need another meeting to attend or form to fill out.

Double-dip. Leverage overlap in processes and protocols. If the same personnel constitute two teams or PLCs, combine their agendas. Or ease up on professional development during staff meetings if teachers are getting equivalent enrichment from academic coaches.

With Management 101 under control, the key to successful crisis management—especially when it comes to public health—is to use the tools at hand:

Rely on the pros. Build relationships with health experts in your school and at the district and municipal levels. They offer expert guidance for managing testing, protocols, contact tracing, and decisions about closing classes and buildings. For productive, efficient conversations, learn their terminology and what goes into decision-making procedures.

Just do it. Health management is a learned skill, say veteran principals. “All the questions we’ve had to ask to figure out how to advise people about their health—I never would have thought that would be part of my job,” says Frye. “Now it’s second nature.”

Make lists. New responsibilities put demands on your time, but they “aren’t mentally taxing,” says Goodwin. Checklists help her establish routines.

Collaborate. A team mentality taps everyone available to help corral the paperwork and organizational aspects of health management.

Automate contact tracing. School districts can access automated contact tracing systems based on classroom and grade-level enrollment information.

5 Essential Questions for Decision-Making Mindfulness

Why am I making the decision I’m making? (Hint: Kids first.)

Am I basing this decision on the values of my school and the well-being of students and staff?

Does my solution adhere to the plan for my school?

Did I explore all options? Who can provide a fresh perspective?

Am I too frazzled right now? Can an answer wait until I’m rested?

Simplify Problem-Solving

Streamlining the act of decision-making can aid in clearing the clutter to refresh brains beleaguered by new demands. Here’s how:

Internalize a protocol. Don’t just reflect; drive your thoughts through a decision-making “machine.” Frye triages daily decisions with the TregoED situation appraisal protocol, reviewing factors of seriousness, urgency, and the potential to grow worse. Sharing your protocol with staff builds understanding of your thought process and models it for them to deploy.

Flatten leadership. Empower teams at the administrative and grade levels to make recommendations. Use data and drive toward school improvement goals. “If anybody tries to take the weight of these decisions on their own backs, it’s exactly the opposite of decision-making mindfulness—and you’ll crumble under the pressure,” says Frye.

Reach out. Keep restocking your toolbox of solutions with new ideas. Join networks. Talk to friends, colleagues, and mentors in the district and across the country. “Don’t do everything yourself,” Cosentino says. “Figure out better ways of doing things.”

Rejuvenate. Journal. Walk. Meditate. Socialize. Rest. Give yourself a little grace—self-care refreshes body and mind. “I write in my journal about the ongoing experiences that occur as a leader, some challenging and others rewarding,” says Higa. “I network with positive and incredible people in my life to uplift me on days that confuse my thoughts.”

Plan the plan, then work it. Listen to families and develop plans that reflect their desires within the framework of mandates and protocols. Communicate the plan with clarity, and use it as your guiding star, even as the ground is shifting. Explain to parents that things have to change sometimes, but assure them that the plan remains intact.

Two years into the pandemic, the newest elements of the principal’s role are becoming job expectations. And like the virus that pushed communications and crisis management to the forefront, those responsibilities are unlikely to go away completely.

***

— I. The Principal’s Role —

NAESP Principal Podcast

You’ve Landed the Job! Now What?

We talk with a recently hired principal to discuss what it feels like to jump into a new role, and strategies for fellow leaders in similar positions

Congratulations, you’ve gotten through rounds of vetting, interviews, and are now serving as a principal of your school! But there’s still plenty of work to do and challenges to unpack. We sat down with Rosalba Rodriguez—who is about to make the jump from AP to principal in her district—to discuss:

How the process unfolds

How it feels to be in this new position

Advice for aspiring leaders

Thoughts on the first 100 days

Planning for next year

Play Podcast

Link: naesp.org/resource/human-resources

— I. The Principal’s Role —

Here’s How

Delegating for Time Management

Research Says …

Delegating tasks to teachers empowers them to improve school climate.

Principals who delegate five time-consuming management tasks to school administration managers—student discipline, student supervision, managing nonteaching staff, managing school facilities, and interacting with parents—significantly increase their time spent on instruction.

As seen in urban schools, cultivating effective principals begins with helping them recognize how they are spending, followed by coaching on delegating distracting noninstructional tasks.

Sources: How Principals Affect Students and Schools, The Wallace Foundation; Making Time for Instructional Leadership, The Wallace Foundation; and Districts Matter: Cultivating the Principals Urban Schools Need, The Wallace Foundation

Getting Started: What and How

Delegating conserves your time and emboldens staff to foster student success. Win-win-win.

Meet one-on-one with all staff. Ask what they want to see changed, what they like to do and are skilled at, and what they don’t like to do.

Watch how people are currently managing their delegated tasks. Is this the right person for the job? Are there other projects they could or should handle?

Preestablish a follow-up protocol, even if it’s a hallway huddle.

Drop in occasionally to experience the challenges of the task for yourself.

Give people the room to falter and grow while building confidence with assurances that you want them to succeed.

Spot and hire candidates for delegating that also builds capacity by their skill sets and enthusiasm.

Switch things up. Even if someone did a good job at a task last year, giving it to someone else this year keeps everyone growing.

Surprise the team by giving an important assignment to an overlooked colleague. Chances are, that person will excel just to prove your faith in them. If they stumble, assign a buddy to help.

Give people a safe space to ask questions, share their concerns, and plan for eventualities.

Loop delegated assignments and follow-up into team meeting agendas.

Resources

Avoiding School Leadership Burnout — NAESP webinar with Baruti Kafele

Time Management for New Administrators — NAESP webinar with Frank Buck

‘I Want a Job and a Life’: How Principals Find Balance in All-Consuming Work — Denisa R. Superville, Education Week

8 Ways Leaders Delegate Successfully — Deborah Grayson Riegel, Harvard Business Review

A Delegating Checklist: 4 Steps

Jumpstart a delegating strategy by beginning each day with a quick mental check-up.

Identify the things that must get done. Keep the most critical for yourself.

Would a slightly less pressing task consume more than 30 minutes of your time? Take five or 10 minutes to delegate.

Touch it once. When something comes your way, do it immediately, file it, or delegate.

Use a digital filing system to consolidate your tasks and delegate more efficiently.

Words of Wisdom

Advice from experienced educators: You can’t do it all, and you don’t have to.

“I don’t want people to fail. If anything fails on my campus, it all reflects on me. I want to give people the opportunity to be successful so that they want to continue to serve the school.”—Jayne Ellspermann, school leadership development, Leading with Purpose and Impact

“I don’t have time to do my job and monitor 80 other people. I find out early everybody’s strengths. I watch how they handle things. When I find out what those strengths are, I immediately delegate.”—Shanessa Fenner, principal, William T. Brown Elementary School, Spring Lake, North Carolina

“Build confidence by telling people, ‘I see you doing these extra things for your team, going beyond focusing on yourself. I see how you stretch for kids, stretch for team members.’ ”—Mark McCord, director of curriculum and instruction, Columbia Falls District #6, Montana

“What are people capable of doing, and what kind of support are they going to need to do what you’re asking them to do? It’s communication. It’s an understanding. It’s helping people gain skills by supporting their efforts.”—Roseanne Lopez, consultant, Strategic Partnerships Inc. 

“The team, the team, the team. That’s where I’m building capacity, because you recognize who your teacher leaders are.”—Jeremy Patterson, assistant superintendent, secondary curriculum, Jackson Public Schools, Michigan

Keys to Success

Successful delegators harness enthusiasm.

Be alert for ulterior motives, and delegate only to those motivated by the good of the students.

When someone shows interest in a project, delegate.

Show your priorities in action by publicly “delegating” key responsibilities to yourself.

— I. The Principal’s Role —

Principal magazine article

Stress Reduction for the Selfless

Educators must take care of their own well-being first using social-emotional strategies

By James A. Bailey and Randy Weiner

You glance at your emails and the stack of phone messages demanding a response, but you stay motionless, staring off at nothing. Brain fog—you remember it. It’s the same thing you felt when the COVID-19 pandemic was first unleashed in 2020. “This year was supposed to be different,” you say to yourself.

But it’s all back: families upset about their children falling behind, new staff replacing teachers who retired or quit. And as for you? Overburdened and exhausted, you don’t know what to do or where to turn.

Throughout the pandemic, articles and reports on teacher burnout regularly grabbed headlines. However, the well-being of principals was discussed infrequently—strange, considering how critical principals’ well-being is to a school’s potential to thrive.

When schools reopened, principals experienced even more stress as student learning gains from the previous year were lower than average and expectations for support from teachers and families were higher, taxing leaders’ limited energy.

Suspending Self-Care

Principals commonly think they must put student and staff needs ahead of their own as acts of selfless, caring, and effective leadership. Unfortunately, this belief forestalls the opportunity for school leaders to develop their own daily SEL practice and strengthen their leadership.

Recent interviews conducted with principals for an SEL research project substantiate this norm. A common observation goes something like this: “Professionally and personally, we really put a lot of pressure on ourselves to show up and be consistent, dependable, organized, and prepared. And sometimes we do that at the expense of taking care of ourselves.” Sound familiar?

In order to help effectively, school leaders must first take care of themselves. Leaders who neglect their own emotional health can produce devastating consequences for students, families, and the learning community. This is reflected by the following statistics:

The yearly principal attrition rate is approximately 20 percent, according to “Principal Attrition and Mobility,” a 2018 Department of Education report.

Roughly 90 percent of school principals feel responsible for everything that happens to students, according to the Texas Education Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

75 percent feel that their job has become too complex, say University of Pennsylvania scholars Michael C. Johanek and Ken Spero, and at least 50 percent feel “great stress” weekly.

Many job stressors existed before the pandemic, yet what Johanek and Spero called the “silent crisis of leadership in education”—the toll that leading change can take on a person’s psyche—continues to go unnoticed. And given the persistent pandemic challenges schools face, many principals will continue to experience chronic stress, mental health issues, and perhaps a desire to leave the profession.

Yet, shockingly few district-level supports or programs exist to reduce principal burnout. “There’s no real institutional structure or support for leaders to develop their social-emotional skills,” says one principal. “You’re on your own, I think, for the most part. This is work that’s pretty personal and private, that you have to do and not rely on work to provide it for you.”

There is, however, good news. In the work we do with leaders around the country, we accept the constraints school leaders face but question the view that there aren’t opportunities for school leaders to help themselves. It is possible to create a daily SEL practice—essentially your own “oxygen mask”—that makes you far more likely to flourish.

Positive Spirals

The pandemic exacerbated the extreme stress school leaders already faced. Against this backdrop, principals should see the necessity of developing their SEL skills for well-being. When principals frame their responses to stimuli as only fight or flight, they are at risk of succumbing to negative emotional spirals. However, the field of positive psychology—one of the research bases for SEL—studies human thoughts, feelings, and behavior, focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses to foster optimal function in life.

Positive psychology finds that focusing on positive processes and emotions can minimize the impact of negative emotions while building psychological resources such as resiliency and patience. Likewise, studies suggest that focusing on positive emotions broadens awareness, leading to novel thoughts and actions that also build psychological resources.

Fredrickson calls this the “broaden and build” theory of positive emotions. As recognition of positive emotions increases, an upward, inspirational spiral can propel leaders away from merely surviving and toward thriving. Embracing positive spirals provides a useful context for a deeper exploration of the CASEL competencies of self-awareness and self-management.

1. Self-Awareness

A metacognitive process, self-awareness asks school leaders to understand their internal lives and the impact of thoughts and feelings on physical and mental health. In particular, positivity enhances a leader’s display and use of emotions and explanatory style.

Emotions. Emotions are signals to act. Negative emotions such as fear or anxiety spur survival instincts. The human mind is naturally negatively biased, but too much focus on negative emotions can lead to unproductive downward spirals. Researchers estimate that a 5-to-1 mix of positive to negative emotions can lay a foundation for flourishing.

Joy, gratitude, interest, hope, pride, inspiration, awe, and love are the most common positive emotions. These don’t just appear in people’s lives, however; leaders must seek them out daily, intentionally noticing joyful moments or celebrating the inspiration students, family, colleagues, and outside resources engender.

Similarly, a simple, short, daily gratitude exercise such as journaling, identifying three things that you appreciate about yourself, or writing a thank-you note to a trusted mentor, teacher, or colleague prompts reflection on the positive. Making these practices routine can increase positivity, decrease stress, and enhance mental health for school leaders and their communities.

Explanatory style. Self-awareness of how one sees and explains the world can help principals improve their leadership practice. Pessimists tend to see bad events as permanent, pervasive, personal, and uncontrollable, encouraging a downward spiral. Such thinking carries the risks of increased anxiety, depression, and even cardiovascular disease.

Optimists see bad events as temporary or local, and neither personal nor permanent. Optimism launches a positive spiral, protecting mental and overall health. Self-talk can provide a simple intervention that acknowledges your sphere of influence (or lack thereof) and sets realistic expectations: “I’ve done all I can, and even though things didn’t go as planned, I won’t let it sap my energy,” for example. Leaders can combat an inclination toward pessimism by exploring alternative explanations that might suggest a more positive reality.

Core Concepts: Wellness

Principals often place student and staff needs ahead of their own, when they should be developing their own daily SEL practice to cope with the daily stresses of the job.

Emphasizing positive processes and emotions can minimize the impact of negative emotions and build psychological resilience.

Self-awareness and self-management strategies are just as important for school leaders’ effectiveness as they are for children to apply in the classroom.

2. Self-Management

Self-management follows self-awareness, focusing on the capacity to self-regulate the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that self-awareness reveals. Two prominent social-emotional areas that support leaders’ mental health include impulse control and stress management.

Impulse control. When self-awareness of emotions is low, impulse recognition might also be low, leading to poor self-management. Impulse control addresses emotional regulation, inhibiting bad choices related to stimuli that typically produce negative emotions. Too often and without realizing it, individuals might take action based on anger, which can metastasize into habitually downward-spiraling behavioral patterns over time.

Simple, positive techniques to self-manage these impulses include recognizing triggers and planning ahead to prepare a different response. Triggers might include people, events, words, and even nonverbal cues; by recognizing them, leaders can increase awareness of their impulses, appraise them in the moment, and slow down negative responses. Delaying triggers creates opportunities for more positive spirals to emerge.

Think about what sets you off—it could be anything from gum-chewing to interruptions to the fear of missing out when you see others post their vacations on social media. Knowing what produces negative thoughts in yourself can help you avoid those triggers, “own” the feelings they produce, and counter negative thoughts when they (inevitably) arise.

Stress management. All principals feel stress; the job gets more taxing each year. So, recognizing and reframing thoughts might be the principal’s greatest coping mechanism. To launch more positive spirals, deploy well-known recovery strategies on a short- and long-term basis. For instance, Navy SEALS train using “box” breathing (counting to four on the inhale, a breath-hold, the exhale, and another breath-hold; repeat) to quickly control stress.

In the long term, mindfulness practice can increase overall happiness and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Other positivity-oriented strategies include affirming personal values or writing down positive aspects of a stressor. Accepting more self-compassion can also help mitigate high stress levels over time.

3. Forward to Flourishing

COVID-19 laid waste to principals’ collective mental health and continues to do so, with issues significantly increasing across all ages, genders, and races. Of course, much of principals’ stress existed prior to the pandemic, but the emotional ups and downs of designing new systems overnight took their toll.

To move from languishing to flourishing, we recommend seizing this opportunity to evolve from knowing what you should do toward actually doing it. Adopting a daily SEL practice infused with positivity is an effective way to alleviate stress and avoid burnout to become an even better school leader. You can implement the following practices starting now:

Reflect on the positives daily. It is a natural survival instinct to lean toward the negative. Intentionally fight that instinct and look for successes, no matter how big or small. There are small victories all around you.

Seek positive explanations for actions or events. Practice perspective-taking and empathy to help illuminate the well-intentioned reasons that explain what’s going on in your school.

Define and slow your triggers. You know what sets you off; anticipate triggers and mitigate your reactions. For example, you might schedule more demanding meetings or tasks early in the day, when you’re more emotionally capable of handling high-stress situations.

Breathe intentionally. A few minutes of intentional deep breathing can help reestablish a calm state. Check out the book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor for guidance.

Leaders who flourish perform at high levels individually and socially, and students, teachers, and families need principals to be their best, healthiest selves. To get there, start by putting your own oxygen mask on first.

***

James A. Bailey and Randy Weiner are the authors of The Daily SEL Leader: A Guided Journal and co-founders of Brass Tacks Innovations.

II. Managing People

— II. Managing People —

Principal magazine article

But First, Relationships

New principals must prioritize and simplify their goals while continually building stakeholder trust

New principals could be forgiven for believing that every task belongs at the top of their must-do list.

Not so, say veteran principals. Instead, prioritize. Simplify. In the first two years, concentrate on key leadership skills that plant deep roots for future growth, while cultivating personal wellness habits that keep the body healthy and the mind sharp.

Prioritizing is a foundational approach outlined in The Wallace Foundation-supported research synthesis, “How Principals Affect Students and Schools.” The researchers say that effective principals focus on four key behaviors: creating instructionally focused interactions with teachers, establishing productive school climates, building collaboration and professional learning communities, and developing strategic processes for resource and personnel management.

Ask top principals their shorthand for early-career simplification, and all agree that relationships open the door to everything that follows. And as seen in the Wallace-supported research, interaction with people is a key skill set built on the interrelated components of caring, communication, and building trust. Here’s some advice principals offered for the initial years in the role.

Get to Know People

“As eager as I was to turn things around in my first year as principal, I received good advice from veteran principals: Don’t be so quick to judge people. Spend time with them. Get to know the community. I spent a lot of time in classrooms. I visited lots and lots of families. I got to know the neighborhood, the staff. I went into the teachers’ lounge and learned about their families. I got to know them in and out of school, so we had a positive relationship. When it came time to say, ‘Here’s where the rubber meets the road,’ they understood where I came from.”

“Professional learning communities are the teams that support the school mission and vision. Make sure that you are listening to people and hearing their concerns, that they have a voice, and that everyone is part of that process. It doesn’t just fall on you. It’s our school. It’s not your school.”
—Amy Denney, principal, Perry Creek Elementary School, Sioux City, Iowa

Focus on Simplicity and Climate

“My whole first year was during COVID, so it was about simplicity. I didn’t want to stress teachers out, because the situation itself was stressful. As a new principal, I was not looking to change anything. I was trying to keep everything pretty much what they had done the year prior.”

“My whole focus—past the simplicity—was the climate of the school and of the kids and of the community. I used social media a lot. I did morning announcements via Facebook Live. I called out birthdays. The culture was to still have parents feel a part of the school that they couldn’t come into. With the teachers, I did things to make them enjoy coming to school when they never knew from week to week what was going to happen. On the 100th day of school, I gave two teachers each 100 $1 bills, with a sticky note on each bill indicating a reason why I was proud to be their principal. These were things to appreciate the teachers—to make them feel good about our situation despite what was happening around us.”
—Farrell Thomas, principal, Waterloo Elementary School, Greenville,
South Carolina

As the researchers note, the ability of principals to develop and demonstrate a sense of caring for their teachers “can be a factor in positive relationship development.”

3 Tips to Prioritize Wellness

School leaders agree that weaving personal well-being into your professional priorities makes you a better leader, prepared to manage distractions and focus on goals. Their advice:

1. Schedule wellness in your calendar, including workouts and family activities.

2. Don’t take work home; work hard and “home” hard, as Swope puts it.

3. Find mentors who will guide your social-emotional wellness as well as your professional progress. “I came to a realization that the work has no finish line,” says Dixon. “Like a hiker on an arduous trail stops for rest, water, and food, you have to treat the leadership journey the same way.”

Commit to Improving School Culture

“At a previous assignment, we felt that school culture needed a close look. We did a self-assessment using the ‘School Culture Rewired’ typology, identifying things we did well and things we needed to work on. I asked staff—myself included—to make personal goals around ‘What I’m going to do to improve the culture.’ Be willing to admit to and confront those things you know you need to work on, and make a collective commitment.”

“One of the things I learned to help change the culture was me pushing myself to be more transparent and collaborative in my decision-making. When people get a chance to hear you think out loud about what we’re all confronted with, they get a sense of how you approach decision-making, and that breeds trust. It also gives them a sense of having control over the situation when they’re asked what they think. You are truly saying, ‘I didn’t think about that,’ and you change your plan.”
—Justin Swope, Principal, Gene George Elementary School, Springdale, Arkansas

What makes a strong school climate? According to one study cited in the synthesis, it typically features collaboration, engagement with data, organizational learning, and “a culture of continuous improvement and ‘academic optimism.’ ”

Listen and Build Instructional Strength

“In my first year, I focused on building trusting relationships. That meant being able to be vulnerable upfront, to say clearly, ‘I don’t know. I need to find out.’ I was never one who felt pressure to have all the answers. Every time I have changed positions, especially in the principalship, I have sat down with every individual and asked, ‘What’s going well? What can be improved? What can I do to help and support you?’ You listen—really listen—and then act on what you hear.”

“Building instructional strength is absolutely a priority. That’s the core business of teaching and learning. Put those non-negotiables on your planner first. If you’re not intentional about how you’re spending your time, it can be easy to get swept away with things that feel important but are not urgent.”
—Latoya Dixon, director of early childhood, elementary, and gifted education, York School District, York, South Carolina

“Successful principals,” the report says, “communicate purposefully, implementing strategies such as open-door policies, sending weekly emails with information staff need and recognition of staff contributions, and being willing to have challenging conversations with staff when necessary.

***

— II. Managing People —

NAESP Principal Podcast

Human Resources

Recruitment and retention best practices from an education expert

No matter what equipment or resources you have at your disposal, there’s nothing more important to school success than the people working there. We sit down with Ryan Sheehy, a district-level director of human resources, to learn the best ways to find and keep great staff. In this episode we discuss:

How to recruit and advertise openings

How to support and retain teachers

How to work within limitations at the building level

***

Ryan Sheehy is a former elementary school principal, high school assistant principal, and in addition to being a published author currently serves as director of human resources at Mt. Diablo Unified School District in California.

Play Podcast

Link: naesp.org/resource/human-resources

— II. Managing People —

Principal magazine article

Invest in Onboarding

Go step by step with an effective new-teacher onboarding experience

By Nate Wills

The teaching profession is infamous for being a high-turnover field. The stress of working with overcrowded classrooms, low salaries, and extensive hours that often lead into weekends has resulted in teacher attrition rates skyrocketing. Couple those high attrition rates with teachers who transfer between school districts in search of better pay and benefits, and the difficulty of teacher retention becomes apparent.

If you are an administrator in a district that can’t offer the best salary, benefits, or small class sizes, you’ll need to look at other factors that might influence top educators to remain in the district year after year. One of the elements to consider is the quality and adequacy of your teacher onboarding program.

Onboarding is a process that conveys a school district’s professional culture, expectations, and community awareness, and provides essential resources for teachers who are new to a district. Onboarding is designed to successfully integrate new staff into their positions with an organized plan of action.

A solid onboarding process can occur only if you already have a strong building culture that emphasizes collaboration and teamwork. Current faculty are an important part of the process and must be willing to participate.

Start With Hiring

When reviewing your current onboarding program, it is important to understand that onboarding does not begin with orientation; it should start with quality teacher hiring practices. One effective strategy is to have at least one current grade-level teacher assist with teacher interviews related to that grade level. This not only cultivates shared ownership, but also lends itself to determining chemistry between individuals who will be working closely together.

Onboarding is ultimately about establishing strong relationships, and strong relationships are the foundation of a thriving school culture. A thriving school culture increases your rate of retention; people want to be where they feel valued and appreciated.

Summer Sessions

This critical period should not be overlooked. Schedule a time to speak with each new teacher to answer any questions prior to orientation. Ensure that a new hire is invited to professional development opportunities or workshops offered by your district over the summer. Allow the new employee to visit and set up their classroom once cleaning and maintenance have been performed.

Be sure to include the new teacher on all building and district communications, including social media groups and email lists. It is vital that the new hire feels connected to the school community early to nurture their excitement of being a part of the district and its positive culture.

Meeting Mentors

Onboarding programs should offer a mentor for each incoming teacher. The mentor should be an experienced, successful, and knowledgeable teacher. This teacher must welcome the opportunity to facilitate educator growth and willingly accept the responsibility of assisting and supporting a fellow teacher through a reciprocal professional relationship.

In an ideal scenario, the mentor will be a teacher in the same grade level as the new teacher, and if possible, it should be the same teacher who was asked to assist in the interview process. This mentor-protégé process should be organized to include a list of responsibilities for each person, logs of meetings and what was discussed, and a checklist of specific items to be addressed, such as grading procedures, benchmark testing, discipline procedures, etc.

Orientation Activity

There is a difference between teacher onboarding and teacher orientation: Teacher orientation is an activity, and teacher onboarding is a process. Onboarding doesn’t end with orientation; in fact, it should be a part of the beginning. Orientation is rarely sufficient to provide all of the information necessary to be successful in the classroom.

One nice touch is to prepare a gift basket loaded with school supplies to give to new faculty members at the beginning of orientation. Include a personal note welcoming the new teacher to the district. A feeling of belonging and inclusion is a critical component of the onboarding process, so consider providing the new teacher with some logoed school gear and maybe a T-shirt.

Activities for teacher orientation should begin with a tour of campus buildings and introductions to key support personnel, including human resources staff who can assist with payroll and insurance questions. This is a good time to introduce building secretaries to new hires. Identify common areas during the tour, such as restrooms, the nurse’s office, the cafeteria, the gym, the library, and faculty parking.

Following the tour, a brief overview of policies and procedures is appropriate to make new staff aware of expectations in professional appearance, teacher hours, emergency drills, student discipline, and substitute plans. Include instructions for computer use, voicemail, photocopiers, and internet access during the orientation event. Go over district policies regarding teacher evaluations and observations; new teachers will need to know how often they will be observed and what types of observations to expect—scheduled, formal, informal, etc.

Consider treating your incoming staff to lunch at a local restaurant. This will give new hires an idea of nearby eateries if they’re new to the area and allow community members to interact with the teachers. Invite the mentors along so they can get to know their new protégés.

The First Week

The first week can be one of the most difficult times for any teacher, and being a newly minted employee only adds to the strain of beginning the school year. Administrators should offer an abundance of support during this period; popping in daily during the first week of classes just to check how things are going is a great idea. New teachers can get overloaded with so much information that they easily forget to take lunch counts and attendance, or where the restrooms are located.

A Post-it note offering encouragement during the first week can go a long way toward building congeniality with staff. During one of those brief pop-ins, I would follow up with an email that shares a genuine compliment about an aspect of their instruction that you noticed.

The First Month

As routines become established in the first month, new teachers will need support that lends itself toward understanding student performance and polishing their classroom management skills. Follow to find out if the new teacher has outstanding questions regarding curriculum, pacing, or technology to ensure that students get the required level of instruction.

I like to schedule a “mini observation” during the teacher’s first month. This is a 10- to 15-minute observation—essentially a trial run for what a typical observation might look like. This exercise is mostly to soothe any anxiety that can occur when being observed for the first time in a still unfamiliar school building.

The mini observation helps you acquaint the new teacher with your observation style and the specific lesson components you are looking for. The observation notes are given to the teacher, and the administrator does not keep a copy, so that the teacher understands that this observation is only for their continued development.

The Second Month

The second month is really when things become routine for the new teacher; they should be getting into the groove of school operations. Any time you spend with a new teacher now should focus on scheduling formal and informal observations as part of the evaluation process. Make guarantees to give immediate feedback, and follow through. Observation should have positive, constructive comments for the employee to build upon. Encouragement is important during this time. New teachers lack confidence in their skills, so an administrator’s reassurance is vital.

The new teacher should work regularly with a grade-level team to review data that can direct instruction. Another aspect to incorporate at this point is peer observations: Mentors and protégés can take turns observing each other’s lessons to learn and provide positive feedback about what was observed.

The Second Semester

A thorough review of instructional expectations and previous observations is a good starting point for the second semester. This establishes that the teacher has retained the lessons and skills learned during the first semester. Grade-level team planning and data review should maintain the collaboration built to foster those professional relationships. Continue regularly scheduled observations and feedback, and don’t forget those valuable written notes of encouragement.

The End of the Year

The end of the school year is a time of reflection. Develop a comprehensive, summative evaluation that includes clear feedback on performance and identified areas of growth. Make the teacher aware that you support their continued skills advancement. Ask the teacher to identify professional development supports and resources needed over the summer. Ask them to share how they felt the year went and what they enjoyed most. The mentor-protégé relationship only grows stronger after the first year, so it’s pivotal to sustain that structured relationship through Year 2 at least.

Teachers who go through a strong onboarding program understand the positive impact it can have and will want new teachers in their buildings to have a similarly supportive process. This can lead to higher job satisfaction and lower levels of anxiety. A successful, effective onboarding program can lead to a more enjoyable experience for new employees and result in an enhanced school culture and longer tenures.

***

Nate Wills is principal of Puxico Elementary in Puxico, Missouri.

— II. Managing People —

Principal magazine article

Two Tracks Toward Wellness

Address students’ and teachers’ mental health with a two-pronged strategy

By Paul Liabenow and Carla Tantillo PhilBert

The hallways are shiny and waxed; the classrooms are clean and organized; the supply cabinets are freshly stocked with the tools of school. Like a blank canvas, the new school year is sheer potential and possibility.

Teachers—eager to move past the extraordinary challenges of the last few years—are looking forward to reconnecting with students and revisiting the “whys” of their profession: to teach, to learn, to inspire, and to be inspired. But it would be irresponsible to ignore the recent data reporting high rates of burnout that are leading to teacher shortages and increased workloads.

For school mental health professionals, walking through the halls over the last few school years has led to many challenging and heartfelt conversations with fellow educators. Teachers and administrators half-jokingly ask, “Can I get counseling, too?” with a tangible undercurrent of need.

When there is enough time and space to respond with full authenticity, these moments often result in tearful conversations about the stressful nature of working in schools. Broaching the topics of stress and well-being with educators can be like drinking from a fire hydrant: Once the spigot is opened, a flood ensues.

While research into education and mental health focuses primarily on children and adolescents, there is a growing sense that focusing solely on counseling children—though imperative—is akin to putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg. Evidence from neuropsychology and educational research is mounting that the affective systems of teachers and students are interconnected and focusing on direct support for children without considering the needs of teachers simultaneously yields disappointing results.

As a school administrator, you must recognize the needs of your teachers to mitigate the impact of stress and burnout and help everyone move ahead into the new school year feeling valued and cared for. Below, we illuminate the emotional labor of teaching and explore a two-pronged approach designed to impact teacher well-being at a systemic level, as well as direct individual support.

The Emotional Labor of Teaching

Having conversations about stress and wellness can be challenging for educators. They are often disinclined to share their own feelings and vulnerabilities with school administrators for fear that doing so will impact their employment. Conversations are also constrained by school structure and policies.

Broad supervisory responsibility makes it a challenge to block out enough time to unpack stress. Policies such as the distinction between sick and personal days are in place that make it difficult to prioritize well-being. In general, teachers have not traditionally wielded sufficient institutional power to self-advocate with confidence.

The conversation around teacher well-being can also be challenging for school administrators who are responsible for fully ensuring competent adult supervision and instruction at all times and are faced with staff shortages. It can also be difficult for administrators to have conversations about social-emotional competence when they are dealing with significant stressors themselves.

Principals used to giving highly effective instructional feedback are often hesitant to address performance-related concerns about mood, demeanor, or emotional expression. Giving and receiving effective feedback in the social-emotional domain might feel like a personal criticism rather than a technical observation.

We also see many school districts experience initiative paralysis: They fear that launching any new initiative such as one focused on well-being might make it look like they are ignoring other significant issues. Conversely, initiative “overdrive” often leaves districts with multiple, overlapping layers of task forces, committees, PLCs, timelines, and Google Docs. The result is that everyone is too tired to be creative or to take on “one more thing”—even if that thing is self-care.

Many teachers start the school week already feeling run-down. The teacher’s default emotional and mental state affects students and the climate they inhabit together, so the effect they face from a poor night’s sleep, bad traffic on the way to school, or a sick family member can influence how students feel stress, too.

Core Concepts: Educator Wellness

Teachers often find it difficult to discuss their own vulnerabilities with school administrators for fear that it will impact their employment or effectiveness.

Research says that the well-being of teachers and students are connected, so focusing only on supplying mental health supports for children won’t yield optimal results.

Encouraging teachers to help themselves destress while creating a school culture that supports ongoing self-care can help mitigate toxic stress and burnout.

A Two-Pronged Solution

The post-pandemic educational landscape offers a unique opportunity for schools to enhance the well-being of the entire school system and those teaching in it. As a solution to the nationwide crisis of teacher burnout, we present an approach that invites teachers to attend to their own well-being through self-directed strategies and whole-school implementation of practices intended to create a climate centered on teacher wellness.

Self-directed strategies. The responsibility to reduce stress does not rely solely on teachers. But when teachers grow their self-care practice, the impact on the classroom experience and students becomes more apparent to other teachers, administrators, students, and families. When colleagues see their peers handle stress more effectively, become more able to relax, and enjoy their students more, they want to have the same experiences.

By learning and repeating well-being practices, educators can gradually turn burnout into a state of increased capacity and wellness. The holistic wellness practices below are designed to create balance in order to live a life rich with connection and peace. These include:

Mindful self-awareness and self-assessment;

Mindful movement, breath work, and stretching;

“No zones” and “hard stops” to work at home;

Well-being buddies/allies for accountability; and

Daily rituals for pause and intention (meditation, affirmation).

Whole-school implementation. Schools care best for our youth when they care about the teachers who teach our youth. We know that teachers who practice and implement self-care need encouragement and support to sustain their efforts even when they and others see the benefits of implementing well-being practices in their personal and professional lives. We have found that the districts that have the most success integrating teacher well-being into the fabric of school climate and culture do two things well: They plan together, and they practice together.

When looking to implement well-being practices across a school building or system, the mission is to start with intentionality. Define practices at the system level for every stakeholder in the building: What does practicing, modeling, and messaging well-being look like for district leaders, building administrators, teachers, paraprofessionals, security guards, school clerks, parents, and students? Create goals that are known by every stakeholder in the community, then start practicing together. Embed these practices and opportunities to make well-being the center of the school day.

Below are some ideas that principals can use to create systemic self-care:

Creating schoolwide well-being calendars.

Applying breath work or intentional pauses at meeting starts.

Practicing schoolwide mindfulness and skills-based professional development.

Giving the gift of time by eliminating at least one new initiative, curriculum, or committee from teachers’ responsibilities.

Paring down teachers’ workload by taking something off their plates so they can get caught up.

Offering access to free individual counseling or telehealth services.

Handling cranky parents and community members decisively, without asking teachers to be a buffer.

Giving teachers training on how to deescalate other adults (parents, colleagues, partners, etc.) and build confidence.

Removing signs on the faculty lounge that say “Teachers Only” or suggesting that only certified staff are welcome to create an emotionally supportive environment.

Making a happy place to gather by keeping the faculty lounge stocked with healthy snacks, fresh fruit, coffee, and tea, and giving it a fresh coat of paint and good lighting.

Planning kid-friendly outdoor cookouts for staff so teachers don’t need to get child care.

Providing a hot lunch for teachers and staff once a week on Tuesday or Wednesday (midweek is ideal, so if they forget and pack a lunch they can still eat it the next day).

Offering gift items that save teachers time instead of school swag, such as grocery or meal delivery, housecleaning services, and laundry pickup/drop-off.

Supporting classroom management by giving flextime to teachers to observe the school’s best classroom managers.

The purpose of the focus on repairing and mitigating burnout among teachers is not to strain already depleted systems with more tasks, but instead to create opportunities for change that deepen the well of capacity for a population that has been on the front lines and is experiencing an unprecedented level of toxic stress.

Shifting the narrative from students’ needs only to prioritize the well-being and needs of teachers in a meaningful, consistent, whole-system way is both a responsive and preventative solution. Burnout and retention rates are a cause for alarm, and it is our moral obligation to care about the well-being of those who have dedicated their lives to educating the country’s youth.

***

Paul Liabenow is executive director of the Michigan Elementary and Middle School Principals Association (MEMSPA).

Carla Tantillo Philibert is the co-founder of Mindful Practices, chief operating officer of Class Catalyst, and the author of the Everyday SEL series.

— II. Managing People —

The Wallace Foundation: Empowering Assistant Principals to Lead Learning Communities

This interactive session will teach what current research is saying about the role of the assistant principal, what experiences an assistant principal perceives to be missing from the position, and how you can empower your assistant principal to lead a thriving learning community.

Play Webinar

Link: youtube.com/watch?v=X-gjq1RVVgM

— II. Managing People —

Leading Lessons Guide

Growing the Capacity of Assistant Principals

At the Root of Professional Excellence

Empowered by distributed leadership and data use, assistant principals can help advance student achievement

A principal “pipeline” is a powerful tool in fostering leadership capabilities among current staff. But the principal pipeline can not only help identify new candidates for leadership roles, it can also instill emerging school leaders with the confidence and expertise needed to improve student achievement and school performance. As “Principal Pipelines: A Feasible, Affordable, and Effective Way for Districts to Improve Schools,” a report commissioned by The Wallace Foundation, shows, schools that are able to implement comprehensive initiatives to grow and develop leadership capacity among assistant principals can outperform their peers in a cost-effective manner.

What’s Inside

The following pages include wisdom from school leaders in districts participating in The Wallace Foundation’s Principal Pipeline Initiative, leading consultants, and winners of NAESP’s 2018–2019 National Outstanding Assistant Principals Award. Their comments are a testament to the power created when principals, assistant principals, and school leaders work together to elevate learning. Distributed leadership makes a difference, the report says. When responsibility and decision-making are shared throughout schools and assistant principals and teacher leaders are defined as educators first, team cultures that encourage collaborative action and personal growth flourish. Another thing that Pipeline schools had in common? They used data to drive instruction. While assistant principals sometimes say that their roles involve mostly managerial tasks or that schools lack strategies to drive improvement using data, these schools were able to steer instructional leadership supported by the evidence that data provides. Distributed leadership helped the schools in the Principal Pipeline Initiative depersonalize the tough decisions and helped get everyone—principals, assistant principals, and teacher leaders alike—to work together collaboratively toward goals of improvement and overall excellence. Read on to find out how they did it, and you’ll likely find a few strategies you and your team can use to do the same. You’ll find out how to share leadership among teams to solve problems, how to exercise and encourage autonomy within a framework for improvement, and how to mine data for insights into student and school progress. At the same time, you’ll learn how to advance your personal and professional development while producing a powerful impact on your school.

Planting the Seeds of Leadership

An assistant principal’s checklist to distributed and instructional leadership

Whether or not today’s assistant principals aspire to become principals, they crave personal and professional growth. Assistant principals can progress to the next phase of their careers with the confidence and expertise needed to make an impact on student achievement and school performance if they can build effective leadership skills early on.

Distributed Leadership

To make a difference in school performance, assistant principals must share leadership throughout their buildings—encouraging innovation, welcoming ideas, and even bringing dissent to the table—while reaffirming their schools’ shared goals. They create team cultures and encourage collaborative action.

Build Teams
The power of distributed leadership starts with strong teams and “a firm belief in collective advocacy,” says one principal.

In addition to assistant principals and lead teachers, teams should include instructional coaches, resource teachers, ESL specialists, guidance counselors, school psychologists, and social workers.

Take leadership assignments that align with your interests.

Be a team player: Reciprocate district assistance by helping principals, superintendents, and assistant superintendents with their priorities.

Cultivate Strong PLCs
A professional learning community (PLC) helps peers reflect on challenges and successes, perhaps even inspiring one another to aim higher.

Ensure that PLCs collaborate, have the resources needed, and communicate clearly so that systems are aligned.

Designate grade-level peer coaches to support teammates in specific subjects.

Recruit teachers with leadership potential to serve as grade-level instructional facilitators who liaise between classroom teachers and instructional coaches.

Make sure PLC members share an understanding of the standards for consistency in instructional delivery.

Adopt protocols to keep meetings on topic.

Know Your People
“As a principal, it’s great to know curriculum,” says one principal, “but you have to know your people.” Assistant principals must also keep their fingers on the pulse.

Hire a diverse staff to mirror the student population and broaden the range of ideas available.

Build community by matching people of complementary strengths and weaknesses.

Capitalize upon the staff’s desire to achieve success.

Model effective leadership by being present and engaged.

Put the Vision First
Effective assistant principals keep every discussion and action grounded in common goals and shared understanding.

Keep the school’s mission or vision at the front of the decision-making process.

When team members have conflicting opinions, drive consensus by keeping discussion focused on school goals, culture, and pillars.

Once a year, collect feedback from every staff member and submit the findings to leadership for review and adjustment. One principal gets suggestions on “everything from the color of the walls to how we do spelling.”

Take Advantage of Autonomy
Autonomy is something that instills confidence in aspiring leaders. But one’s independent initiative must support the larger vision.

Innovate within a framework of clearly defined expectations.

Ensure your ideas can withstand scrutiny based on data.

Take action knowing that you will be responsible for justifying actions through regular meetings, updates, and adjustments.

Be honest about new directions and strategies, but refrain from expressing negative opinions that don’t also propose solutions.

Solve Problems
We teach students to analyze situations and devise solutions. Assistant principals should apply the same approach.

Take on specific problems with the goal of solving them with your team.

Run with an idea. One leadership team wanted a “data den,” for example, and worked with teachers to build it.

Be open to all ideas while understanding that not all can be executed.

Ready Teams for Action
Buy-in is the key to distributed leadership. If ideas are allowed to trickle down and bubble up, action plans will be infused with input from everyone.

Push for strong, universally understood systems that give teams the confidence to address tasks swiftly and efficiently.

Know when you’ve earned the team’s trust and use it.

Welcome initiative. When one school focused on literacy, a teacher spearheaded a complete revamp of spelling instruction.

Avoid delays that dampen enthusiasm, abandoning approaches that don’t work swiftly.

Share and Share Alike
Under distributed leadership, assistant principals can show off their natural leadership instincts and encourage others to do the same.

Share findings from your own professional development to open a window to the assistant principal’s role.

Listen and contribute feedback while allowing others to also drive discussions.

Empower teacher leaders to devise improvement strategies.

Encourage cross-curricular problem-solving by housing instructional coaches and other leaders in shared offices.

Encourage a culture of information-sharing.

Help Others Explore New Leadership Roles
Distributed leadership will help assistant principals explore their leadership styles and map their career paths while helping others grow.

Access leadership training such as university programs or academies offered by the school district and share it with others.

Learn the basics of running a school, including budgeting, scheduling, and ordering.

Give teachers responsibilities that reveal the world of administration.

Position coaching as a strength-based model, not a punishment.

Instructional Leadership

“It’s never too late for principals and assistant principals to learn how to be instructional leaders and work collaboratively,” says collaborative leadership consultant Peter DeWitt. “Quite honestly, we don’t have a choice anymore.”

1. Activate Your Skills
Sharing instructional wisdom demands a structured, strategic approach that minimizes time spent on logistics and maximizes classroom connections.

Help create a “funnel” that brings situations to the principal and assistant principals only when necessary.

Conquer daily tasks and yearly goals by utilizing the strengths of each person.

Run your own meetings and build your own teams.

Request the resources you need to get results.

2. Make Instructional Connections
Dive into the instructional “deep end” with other staff.

Monitor coaches’ fidelity to overall school goals.

Reserve time to provide instructional support.

Liaise with educational partners and programs.

Communicate constantly and transparently with families to instill confidence in your school.

3. Link to Teachers
To stay on top of classroom trends, create direct lines to teachers.

Go to the same professional development sessions as teachers, who must see leaders “walking the walk,” says one principal.

Immerse yourself in the classroom atmosphere by using “modeling moments” as opportunities to work alongside teachers.

Normalize the criteria used in classroom observations so teachers know the expectations they face.

4. Cultivate a Leadership Mindset
As you develop your own career, keep an eye out for leadership abilities among all staff.

Watch for those who express interest in assuming leadership roles, and convince others to cultivate hidden capabilities.

Participate in big projects.

Request the time needed for you, your coaches, and your teachers to activate lessons learned through professional development.

Take the initiative to make rapid response instructional changes.

5. Plan, Implement, Adjust, Repeat
Even high-achieving schools don’t settle for the status quo. Every action step triggers review and reflection to address changing needs.

Follow a circular pattern for effective implementation: Discuss, articulate, reflect, and evaluate what works. Repeat.

Leverage classroom experience to create distinctive look-fors that measure progress toward goals.

Use instructional learning walks to gauge progress toward goals.

6. Recast Professional Development
Many resources are at your fingertips.

Make time in the day for teachers to observe teammates who excel.

Align peer classroom visits with lesson plans in areas where the observing teacher needs assistance.

Schedule data analysis, mini-assessments, and coaching daily.

Ask teams and teachers to share PD that addresses the areas of improvement being explored.

Tap NAESP and state administrators’ associations for leadership training, assistance, research, and grant-writing support.

Reflection Questions

Do my school’s processes recognize the different learning styles of administrators, coaches, and teachers?

Am I keeping teacher leaders at the forefront, remembering that classrooms change more and more each year?

Am I tapping into all available active instructional leadership opportunities?

Can I better capture professional development opportunities within my own school

***

Content for this section was contributed by: Gwinnett County Public Schools, Georgia: Dion Jones, Principal, Roberts Elementary School; Kassia Sutton, Principal, Norcross Elementary School; Angie Wright, Principal, Craig Elementary School.

Hillsborough County Public Schools, Florida: Amber Cronin, Principal, Pizzo Elementary School; Krystal Lofton, Principal, Folsom Elementary School; Rachael O’Dea, Principal, Forest Hills Elementary School.

New York City Department of Education: Robert Bender, Principal, William T. Harris School, PS 11; Victoria Hunt, Principal, Dos Puentes Elementary, PS 103; Josephine Sportella-Giusto, Principal, The Academy of Talented Scholars (TAOTS).

Bethel School District, Oregon: Shelley Ramirez, Assistant Principal, Thompson Elementary School.

Clark County School District, Nevada: T. Lee Douglass, Principal, and Deborah Young Yock, Assistant Principal, Kitty McDonough Ward Elementary School.

Gracie Branch, Associate Executive Director, Professional Learning, National Association of Elementary School Principals.

Peter DeWitt, school leadership coach and author of Instructional Leadership: Creating Practice From Theory (Corwin Press, 2020).

Data Sprouts Success

Empower assistant principals with experience in instructional leadership

By Elizabeth Duffrin

Using data to drive instruction and school improvement is recognized as an approach that can pay off in higher student achievement. Yet assistant principals in Principal magazine’s readership identified learning to use data as a need that often goes unmet in their development as instructional leaders.

To gain insights on how to best use data and share instructional leadership, we turned to Prince George’s County Public Schools in Maryland. The district participated in the Principal Pipeline Initiative, supported by The Wallace Foundation, and placed special emphasis on helping current and future leaders use data to drive school improvement.

Improving instructional leadership skills among assistant principals and teacher leaders was a priority. “As a principal, you can’t do this job by yourself,” says Charity Magruder, principal of Stephen Decatur Middle School. “The only way you can succeed is to empower others to improve their practice.” We asked principals and assistant principals from Prince George’s County to elaborate on the strategies that they used to remove barriers to data use and make assistant principals and teacher leaders into skilled instructional leaders. Here’s what they said:

1. Empower Teams

The sheer volume of data that needs analyzing can be an obstacle, making a team approach necessary. Magruder has teacher leaders for each subject area and grade level conduct data dives during Thursday planning sessions. On Tuesdays, teams at each grade level share and critique lesson plans they created or modified using the results.

She and her two assistant principals divvy up meetings to support teachers as needed. “She really challenges us to be instructional leaders and not just managers,” says assistant principal Marcellus Clement.

2. Rehearse Data Analysis

Data analysis can easily go astray due to misjudgments or misinterpretation. Before assistant principals work with teachers to analyze data, principals say it’s important that they examine the data and model the conversations they want teachers to have.

“If I am the instructional leader, I have to get dirty first so I know where the pitfalls are and where the misconceptions could be,” says Chelsea Hill, principal of Adelphi Elementary School. Leadership should know “where you want the conversation to go. If you don’t, teachers can walk away feeling it’s a waste of time.”

3. Use a Data Analysis Protocol

A data analysis protocol provides step-by-step guidance for achieving insights that can be translated into action. In reviewing data with her leadership team, Hill begins with an “I Notice, I Wonder” protocol. A discussion about unit math assessments, for example, begins with “I notice” statements about trends in the data. Next come “I wonder” statements, such as, “I wonder how Ms. Jones tells children to break down a multistep problem.”

The protocol grounds the discussion in fact and offers a chance to identify obstacles to student learning. “Sometimes we want to jump quickly to next steps,” Hill says. “But that time to sit and notice can be the time when we have discoveries that lead to higher student achievement.”

If the data is complicated, Maryam Thomas, principal of Ernest Everett Just Middle School, launches analysis with observations about how the data is organized: What is the graph or chart about? What’s on the X axis and Y axis? While it sounds simple, she says, it prevents misunderstandings that result in unusable observations. Comfort with data varies widely, she adds, so “a standardized approach is critical.”

4. Examine Student Work

Student work is a rich source of data for use in finding out where students struggle. At Adelphi, teacher leaders lead planning meetings; each brings a sample assignment from a student who excelled, a sample assignment performed at the proficient level, and one from a student who struggled. “You’re examining the task and the student performance and giving feedback to the teacher,” Hill says.

Adelphi assistant principal Leslie Nash-Ruffin says that supporting these meetings has been the most valuable part of her development as an instructional leader. The conversation in which teachers engage while thinking through challenges “is really powerful,” she says.

5. Overcome Teachers’ Fear of Data Analysis

Resistance to what the data might reveal is a barrier to improved instruction. Disappointing numbers “can feel like an attack,” says Hill. She urges teachers to view data impersonally, as a tool. “The data is your compass,” she tells them. “If your compass is telling you to go north and you go south, you’re not going to get the results you’re looking for.”

Wanda Williams, principal of Oxon Hill Elementary School, says she gets teachers’ buy-in by having them set their own goals for student growth on district assessments. If a teacher sets a goal too low, she gently probes to find out why. Williams can then offer her advice and follow up with classroom observation and coaching.

In his assistant principal role at Stephen Decatur, Clement reduces resistance to observational classroom data by inviting teacher feedback: “If a teacher says to me, ‘I don’t agree with that,’ I say, ‘tell me why.’ I always like to hear what teachers are thinking.”

6. Use Observation to Improve Teaching

During the first two weeks of school at Ernest Everett Just, Thomas and her assistant principals visit classrooms together and calibrate their feedback to offer consistent expectations to teachers throughout the year. “We have to assess teachers rigorously because that’s the only way to get to the type of learning experiences that will move the needle on achievement,” she says.

To be effective, feedback must be consistent and delivered with respect. Thomas leads with praise, identifies small improvements teachers can make quickly, and asks questions that provoke deeper thought. Approach teachers as “more of a thought partner than a supervisor,” she says. “It’s not just, ‘Hey, take this feedback,’ but ‘Try this strategy.’”

When it’s time for evaluations, objective evidence makes difficult discussions more productive. “The challenges [to ratings] were based on emotions,” Thomas says.

7. Communicate Data to Students and Parents

Parents can better support school goals for student achievement when they understand the data. After the first quarterly district assessments each fall, Oxon Hill Elementary hosts a Data Night where parents learn to interpret their children’s results. Teachers at each grade level then lead workshops with activities parents can use at home to reinforce needed skills.

At Melwood Elementary, teachers assess student work with rubrics that provide clear feedback, and students use similar devices to assess their own work and that of their peers, too. “A check and a smiley face—that means nothing,” says principal Andrew Dalton. “Children learn more in an environment where they take ownership of their learning, and they can only take ownership if they understand what they are supposed to learn.”

8. Celebrate Successes

Analyzing data to improve practice is hard work. “You can turn people off if you don’t celebrate the small successes,” says Williams. She scoured Oxon Hill’s attendance and standardized test score data last year and handed out achievement certificates to teachers at a celebratory event. “I tried to find something good in the data [for] each and every grade level,” she says. “You’ve got to make [data] fun. You’ve got to make people want to look at it.”

Key Considerations

Build links between leadership and data teams.

Include support services personnel in data teams.

Create frameworks for reviewing quantitative data objectively.

Apply data results to advise use of resources and finances.

***

Elizabeth Duffrin is a freelance education writer in Chicago.

Harvest Data Insights

9 steps to take in using data to cultivate school transformation

Assistant principals can mine data for insights into school and student progress, and can use those insights to create action plans and lead school transformation. Alongside principals and teachers, you can build data capabilities to access the objective, fact-based keys to unlocking student growth and school improvement.

1. Build the Data Team

A strong data team allows scrutiny of data from varying perspectives.

Data teams include principals, assistant principals, instructional coaches, and a teacher leader from each grade. Include student services personnel to address nonacademic issues such as attendance.

Turn leadership teams into data teams. Over the summer, review state assessments and devise skeleton improvement plans. Then, the instructional leadership team can formulate next steps.

2. Collect the Data

The million-dollar question: In a world groaning with data, how do you know which provides a true snapshot of the school and its students?

Use evidence to measure and understand the impact of leadership actions.

Don’t be afraid to collect the wrong evidence; if it doesn’t work, try something new.

Take advantage of programs’ utilization data. One team discovered that a reading program wasn’t being used efficiently and brought in a company representative for training.

Consider qualitative data. Qualitative data comes from efforts such as interim assessments, formative assessments, and student writing assignments.

Review quantitative data to yield insights. Numbers-based, quantitative data informs instructional planning and day-to-day tasks.

3. Choose Student Data

Choosing data to scrutinize for student growth can be “messy and muddy,” in the words of one principal. When life gives you mud, make mud pies.

Start the school year with the freshest data on hand—often the latest state assessments. Then, revisit the previous year’s data to check for gains and find out what’s needed to make gains in the current year.

Think in tiers: Break the data down by standard and grade level, and hand it off to PLCs to drill down for students who don’t master the standards. Use those findings to plan interventions.

Don’t overlook data from high-performing students or those at basic proficiency. They can be encouraged to grow and develop goals.

4. Analyze Student Data

Extracting meaning from numbers can be a point of frustration, but data can be shaped to tell a story.

Align state test data with school-based achievement data. Then, look for outliers among students to determine whether in-house assessments missed something.

Align data findings with standards and curriculum to make sure the concepts teachers are presenting actually result in student knowledge.

Look at data dives not as searching for numbers, but as mining for explanations.

At interim assessment time, review test data by the standards taught. What depth of knowledge was the assessment measuring? Identify plans of action for the weakest standards.

Track data over time and across grade levels to determine whether, for instance, a second-grade intervention shows positive results at fourth grade.

5. Use Data for Teacher Growth

Data can also guide teacher professional development and coaching.

Review multiple years of data to reveal trends to address with individual teachers.

Analyze individual student growth to reveal gaps in teacher effectiveness.

When having difficult discussions with teachers, reflect on the meaning of the numbers for students. If only four students achieve proficiency out of 23, ask the teacher to consider the factors that kept the other 19 behind.

Have teachers review grade-level data to find areas where a cross-curricular approach might help close achievement gaps.

Keep data relevant by giving teachers opportunities to share items demonstrating their tracking methods.

6. Empower Teachers to Use Data

The rubber hits the road when data helps raise student achievement.

Enlist teacher leaders to design protocols for monitoring and utilizing data. When asked to serve as leaders in math and ELA inquiry, two teachers at one school took ownership of data inquiry in a way that is now a model for other schools.

Perform regular data dives to train and refresh teachers on everyday data utilization. Remind them where to find data and how to use it to impact instruction.

7. Use Data as a Resource Guide

Data analysis is a useful pursuit when the numbers inform viable action plans and help assistant principals target limited resources.

Reflect and decide where the greatest area of need is and what resources will be required. Plan activities to address the need, create actionable steps toward implementation, and evaluate impact using evidence.

Distribute resources to the areas of greatest need by tiering teachers based on data showing classroom progress and building plans for those who need additional assistance.

Empower teachers to write their own mini-assessments based on data findings and unpack standards to reveal what students need to know and when.

8. Leverage Data Walls

It might look like little more than a colorful array of sticky notes or spreadsheet entries, but an effectively managed data wall can be a dynamic tool for school improvement.

A physical data wall with movable elements is a valuable tool for teachers who are visual and tactile learners.

Employ data walls to spark conversations—and perhaps healthy competition—among teachers.

Electronic data walls allow assistant principals to answer parent questions without consulting teachers first. Coaches can use them to target teacher supports.

9. Disseminate the Data

Data belongs to the school community, and it can be wielded for powerful effect.

Work with the school community to develop dissemination practices. Create a consensus on the information they want to see and how it’s shared.

Share data with individual students and set goals within the lens of a growth mindset (e.g., “It’s not that you can’t do something. You just haven’t done it yet.”)

Share data sets (with individual findings redacted) with parent leaders and groups to build an understanding of school progress and goals.

Put data in the school newsletter and consider creating a “State of the School” document to inform parents about the progress made.

Incorporate data into communications with potential community partners, soliciting support by sharing school successes, goals, and needs.

Celebrate the gains and successes the data reveals.

***

Content for this section was contributed by: Gwinnett County (Georgia) Public Schools: Dion Jones, Principal, Roberts Elementary School; Kassia Sutton, Principal, Norcross Elementary School; and Angie Wright, Principal, Craig Elementary School.

Hillsborough County (Florida) Public Schools: Amber Cronin, Principal, Pizzo Elementary School; Krystal Lofton, Principal, Folsom Elementary School; Rachael O’Dea, Principal, Forest Hills Elementary School.

New York City Department of Education: Robert Bender, Principal, William T. Harris School, PS 11; Victoria Hunt, Principal, Dos Puentes Elementary, PS 103; Josephine Sportella-Giusto, Principal, The Academy of Talented Scholars (TAOTS).

Bethel (Oregon) School District: Shelley Ramirez, Assistant Principal, Thompson Elementary School.

Clark County (Nevada) School District: T. Lee Douglass, Principal; and Deborah Young Yock, Assistant Principal, Kitty McDonough Ward Elementary School.

Peter DeWitt, school leadership coach and author of Instructional Leadership: Creating Practice From Theory (Corwin Press, 2020).

Encourage New Growth

Talking points to strengthen the assistant principal’s role in the principal pipeline

Too often, assistant principals say they are slotted into management and discipline roles, shrinking the time and opportunities available for building leadership skills. And yet, better school leadership equals better student outcomes. Research reveals why assistant principals should be groomed for leadership, and how it’s done. Use these research-based talking points to make the case for strengthening professional learning experiences for aspiring and assistant principals.

Making the Case

Well-designed, district-run principal preparation programs groom high-potential assistant principals for principal assignments of their own.

Properly trained assistant principals perform at higher levels. Faculty have a better instructional experience, and students have a better educational experience.

Schools with newly placed principals from principal pipelines—often including former assistant principals— outperform comparison schools in reading and math.

When Broward County (Florida) Public Schools implemented an initiative that included mentorship for assistant principals tailored to their years of experience, the number of schools rated D or F plummeted from about 40 to eight.

Better-prepared principals stay on the job longer even in high-need urban and rural schools. Longevity boosts student achievement.

Graduates of exemplary leadership development programs feel “significantly better prepared for instructional leadership and management of school improvement.”

The Key to Leadership

A leader tracking system creates fact-based profiles of the skills, experience, and ratings of assistant principals, allowing data-driven decisions that place the right people in the right jobs.

The hallmarks of strong training programs for assistant principals aspiring to be principals are rigorous selection of participants; a coherent, instruction-focused curriculum; fully paid internships; peer networks that provide support after training ends; capable instructors and coaches with extensive real-world experience; and that tracks graduates’ on-the-job performance and identifies training weaknesses.

Assistant principals enrolled in pathways to principalships can test various aspects of the job. Examples include residencies that embed assistant principals with expert principals for a year and collaborations with university partners.

Strategic design can strengthen programs that prepare teachers for assistant principal positions. Hillsborough County Public Schools focused its Assistant Principal Induction Program on the leadership competencies specifically needed by assistant principals.

Three foundational tenets apply to collaborative leadership systems among principals and assistant principals: Shape and share the same core beliefs, prioritize teacher feedback, and emphasize that everyone—principals, assistant principals, and teachers—should always be learning.

***

“Best Practices for Supporting Assistant Principals.” Communicator, NAESP. November 2016. Vol. 40, Issue 3.

“Collaborative Leadership with Assistant Principals.” Communicator, NAESP. June 2017. Vol. 39, Issue 10.

“Leader Tracking Systems: Turning Data into Information for School Leadership.” Policy Studies Associates Inc., June 2017.

“Preparing School Leaders for a Changing World: Lessons From Exemplary Leadership Development Programs—Final Report.” Stanford University, Stanford Educational Leadership Institute, 2007.

“Principal Pipelines: A Feasible, Affordable, and Effective Way for Districts to Improve School.” RAND Corporation, 2019.

“The Making of the Principal: Five Lessons in Leadership Training.” The Wallace Foundation, 2012.

Reflection Questions

Have I looked closely enough within my school talent to tap those who can enhance our data analysis and utilization capabilities?

Am I using the right data for the right reasons? Can I justify the purpose for scrutinizing each strand of data brought to my teams?

Am I matching and overlaying data sets to find the mismatches or alignments that tell a story?

How well am I training and refreshing my teachers on finding data, analyzing it, and using the results to adjust classroom practices?

III. Leading Instruction

— III. Leading Instruction —

Principal magazine article

Inspiring Instructional Innovation

4 ways to reimagine teaching and learning experiences for today’s digitally connected, tech-savvy students

By Nicholas J. Myers

Evidence supports the idea that traditional schooling can no longer prepare students for future successes in the technologically advanced economy of today and tomorrow. Fortunately, the digital age has ushered in a new period of promise, as schools strive to capitalize on the potential instructional technologies offer in transforming teaching and learning opportunities for students.

One outcome of this has been the inspiring “instructional innovation” movement that has emerged as a counterpoint to ineffective school reforms. The movement emphasizes the need to redesign learning experiences to be more personalized, geared toward real-world application of skills, and supported through the robust use of instructional technology. With school districts across the nation continuing to toggle between remote and hybrid learning due to the impact of COVID-19, the opportunity to anchor these principles into active practice has never been greater or more necessary.

The crucial questions the innovation movement asks include:

How do we more fully engage our students in the learning experience?

How do we ensure that we are equipping our students with the skills needed to succeed in our technologically advanced economy?

How do we broaden the learning opportunities we provide to students in the areas of communication, creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem-solving?

How can we best leverage instructional technology to enhance the teaching and learning experience?

How can we redesign the learning environment to support progressive teaching practices and immerse students in deep levels of engagement?

In answering these questions, school systems seeking to cultivate innovation in instructional design might wish to consider the following priority action steps:

Establish a leadership cadre of teachers and administrators to build shared knowledge and set a shared vision around the concept of instructional innovation. Providing leadership teams time to collaborate with, problem-solve with, and learn from one another is instrumental in navigating the issues and questions that naturally emerge when systemwide change is introduced. Consider what you and your team want teaching and learning to look like in five years. Beginning with the end in mind, you’ll be able to chart meaningful action steps supportive of your shared vision.

Update learning spaces to align with a shared vision of 21st century classrooms. Progressive teaching practices will see classroom teachers incorporate lessons that call upon students to collaborate with each other, use digital resources, and solve meaningful problems with real-world applications. Traditional classroom seating arrangements—students seated in rows of bulky desks and uncomfortable chairs—promote outdated teaching practices that focus on the teacher delivering content for memorization. Teachers need classroom furniture that assists them in creating small-group meeting spaces, spaces for project-based learning, spaces where technology is easily accessible, and spaces that accommodate movement and noise.

Reimagine the role a learning center can play in supporting instructional innovation. As digital connectivity expands in our schools, educators must reexamine the teaching and learning experiences taking place in learning centers. With 1:1 devices commonplace in classrooms, entire libraries of text are now available online for student access at any time. Progressive school systems across the country are transforming learning centers into “creation studios” that are equipped to support digital connectivity, audio and film production, and high- and low-tech “maker” activities.

Develop an instructional technology plan that includes 1:1 digital connectivity for all students and technology integration that enhances the teaching and learning experiences provided. As prices for 1:1 devices have dropped, curricula have become digitized, and the quality of educational apps has risen. School districts have never been better positioned to realize the potential that instructional technology holds to transform learning. A key priority in this work should be focusing on using this technology to engage students in the creation of new, authentic, and creative work products—not simply for the consumption of content. Staff training plays a pivotal role in supporting teachers in leveraging instructional technology to accelerate learning. Used appropriately, instructional technology can enable students to function more autonomously, provide students with choice and voice in their work, extend learning into real-world situations, and encourage low-cost, creative expression of ideas.

Tremendous potential exists to reimagine the teaching and learning experiences we provide to today’s digitally connected and technologically savvy student learners. Doing so will help ensure that we provide our students with a fully engaged present and a profoundly inspiring future.

***

Nicholas J. Myers is associate superintendent for Schaumburg Township School District 54 in Illinois.

— III. Leading Instruction —

Principal magazine article

Resources for Instructional Leadership

Effective principals must often build a body of knowledge that supports professional growth for themselves and their teachers

Armed with student-centered coaching concepts drawn from Diane Sweeney’s books, several teachers at Sonia Sotomayor Elementary School in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, were recently considering rearranging the school’s math curriculum. They felt students weren’t ready for a single unit but wondered why the units were ordered as they were.

Principal Tracy Vik picked up the phone. “We contacted the authors of the curriculum and asked what the thought was behind it,” she says. “They called and met with us and explained their reasoning.” Armed with the whys behind the curriculum, the teachers felt confident teaching the units as the authors intended to better serve their students.

It was the right resource to offer at the right time. Effective principals such as Vik are deft at conducting instructionally focused interactions with teachers, building collaboration, and managing professional learning communities. However, these qualities aren’t baked into a principal certificate.

“For many school leaders, the skills required to give teachers meaningful feedback and authentic coaching support must be learned,” says The Wallace Foundation-supported research analysis “How Principals Affect Students and Schools.”

Effective principals rely on resources that instill the skills needed to improve teachers’ classroom instruction. Networking, collaboration, and reliance on research, veteran educators say, form a body of knowledge that supports professional growth for themselves and their teachers. Here’s what a few of them had to say about creating that growth:

Assess the Quality of the Research

To ensure that teachers are participating in high-quality professional development opportunities, principals must learn to recognize the characteristics of high-impact professional development offerings.

“I think about what I want to see in the classroom, and that directs me to the resources,” says Sue Choi, principal of Spring City Elementary Hybrid Learning School in Spring City, Pennsylvania, and Title I federal programs coordinator for the Spring-Ford Area School District. “The CASEL framework is going deep into SEL competencies and strategies. We want our teachers to understand the standards to the teachers, and it’s effective to provide examples. I can always give you the definition, but you have to envision what it looks like, what it feels like, what it sounds like.

“If Achieve.org is telling me something, or if I’m searching in the Standards Aligned System of the Pennsylvania Department of Education, I know they’re trusted resources. It’s not the ‘du jour.’ NAESP and ASCD provide access to many resources. There’s so much capacity and really good minds working toward building this network and putting it together for us.”

Learn What the Teachers Must Learn

The strategies for building a developmental culture of feedback are “deeply embedded in relationship-building and creating a schoolwide infrastructure for collaboration,” the Wallace-supported research review says.

“Right from the beginning of my administrative career, I became active in the Nevada Association of School Administrators just to be able to talk with people,” says Keith Boone, principal of E.C. Best Elementary School in Fallon, Nevada, and president of the Nevada Association of Elementary School Principals. “In my third year as elementary principal, I joined NAESP and went to Tampa for the national conference and fell in love with it. Just about every single thing that I implement with my staff, I’ve gotten at a state or national conference.

“I like to become efficient at the professional development before I introduce it to my staff and have those expectations of them,” he says. “One big trend is social-emotional learning. I dove into it and educated myself. We talked about it as a district and a staff, and it became a staff expectation. Effectiveness at PLCs and instructional interaction comes from [the] practice of running your collaboratives. Your focus becomes keener and more specific.”

Reach Out for Ideas

In the search for exemplary professional development, principals can turn to networks, mentoring, and study groups for “communities of practice and support for problem-solving,” says Wallace’s “Preparing School Leaders for a Changing World.”

“Find online communities. They will feed you ideas and resources for free. Seeing other people’s experiences in a vastly different context than our own can help us be better leaders,” says Scott McLeod, professor of Leadership for Educational Organizations at the University of Colorado Denver. “The value of being in a community is that you’re still learning about the key leadership practices, including collaboration and instructionally focused interactions, in the context of your school. Hopefully, you’re getting help from the district, but if you’re in these communities, you can reach out with questions about some aspect of those behaviors.

“The best way to put new ideas into practice is to not do this work alone,” McLeod says. “You have a building leadership team. It’s us doing the work, and that will make sure it starts getting rolled out in your school. We never want the principal to be the sole conduit to staff. We need groups of people feeding the web of learning within the building.”

Build Professional Capacity

Effective instructional leaders “demonstrate expertise around high-quality instruction that enables them to observe and evaluate teachers and classrooms in a constructive manner,” while offering responsive and actionable feedback to improve teaching and learning.

“Most of my training this year has been centered around social-emotional learning for students and building teacher capacity around this topic: how to give teachers more time, streamlining teacher workload to lessen stress, and supporting teachers emotionally,” says Patricia J. Wells-Frazier, principal of Panorama Elementary School in Temple Hills, Maryland. “I also seek out training around what I can do as an instructional leader to improve student achievement. Webinars focusing on leadership and instructional coaching/teacher feedback help build the capacity of my leadership team as we are supporting teachers instructionally within the classroom.

“You want to align with district initiatives and school goals so you can see student achievement—so that you can see your teachers’ capacity being built,” she says. “You have resources through your district. You have resources through NAESP, where you’re exposed to conferences, webinars, and trainings. I subscribe to Wallace Foundation scholarly articles, EdWeek, Edutopia. Everyone always needs to know the why. If people know the why of what they’re doing, they’ll do it effectively.

“To put an idea into practice, I bring it to my leadership team. I share how it aligns with the work we’re doing and begin to turnkey it in that way,” Wells-Frazier says. “You have that collaborative conversation. What did we see? What did we wonder? What were some of the highlights and the wows?”

Focus PLCs on Student Needs

Establishing professional learning as a priority and maintaining teacher communities contribute to student achievement. Effective principals engage directly to facilitate the collaborative work of teachers. “Look at your building and find out the most critical needs,” Vik says. “If you don’t feel equipped to meet those goals, then you find those resources.

“The dean of students and I review the PLC agendas in advance to make sure they’re instructionally focused. Then, the teachers drive the conversations,” she says. “We’re just there as resources, but by reviewing those agendas, we’re prepared because we know what the topic is. I’ve got two days to look for resources so I can be of the most assistance.

“I made the commitment to purchase an extra set of the math, language, and intervention teacher guides for our educational assistants, interns, administrators, and instructional coach,” Vik says. “When we put heads together to backwards-plan toward the end goal, we can be actively involved in that conversation. We also have the guides in front of us for evaluations. We’re not going to know every one of the topics, but it helps to have shared knowledge.”

***

— III. Leading Instruction —

Principal magazine article

Home Skilled

Like language, math, and science, SEL can be practiced and mastered—even in socially distanced or hybrid settings

By Jessica Djabrayan Hannigan and John Hannigan

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need for social and emotional learning (SEL) in schools. Consider a few statistics from surveys taken during widespread school shutdowns and distance learning:

More than half of the students surveyed experienced anxiety.

45 percent felt excessive stress.

43 percent said they struggled with depression.

61 percent reported loneliness.

Comparing their engagement level prior to COVID-19 school closures, more than 80 percent of teachers defined students’ current level of engagement with their schoolwork as “much lower” or “somewhat lower.”

One out of 4 students were reported to be essentially truant (MIA, not logging in, not making contact, etc.) during COVID-19 closures.

Sources: 2020 Harris Poll commissioned by the National 4-H Council and an EdWeek Research Center survey.

This is an urgent matter to which educators must respond now. Each of these statistics represents real students and a situation that’s evolving based on the support provided by the school. One evidence-based way to respond is to intentionally integrate SEL into your school and make it as high a priority as any academic initiative. This need is supported by an abundance of research on the benefits of SEL in schools, which include improved academic performance, improved social behaviors, lower levels of distress, improved attitudes, improved social interactions, and fewer conduct problems.

This is not a new concept—SEL has been part of education for decades. But we are now seeing it affect our students, educators, and families in historic ways. Prior to the pandemic, many schools found it challenging to teach essential SEL skills to students with significant mental health, social, emotional, and behavioral needs.

The majority of behaviors students had difficulty demonstrating in the in-person learning environment were social behaviors (e.g., hands to themselves, appropriate language, impulse control, etc.). Subsequently, the gaps have widened, and the cracks in the system of schoolwide support of SEL are no longer hidden in the chaos of the school environment.

Needs have shifted from managing undesirable social behaviors in a face-to-face learning environment to targeting academic behaviors in a virtual or hybrid environment (e.g., lack of engagement, attendance, organization, self-management, self-monitoring, motivation, “grit”). SEL encompasses academic and social behaviors, so schools need to connect specific behaviors to the absence of SEL skills.

As educators, we do a great job of identifying the absence of specific academic skills that impede a student’s ability to succeed in a particular subject area and providing targeted instruction to ensure learning, whether that student is a nonfluent reader who needs additional support with vowel blends and digraphs or a student not able to recall basic math facts and formulas. But when it comes to behavior—academic or social—absences are met with frustration, and labels such as “acting out,” “being disruptive,” or “being lazy” are attached to the student.

Why is it that we teach specific skills in math or reading to get a student back on track, yet when we identify students demonstrating specific behaviors, we don’t view it as a student needing the necessary instruction to learn the SEL skill necessary to reduce or eliminate those undesirable behaviors? Schools need to apply the same systematic teaching they use to support students who struggle academically to SEL skills.

The Whys of SEL Implementation

Reacquaint yourself with the definition of SEL and the purpose for its implementation. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) website defines SEL “as a process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions, and achieve personal and collective goals; feel and show empathy for others; establish and maintain supportive relationships; and make responsible and caring decisions.”

CASEL further highlights five core competency areas within SEL: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Echoing the importance of the CASEL 5, a newly released World Economic Forum report listing the top 10 job skills for 2025 includes problem-solving, self-management, working with people, resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility.

As a result, SEL skills must be taught as a matter of course, rather than hoping that a child will gain these skills through genetics or maturation. What is your school currently doing in each classroom or schoolwide to integrate SEL? How do you know if what you are doing with SEL is effective, and is your school changing the narrative on current student statistics? We’ve worked with thousands of educators to help tackle these questions during the pandemic.

To begin this work on your campus, here is the process we recommend:

Identify (prioritize). Identify one SEL competency out of the CASEL 5 to start with at your school and/or in your classroom based on a precise problem statement—a few sentences that capture what skill(s) students are struggling with based on social and academic behavior data and teacher perception data. As a site administrator, you can likely create a problem statement based on the student behaviors your teachers complain about most, turning complaints into part of the problem-solving process.

Another way to prioritize with a leadership team, grade level, or department is to use the SEL Competency Priority Forced Rating Scale (bit.ly/SELPriorityRating). After identifying one of the five SEL competencies to focus on, select the deconstructed skill you want to begin with (self-management, for example, includes the deconstructed skill of self-discipline). The goal in this phase is to give your team a starting point based on the needs identified.

Define mastery. Define what mastery looks like for the deconstructed skill you chose as your selected SEL competency in the “Identify” phase. For example, if you selected self-discipline, mastery might be a student who improves their logging-in-on-time percentages from 60 percent to 80 percent independently and without prompt.

In a hybrid setting, mastery of self-discipline might be students improving their task completion rates without repeated reminders or prompts. In a hybrid setting, mastery of self-discipline might be students improving their task completion rates without repeated reminders or prompts. The goal is for all staff members to understand what mastery of the particular skill looks look like and provide clarity to the skills students should be able to demonstrate as a result.

Teach. Teach the deconstructed skill from your selected SEL competency using multiple modalities (e.g., direct instruction, student-led, role-playing, wrong way/right way, collective projects, classroom meetings, scenarios, curriculum, etc.). Model, reinforce, and allow students to apply what is being taught. The goal in this phase is to make the teaching of the selected skill intentional. When the process is thought through and planned out in detail, it is much more likely to happen.

For example, teaching self-discipline to students in a virtual or hybrid setting could involve a teacher demonstrating the use of a self-monitoring tool to help students set goals, prioritize tasks, and monitor their progress. At first, the teacher may use this tool with all students on a regular basis but eventually continue using it with only those students who have not mastered their self-discipline mastery goals as an ongoing intervention.

Repeat. Assess and adjust as needed, then begin the process again based on student data and teacher needs. The goal in this phase is to reflect on the effectiveness of your efforts and either adapt, adopt, or abandon the plan based on data and commit those learnings to the next cycle.

As you go through the suggested phases as a recurring process, you’ll begin to see the positive impact on your students, view any problem behaviors as SEL skills students are lacking, and apply solutions to address the area of need. Most importantly, you will establish a culture of support for student behavior that can be sustained in any learning environment.

***

Jessica Djabrayan Hannigan is an assistant professor in the Educational Leadership Department at California State University, Fresno, and co-author of SEL From a Distance.

John Hannigan is an executive leadership coach for Fresno County Superintendent of Schools in California and co-author of SEL From a Distance.

— III. Leading Instruction —

Principal magazine infographic

Cooking Up Adults’ Capacity for SEL

A six-step recipe for success

Step 1: Measure Adult SEL

Teachers and OST instructors agreed on the importance of baking in their own SEL skills before they could promote the social, emotional, and academic learning of their students.

Key ingredients in adult SEL competence include empowering teachers’ decision-making, making consistent time for SEL instruction, modeling SEL at the administrator level, detailing what staff needs to feel safe and supported, and applying SEL practices for welcoming, optimistic staff meetings.

Serving suggestions for adult SEL that satisfies:

Be explicit about building adult SEL skills into SEL professional development.

Consider how improving the school climate should incorporate the social and emotional well-being of adults as well as students.

Step 2: Sprinkle in Hands-on Practice

Teachers know that hands-on learning works best for children, and it’s most effective for adults, too. In fact, PSELI teachers and OST staff agreed that hands-on training would help them better digest SEL lessons for immediate use with students. The vast majority asked for a sauté of professional development in SEL instruction to help differentiate learning and meet the needs of students with disabilities or cultural and linguistic differences.

Serving suggestions for zesty hands-on practice:

Model the skills PD participants are learning and provide time for hands-on practice.

Provide concrete strategies and examples for differentiating SEL curricula and practices for a diverse student body.

Step 3: Spice Up the PD Schedule

Turnover might wreak havoc on carefully designed PD schedules in which each session builds upon the previous one. OST programs, especially, often conduct repeat sessions for new staffers who are replacing those who left.

One program tackled the problem by offering repeatable “quick bites”—30-minute early-morning SEL snacks—on topics such as problem-solving or mindfulness. Another developed an eight-course SEL Academy available twice a year, while a third focused on training OST managers who seemed likely to stay longer.

Serving suggestions for nutrient-rich PD:

Establish an SEL PD calendar for the entire school year with plenty of advance notice. Indicate which sessions are mandatory and specify the topics to avoid redundancy for those who have already been trained in certain SEL subjects.

Incorporate longer SEL instruction sessions and more frequent, shorter sessions on discrete SEL concepts into the PD schedule.

Step 4: Slice and Dice Concerns

Teachers and OST staff agreed that SEL improves academics. Still, doubts linger. Many felt that other adults—parents, counselors, psychologists—should take primary responsibility for student SEL.

Persistent SEL myths range from the belief that SEL is only for students with behavioral challenges to fears that SEL eliminates consequences for misbehavior. PSELI managers dispelled these misperceptions with evidence of success from a classic cookbook: The Casel Guide to Schoolwide SEL.

Serving suggestions for tenderized concerns:

Communicate the belief of school and site leaders that supporting student SEL is foundational to each adult’s role.

In PD, explicitly discuss common concerns about SEL and its implications for managing student behavior.

Use any available local data to show the positive impact of SEL on the community.

Step 5: Whisk in Centralized PD

Some PSELI communities centralized PD through a system-level staff person or consultant. Others trained the trainer, who trained their own colleagues.

Train-the-trainer communities encountered inconsistencies across sites, and trainers felt overburdened. Some communities adopted hybrids, blending centralized PD with train-the-trainer PD for site-specific needs. Centralization was especially sweet for expert PD in specific SEL curricula, such as MindUP and Second Step.

Serving suggestion for sizzling centralized PD:

Don’t rely solely on train-the-trainer PD. Remove the full burden from site leaders, especially for SEL curricula in which content expertise is critical.

Reserve train-the-trainer strategies for differentiating climate or engaging with families.

When using train-the-trainer approaches, communicate clear expectations of site-based trainers and provide ample support.

Step 6: Ladle on the Coaching

Throughout PSELI communities, sous-chef coaches customized PD to the needs of line-cook teachers and instructors, but the recipe wasn’t foolproof. Some coaches needed more time, while some teachers and instructors were confused about the role of coaches.

PSELI communities refined the formula by catering to the needs of frontline staff. They equipped coaches to explicitly model SEL lessons, help teachers adapt lessons for students with disabilities, and provide specific feedback.

Serving suggestions for gourmet coaching:

Hire coaches with prior teaching experience in school or OST programs to promote rapport with frontline staff.

If using an SEL curriculum in school, hire coaches with SEL curriculum content knowledge.

Connect coaches directly with frontline staff to model SEL lessons through opportunities such as observations, feedback, and grade-level teacher meetings.

Write coaches’ responsibilities in a document and discuss them with everyone involved.

To download a PDF of this information in a useful, engaging infographic, visit naesp.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SELInfoGraphic_MJ21.pdf.

To download a copy of “Early Lessons From Schools and Out-of-School-Time Programs Implementing Social and Emotional Learning,” visit The Wallace Foundation at bit.ly/3qdR6zZ.

This content was brought to you in partnership with The Wallace Foundation.

— III. Leading Instruction —

Principal magazine article

Through Play-Colored Glasses

Play is a powerful tool that promotes early childhood learning and development

By Gracie Branch

I’ll never forget the excitement and trepidation I experienced upon entering my very first student teaching assignment at the University of Oklahoma Institute of Child Development. There, my knowledge of best practices in early childhood education would be realized while working with 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old students from a glass-partitioned observation booth.

In that setting, I learned how to pronounce “Piaget” correctly, that you can’t use the same manipulatives for a 2-year-old that you use for a 4-year-old—because they place them in their mouths—and that there is nothing better than seeing young children actively engaged in learning through play.

A lot of that learning fell by the wayside as students distance-learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. While most children had more unstructured leisure time, educators can’t be sure if it was spent in front of a screen—and it almost certainly wasn’t spent enjoying games and physical activity with other children. This fall, educators must not forget that this is another area of unfinished learning we’ll have to address, especially among the youngest learners.

I believe that young children have the right to learn through play. Not only does play contain valuable social and practical lessons in itself, it also helps children expend some of their energy in preparation to absorb information from more traditional lessons, and it elevates their mood. There is so much power in play, and yet it seems there is a tendency for principals to feel that it can be justified only for the early grades. Why is it so hard to accept that play is OK in an early childhood classroom?

What the Research Says About Play

Meaningful principal leadership in early childhood requires significant expertise in child development and instructional practices that support young learners, according to NAESP’s 2021 “Leading Learning Communities: A Principal’s Guide to Early Learning and the Early Grades (Pre-K–3rd Grade).”

Learning and development for young children occurs rapidly and cumulatively, continuously laying the foundation for later learning, says a 2015 study from the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council. Preschool and early elementary students are experiential learners—they learn by doing rather than figuring things out only by thinking about them. This means that shared, play-based activities with educators and peers are especially effective opportunities for learning.

According to Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8, young children learn best when the following three factors are present:

They are actively engaged through questioning and information gathering;

Domains of learning are integrated and combined with hands-on experiences; and

Curiosity and play are prioritized with direct social interactions.

Active learning and knowledge acquisition occur during play with materials, ideas, and other people. Without this understanding, many principals might hold inappropriate expectations of early childhood students, urging teachers to instruct in ways that do not successfully support children’s learning and development.

“The Power of Play,” a report released in 2018 for pediatricians, provides further evidence of the immense benefits of play. While the report delineates a pediatric role in enhancing development in young children, it provides conclusive research about how play benefits learning, peer engagement, physical growth, and health. In addition, the report offers advice on integrating play into early childhood programs and why early childhood educators might be more eager to include play in young children’s experiences due to its cognitive, social, and emotional benefits.

Developmentally appropriate play with parents and peers promotes the social-emotional, cognitive, language, and self-regulation skills that build executive function and a prosocial brain, “The Power of Play” says. In addition, play is instrumental in supporting the formation of relationships that are nurturing, safe, and stable.

Many policymakers and educators might think of play as inconsequential, but that is not the case. Play enhances brain structure and promotes executive function, allowing individuals to pursue goals and ignore distractions. In the instance of childhood adversity, play becomes even more integral to a child’s healthy development. When play and nurturing, safe, and stable relationships are missing in a child’s life, toxic stress can disrupt the development of executive function and the learning of prosocial behaviors.

The mutual joy, shared communication, and lightheartedness that parents and children can experience during play are strong regulators of the body’s stress response system, the report says. And beyond COVID, when early childhood programs might be under pressure to add more instructional components and reduce play to address learning gaps, principals should focus on a balanced curriculum that includes playful learning to promote healthy child development.

Core Concepts: Development

Learning and development for young children occurs rapidly, is experiential, and lays the foundation for later learning.

Play has multiple benefits in promoting learning, peer engagement, physical growth and health, and executive function.

A play-based learning environment features warm and welcoming classroom spaces that promote diverse learning experiences.

What Learning as Play Looks Like

An engaging, play-based learning environment begins with a school atmosphere and classroom spaces that are warm and welcoming, organized to promote diverse learning experiences for young children and focused on celebrating students’ varied cultural backgrounds. Furniture, equipment, and learning materials should provide rich, engaging, and multisensory learning opportunities for young learners.

The arrangement of the furniture and materials must maximize small-group interactions, student collaboration, problem-solving, creative play, and physical movement within the classroom—in other words, tables, not desks. A well-balanced early childhood classroom features imagination corners, block areas, and reading nooks; a diverse classroom library; safe or quiet spaces; and activity centers that emphasize the arts.

Children are naturally motivated to play. In a play-based framework, children can explore, experiment, discover, and solve problems in imaginative and playful ways. They can also expand their executive function skills by practicing information retention—remembering where the ladybug is in a memory cards game, how to collect the most sets of four in Go Fish, and what color card they need next in UNO, for example.

Games typically involve strategy: Children have an opportunity to make plans and adjust those plans in response to what happens during game play. In addition, game playing engages other critical executive function skills such as inhibition control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory. Think checkers, tic-tac-toe, or hide-and-seek; these games prompt children to develop a plan and adjust accordingly in response to the other player.

Principals can encourage teachers to provide a multitude of opportunities for students to build their executive function skills through meaningful social interactions and fun games—including activities such as Simon Says and I Spy.

The Harvard University Center on the Developing Child offers educators an array of great ideas for engaging children of different ages through play. In addition to classroom games, students can explore spatial relationships and build important motor capabilities through play.

A well-equipped, play-based classroom can supply children with exactly what they need to experience success and thrive in school. When early childhood educators provide a wealth of whole-body sensory experiences and hands-on experiences to children on a daily basis, early childhood classrooms can develop strong bodies and minds.

Play in a Pandemic

Educators will need to make a few adjustments to early childhood play in a socially distanced setting. Here are a few best practices adapted from the Council of Chief State School Officers’ 2020 “Restart & Recovery” report.

Continue to encourage play in activity centers, but reduce the number of students at each center to comply with social distancing guidelines when necessary. Offer limited materials so that clean substitutes are always available, and place manipulatives in individual baggies or tubs so each student has his or her own materials.

Introduce and practice the routine of having students wash their hands for 20 seconds or use sanitizer after entering the classroom, before rotating to their next station/center, before snacks, and before/after lunch.

Use visual cues such as tape, hula hoops, or seat mats to help students self-distance at tables, on the floor, or at an activity center. Decrease the number of chairs at round tables, but be sure to balance this reduced workspace with plenty of centers to provide additional areas of learning.

Go outside as much as possible. It’s a great time to use that outdoor classroom or garden for read-alouds and “shaking the sillies out” through gross-motor activities.

Be mindful about removing young students from the classroom for extended periods. Instead, use formative assessment strategies such as observations, anecdotal records/notes, photos, and videos to measure and record student performance information in the classroom when possible.

Keep in mind that children in quarantine—especially those in our most vulnerable populations—might experience a lack of play that can be a contributing factor in what and how much they learn. As early childhood educators, we must strive to provide classrooms and experiences in which students can learn their best.

Choose Your Lens

We have all heard the phrase “looking through rose-colored glasses” to highlight the tendency to see things in an overly optimistic and often unrealistic way. It is important for principals and early childhood educators to be cognizant of the fact that our beliefs and values play a role in our thinking in the following areas:

The type of educational environment we foster;

The way our experiences and culture help shape how we think about play; and

The way we do—or do not—nurture play as a part of our school culture and classroom settings.

In choosing your play lens, ask yourself: Do you see play as belonging only on the playground and in physical education classes, or as an essential component in children’s learning? The answer to this question will influence the choices that you make for your school, impacting your vision; your beliefs about teaching and learning; whether or not you designate areas for play; how children interact and communicate; and the materials, resources, manipulatives, and choices you make available to students.

Hopefully, you’ll decide that play is more than just OK; it is to be promoted and celebrated as a powerful developmental tool. As Jean Piaget said, “Play is the answer to how anything new comes about.”

***

Gracie Branch is NAESP’s associate executive director of professional learning.

— III. Leading Instruction —

In It to Win It: Behavioral Strategies to Win in Discipline

Only by understanding the true power of education can we ensure effective strategies to improve both learning and behavior. Discipline is more than just dealing with misconduct. It is all about inclusion, systems of support, and creating developmental relationships. Reflect, rethink, and reconsider traditional practices so that you can connect with all students and reach the most struggling students in your classrooms and schools.

Play Webinar

youtube.com/watch?v=6F45IQwjIfQ

— III. Leading Instruction —

Rethinking Leadership Behaviors—A Research-Based Approach to Improved Student Outcomes

Join our panel of principals in designing actionable outcomes that will enable you to have a greater impact on student achievement using leadership behaviors outlined in The Wallace Foundation’s new research on “How Principals Affect Students and Schools.” During this engaging experience, panelists will share key take-aways for focusing on people, instruction, and the organization that can impact student learning outcomes and enable your staff to achieve more.

Play Webinar

youtube.com/watch?v=TVIaabDJq-A

— III. Leading Instruction —

NAESP Principal Podcast

Turnaround Schools

Kimberly Miles talks being a “turnaround principal” and how she supports her school and staff’s growth

School improvement is an ongoing process, with changes both big and small. We sit down with Oregon principal Kimberly Miles to talk about how she leads through these changes. In this episode we discuss:

What it means to be a turnaround principal

How focus has shifted from before the pandemic to now

How to support teachers and help them grow in the face of high levels of stress and burnout

***

Kimberly Miles is principal of East Gresham Elementary school in Oregon. You can find her on Twitter at @afewthingsworth.

Play Podcast

Link: https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-gi2y8-11bfb32

IV. Leading the Organization

— IV. Leading the Organization —

Principal magazine article

Safe Environments for Student Success

Schools must lead crisis response through planning, preparation, and communication

By Rick J. Kaufman

Providing a safe and secure environment for students to learn and staff to work is critical to the success of any school. But creating such an environment while balancing the equally important need for a welcoming atmosphere can be a challenge.

As the pandemic spread across the country, students rode a merry-go-round of in-school and at-home isolation due to hybrid learning models and COVID outbreaks. This yearlong instability led to widespread learning losses and overwhelming emotional health issues. It also resulted in more than a year without a mass shooting incident at a school.

As the pandemic subsides in many areas and schools support students returning to classrooms, the increase in the frequency and degree of school violence is cause for alarm. School safety is once again a concern among parents, students, educators, and communities, and school leaders are expected to respond.

Crises and Consequences

School emergencies evoke thoughts of high-profile incidents such as Columbine, Sandy Hook, or Parkland, but these events remain rare. Schools are more likely to experience untimely accidental deaths or nonlethal incidents. These incidents and other disruptions might trigger emotional and psychological responses that have short- and long-term consequences.

Schools are an integral part of their neighborhoods—a microcosm of the environment in which they exist. Therefore, they are vulnerable to the issues present in the larger community. School safety, therefore, should reflect the community, its values, and the unique needs of its students.

There is a clear expectation that schools must be a safe place for learning and growth for all children, all of the time. How do schools meet those expectations? Seek first to understand what parents, staff, and stakeholders expect, and ask for their input in determining what’s best for their schools.

Climate and Culture

The most important steps a school can take to prevent violence don’t necessarily involve its physical environment, though physical aspects of safety and security should be incorporated into a comprehensive security plan. They include promoting a positive school climate and culture, teaching and modeling prosocial behaviors, and providing effective intervention when antisocial behaviors occur.

There are plenty of evidence-based violence prevention strategies to address many of the current issues, including conflict resolution programs and restorative practices. But the lack of funding and time devoted to training teachers and school staff to implement these strategies is a concern among school leaders.

Even schools that are well-suited to provide support and assistance during a crisis and in its aftermath must be equally adept at providing systems for mitigating or preventing incidents through early identification and intervention. Of critical importance are procedures for detecting the early warning signs of violence, schoolwide screening procedures, mentoring or counseling programs, and threat assessments that help school staff identify and provide support to alienated or at-risk youths.

Leadership in a Crisis

An unprecedented crisis demands unprecedented actions. Leaders serve their organizations best by sharing authority and decision-making, and welcoming broader perspectives from stakeholders.

Leaders aren’t born; they are made. They set the emotional tone and example in any crisis response. Hours after the Columbine attack, Jefferson County (Colorado) Public Schools Superintendent Jane Hammond was approached at a hastily called press conference by a community member who told her, “We need your strength.” She never forgot this and used it as motivation to model a commitment to that responsibility.

The same can be said of former Columbine High School Principal Frank DeAngelis, who led his school and community through unimaginable heartache. Hammond and DeAngelis were leaders with visionary guidance and fortitude. Here are four directives that made them stand out:

1. Be present. Lead, don’t manage. Effective leaders create a safe environment for the response team to make decisions and take risks.

2. Be visible. Show support for those affected, and inspire confidence that the school family, the district, and the community will get through the crisis.

3. Be personal. Speak from the heart throughout the crisis, and demand transparency.

4. Be connected. We’re in this together, we’ll get through it together, and each of us will need others to get through it. A true leader is one who forges a path together with his or her team.

Planning Ahead

Knowing what to do in a crisis can be the difference between chaos and calm—or life and death. As a result, knowing what to do should be part of a well-defined crisis response plan that includes clear procedures to guide staff in resolving the crisis, minimizing its negative impacts, restoring the teaching and learning environment, and intentionally addressing the social-emotional well-being of students and staff post-incident.

Crisis planning should not compete with the district’s educational mission, but support it. And effective crisis response builds on prevention and engagement. “Overcoming such impediments requires school leaders to recognize that crisis preparedness is not an option, but an imperative,” the National Association of School Psychologists says.

While most schools have well-intentioned crisis response plans, too many are incomplete, overly burdensome, or cut-and-paste documents that do little beyond collect dust on an office shelf. Many lack the best practices of the local agencies that must collaborate and cooperate in an emerging situation.

Worse, school officials might believe staff are prepared to act when a real-world incident occurs. Leaders who believe that common sense will prevail and staff will rise to the occasion are often misguided; the reality is that in high-stress, high-anxiety, high-fear events, cognitive function and manual dexterity are impacted as our brains search for the “triggers” that tell us how to react. As humans, we default to what we know and are trained to do in these incidents. If a crisis plan is a necessity, putting it into practice is an imperative. Preparation is mission-critical. When we train and practice state-required drills with fidelity, we create the cultural conditions necessary to know what to do in a real-world crisis. This is what saves lives.

Crisis Communication

If the priority in a crisis is public safety, then the top objective for crisis communication should be to prevent harm. The throes of a crisis is not the time to tell students, families, and staff what to do and how to react.

School leaders should be prepared to offer parents assurances that their child’s school is safe and that measures are in place to respond to any incident or emergency. Communication to parents and caregivers is critical to developing an understanding about what happens in school when an incident occurs: What is a lockdown? Where will students go if they need to evacuate? How do I know my child is safe?

When schools can build rapport and understanding with parents, they build credibility. Not communicating or keeping parents in the dark is a tenuous response when disaster strikes, and school leaders must be first with credible communication. To achieve this requires a robust strategy and plan that focuses on traditional communication practices and social media.

Balance is the key. School and community stakeholders receive their information from a variety of sources, so school systems should not attempt to rely on a single communications channel. The more schools engage in the use of traditional and social media at the onset of a crisis, the better positioned they are to anticipate, communicate, and regain trust during the management and recovery phases.

Crises often create information voids. Poor communication or undue delays have consequences: Stakeholders are motivated to amp up their information-seeking in order to address their own uncertainties, and the information they find might come from the ill-informed, misinformed, or persons with less-than-desirable goals. Residents expect public organizations, including school districts, to adhere to the principles of accountability by providing a thorough, transparent explanation of crisis events and response, as well as assurances that whatever caused the crisis won’t lead to more like it. Any other strategy risks long-term impacts and might delay recovery or return to normalcy.

As important as timely communication is, managing a crisis successfully is less about saying the right things and more about doing the right things. People will remember how a crisis was handled longer than the details of the incident.

The truth is, today’s schools and campuses are better prepared to prevent violence and respond to emergencies. But here’s the reality: Bad stuff happens. There is no guarantee that all schools will be violence-free, and while there are no easy solutions, there are intelligent alternatives that can reduce the risks to life and property. The one constant must be a commitment to improve and strengthen all aspects of crisis prevention, preparedness, and response and recovery planning.

***

Rick J. Kaufman is executive director of community relations and emergency management for Bloomington (Minnesota) Public Schools.

Core Concepts: Crisis Response

With in-person classes back in session, parents, students, educators, and communities are again emphasizing school safety as a priority.

Some of the best guarantors of school safety are a positive school climate and culture, the modeling of prosocial behaviors, and effective interventions for antisocial behaviors.

School leaders must establish clear procedures to guide staff in resolving a crisis, minimizing its impacts, and restoring the learning environment after an incident.

Administrators must be first with credible communication, using a variety of platforms to provide a thorough, transparent explanation of crisis events, response, and recovery.

— IV. Leading the Organization —

Principal magazine article

Taking Social Media by Storm

Principals are using online platforms in innovative new ways to connect with the school community

By Devery Rodgers

For years, school principals have used multiple social media outlets to reach stakeholders. But with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic two years ago, social media rapidly became a critical communication tool.

Social media offers valuable ways to keep people informed and connected, but it can also amplify the wrong kinds of messages or be subject to misinterpretation. Maybe that’s why principals participating in NAESP’s Leaders We Need Now study found that they could benefit from additional support in using social media for crisis and everyday communication.

The majority of the public has learned to generate, disseminate, and cull information from social media channels. But when social media is used without discretion, it can create what might be called an infodemic—too much information that too often is inaccurate, misleading, or worse.

Principals are using social listening skills to glean insights from social media conversations and promote appropriate solutions for their communities. By forging school responses to societal events, colleagues have developed effective ways to use social media to find resources, build community, and advocate for students and families.

Here are several strategies school leaders have used to support their school’s engagement with students and families:

Inform with humor. Returning to school during the initial stages of the pandemic required stakeholders to understand safety protocols. Nick Holtvluwer, principal of Mammoth Heights Elementary in Parker, Colorado, used his karaoke skills to communicate safety precautions on the school’s YouTube channel. Presenting contingency plans for school reopening to the tune of Justin Timberlake’s “I’m Bringing Sexy Back,” Holtvluwer’s “I’m Bringing Plexiglas” offered authentic content that engaged parents positively on a sensitive topic.

Similarly, Quentin Lee, principal of Childersburg High School in Childersburg, Alabama, created a YouTube parody video of MC Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This” to introduce sanitizing, masking, and social distancing concepts to students and parents. The video now has more than 6.4 million views.

Issue everyday updates. To maintain learning momentum as principal of Brodhead Elementary in Brodhead, Wisconsin, David Novy started posting to Facebook Live every morning in the early days of the pandemic. Students were treated to morning announcements, news about school events, and readings with the principal—often in character—to encourage listening literacy. This might have helped Novy get promoted to his current position of superintendent.

After the pandemic forced school closures, Michele Savage, principal of Shue-Medill Middle School in Newark, Delaware, started creating daily video announcements to replace her habit of meeting students in the school lobby. Using Snapchat filters and TikTok editing tools, she shared the videos on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram, where students commented to say good morning, shared words of encouragement, or simply posted a few emojis. Parents responded online as well, welcoming another school-to-home avenue of communication. “It’s all about that community, and how in the world you keep your community going when it’s all broken with COVID,” Savage told the Newark Post. “We’re online, and we all feel separated, so it’s like, how can we connect?”

Tools You Can Use

The following apps can help juggle the tasks related to maintaining an online presence:

TweetDeck helps schedule tweets to post at specific times.

IFTT (If This Then That) and Sprout Social allow users to post to one social media platform and have the content appear on multiple platforms simultaneously.

Since Instagram and Facebook are owned by the same company, internal settings allow users to post to both platforms simultaneously.

Use a tool such as Wakelet to curate all social media with your school mentions into one place and feed it to your school’s website.

Challenge kids to connect. When he had problems reaching students and parents through emails, phone calls, and posts through the school’s online learning platform, Harold “Butch” Ingram, principal of Glasgow High School in Newark, Delaware, moved to Instagram. Toward the end of the first pandemic spring semester, Ingram offered students an incentive, promising that if they met the previous year’s graduation rate, he would dance at the graduation ceremony. They did—and the resulting viral clip had more than 56,000 views and ended up on the local news.

Likewise, Megan McCarter, principal of Scott Elementary in Portland, Oregon, felt she couldn’t ask teachers to do more than she was willing to do to maintain connections with families during the pandemic. Thus, she donned a school-themed cape and launched a video morning message for all teachers to play for their students. She also engages students weekly through TikTok dance challenges, changing Megan Thee Stallion’s “I’m a Savage” to “I’m a Scholar” and inviting students to post their own responses. McCarter has also written original songs that her students can stream from SoundCloud.

Invite direct messages. Mariellen Taraboletti, principal of Keene Elementary School in Newark, Delaware, turned to the school’s online learning system, ClassDojo, as the most effective way to broadcast key messages. As a school that already has a strong sense of family, Taraboletti said parents like ClassDojo because they can message teachers and staff directly and view one another’s comments. “Parents know that if they send me a message, I typically will get back to them within an hour,” she told the Newark Post. “They know they’re going to get their questions answered, [and] they can reach out to the teachers very easily.”

Advocate for equity. Besides throwing virtual school rallies and hosting yoga for staff and parents, Justine Lucas, principal of PS143Q in New York City, uses her Twitter feed to promote kindness, celebrate cultural awareness, and advocate for local community causes.

And thanks in part to his coordination of social media campaigns on Twitter, Derrick Lawson, principal of Indio High School in Indio, California, was named Advocacy Champion of the Year by the National Association of Secondary School Principals. Championing students’ rights to broadband and health care, organizing food drives, and encouraging peers to contact state representatives on behalf of their school communities, Lawson became a voice that legislators listen to on multiple school matters.

Promising Practices

Other school administrators have used social media for these purposes and more during the pandemic, and what you can accomplish using communication tools such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter is limited only by your creativity. A few tips:

If you haven’t yet begun your foray into social media, try to create school accounts with the same or similar names on all major platforms.

Keep the same professional boundaries that you’d maintain with parents and students face to face. Post items for your stakeholders that would make your school board proud.

Due to student ages and maturity, communication with elementary students on public platforms should target parents and caregivers.

You might need to dedicate more creative energy to capture and keep the attention of middle school students.

Instead of declarations, use invitations. Create social media challenges to elicit response and interaction from students and families. If your audience engages with the content, it will help build an online school community.

Be a connected educator—and share others’ content. Once you decide which educators to follow, including those in your own district, repost salient content with anecdotes tying it to your school.

Post early and often—or at least stay consistent. Get in front of stories to control the narrative. Families want to hear from you directly about the issues affecting them and the school environment.

Use photos and videos to help tell your story. Visuals will help attract stakeholders’ attention and have a greater likelihood of likes and comments.

Ensure that your use of social media to engage stakeholders supplements traditional communications instead of supplanting them.

Have fun! Most of us got into our jobs to guide school policies that guarantee learning happens in a caring, enjoyable, and rewarding environment.

One last example: As a parody of Home Alone, Andrew Orefice, principal of Hawkswood School in Eatontown, New Jersey, taped himself running amok in an empty school when stay-at-home directives first went into effect, ending with this heartwarming message: “After a while, you really miss those who surround you with love and lend to your purpose.”

***

Devery “Dr. Dev” Rodgers is an assistant professor of educational leadership at California State University, Long Beach.

Core Concepts: Communication

Principals are now using social media to find resources, build community, and advocate for students and families more than ever due to the pandemic.

Humor, regular updates, and challenges have been effective in getting students and parents to engage on social media platforms.

A frequent—or at least consistent—posting schedule allows leaders to control the narrative on issues related to the school.

— IV. Leading the Organization —

Principal magazine article

Communicate Student Data Constantly

Make assessments come alive through family partnerships to bolster student success

By Stephanie Knight-Hay, Marjaneh Gilpatrick, and Tracy Vasquez

At a recent early childhood summit, the vice president of Scholastic’s Family and Community Education division shared an anecdote about a group of teachers in a high-needs elementary school. They had implemented an approach that engaged families in understanding student test scores and other data while building community among families, and the collaborative atmosphere that resulted produced a significant improvement in student achievement.

If we can conclude that helping families understand data enhances student progress, we should look at sharing everything we learn about students, including strengths, areas of opportunity, grades, and scores. In addition, we can share information about students’ preparedness and readiness to learn when they come to class as an information conduit between home and school.

To use data in the service of student success, teachers can share it on regular, planned occasions. Communication must be frequent enough for families to feel they are valued partners in their children’s educational endeavors and have a real impact on student learning. When the flow of communication is continuous, teachers and families have the opportunity to take action if a student needs extra support or more challenging learning opportunities.

Let’s explore two strategies for sharing and communicating data: direct and indirect.

Direct Sharing

Direct sharing of data is when teachers team with families to help them understand assessment measures as they relate to student learning goals. Some approaches to implement in support of this strategy are visual documentation, family-friendly rubrics, and family data nights.

Visual documentation. One way to communicate is visually. For example, why not document student progress with your smartphone camera? As you work the classroom, you might take a picture of a student working diligently on a fraction problem. Send the picture home to encourage the family to capitalize on the student’s strengths or show an opportunity for growth.

Or perhaps your class is working on a graphic organizer, and you see a particular student adding extra detail. Take a picture of the student—with permission—applying their learned skills to offer encouragement to the student and family. To capture each student’s improvement, have the students create their own online portfolios in which they can store artifacts that demonstrate their works in progress or proficient work, and share the link with their families.

Family-friendly rubrics. Make rubrics student- and family-friendly. Change the wording so families can understand how their child is assessed. For example, instead of saying that an essay is “lacking detail,” say, “This writer can elaborate on the details and include more examples.”

Rubrics can be used to communicate the “whys” of a grade. Putting them in comprehensible formats empowers families to reinforce the skills on which the teacher is focusing. For example, posting a student work sample and associated scoring rubric—with personal identifiers removed—can help students and families understand the linkage between student achievement and scoring.

Family data nights. When parents and families are invited to family curriculum or literacy nights, teach them how to interpret the data. Walk families through various data sources and student artifacts; demonstrate how to interpret scores on assessments; collaborate on setting specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound goals; and offer simple strategies to achieve those goals at home.

For example, if students need to become proficient in addition and subtraction, teachers can suggest that families include their students in reviewing weekly supermarket ads. Together, they can identify the items they need, ask the student to compare prices at two or three stores, and have them report back on the difference in cost between stores.

An orientation should cover how to access and understand data such as standardized test scores. Explaining what the data means and the “whys” behind it—in this case, progress reports—communicates the desire to make the students’ needs a top priority.

Indirect Sharing

“Indirect” sharing of data to families usually refers to opportunities to increase the students’ awareness of their progress toward learning goals. As this awareness increases, students will begin to “own” their advancement and take advantage of opportunities to demonstrate their learning—ultimately leading efforts to share data with their families. Educators can help students take on this responsibility by teaching them to self-monitor, self-reflect, and utilize student portfolios.

Self-monitoring. As students learn to appropriately self-monitor their learning goals, they will develop an intrinsic motivation to do well. Consider using a scaffolding tool such as a guided reading organizer to support students in monitoring their own reading comprehension. The ultimate goal for student learning is for students to think about their own progress, take control of it, and extend it into future achievements.

Self-reflection. Create an opportunity in your classroom schedules for students to self-reflect weekly to help them take ownership of their own learning. This might include summarizing what they have just learned or connecting it to previous experiences or lessons. Self-reflection time can heighten students’ awareness of their strengths and lead them to discover areas in which they want to improve. Ask students to share their reflections with their families, and keep a sign-off log to monitor this expectation.

Student portfolios. Having students maintain their own assessment portfolios gives them power over their learning. For teachers, implementing these portfolios can be as simple as identifying a folder and dedicating some classroom time weekly to organization. Remember to include a line for parents to sign on a monthly or weekly goal sheet for another layer of family involvement and accountability.

Gone are the days of teachers arbitrarily assigning grades to student work. Scientific approaches use rubrics and authentic assessments to strengthen lines of communication to students and families. Direct and indirect sharing of data can help educators achieve greater success in classrooms by empowering students to take ownership of their learning and celebrating their achievements with their families.

***

Stephanie Knight-Hay is a senior adjunct professor at Grand Canyon University’s College of Education.

Marjaneh Gilpatrick is chair of online and statewide academic programs at Northern Arizona University’s Online and Innovative Educational Initiatives.

Tracy Vasquez is an assistant professor and chair of professional growth and development at Grand Canyon University’s College of Education.

— IV. Leading the Organization —

NAESP Principal Podcast

Supervision and Evaluation

Tips and strategies for getting the best out of your evaluation and supervision process

Supervising and evaluating teachers effectively is crucial for school success. But too often for teachers and principals, it can feel like just a box being ticked. We sit down with Oregon educator LaKeyshua Washington to discuss how to ensure evaluation is seen and used as an opportunity for growth.

In this episode, we discuss:

The good and bad of evaluations and supervision

The difference between supervising and coaching

How to get the most out of the process

***

LaKeyshua Washington serves as director of teaching and learning-secondary in Gresham-Barlow School District in Gresham, Oregon, supporting middle and high school principals, assistant principals, and teachers in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Washington most recently served as a middle school principal in Compton, California.

Play Podcast

www.podbean.com/ew/pb-g3ycj-103d29a

— IV. Leading the Organization —

Here’s How: Leadership guidance for new principals

Master the Money

“Oh boy, time to do the budget!”

… Said hardly anyone ever. But few things matter more to your school, and few are less suitable for delegating the highest level of responsibility. Hold the budget close to your heart, say veteran principals. Master the money, and you uphold the Professional Standards for Educational Leaders directive to serve as a “responsible, ethical, and accountable steward” of your school’s precious resources.

Research Says …

A principal’s skill at organizational management, including budget and resource management, can predict higher student achievement growth, teacher satisfaction, and parent ratings of the school.

Principals who are effective instructional leaders budget and schedule with opportunities for professional learning in mind.

Source: How Principals Affect Students and Schools, The Wallace Foundation

Getting Started: What and How

Money makes the school go round. Embrace your budget can-dos, can’t-dos, and must-dos.

1. Get a printout or spreadsheet of the school budget and think about it in buckets—each devoted to different areas of spending.

2. Overlay the budget with the school improvement plan. If it’s not in the plan, it doesn’t belong in the budget.

3. Review the budget monthly with the staffer responsible for managing day-to-day finances.

4. Consult with the leadership team and staff. What do they need in programs, materials, and resources to help them achieve school improvement goals?

5. Prioritize spending on people and make that known.

6. If you are the principal of a Title I school, talk with your Federal Programs Coordinator and make sure that you know the complexities of your Title I funding/budget.

7. Schedule assessments to make sure that program and materials purchases are doing what they’re supposed to. Review data while also gauging success via classroom observations and teacher feedback.

8. Understand the extent of your spending autonomy by learning the district budget and allocation process.

9. Don’t get bogged down by the purchase of every pencil. Give department chairs their own small budgets to spend on regular supplies.

10. Windfalls such as Title I reallocations might come with a limited spending window. Spend wisely by preparing a “magic wand” list for high-quality items with long-term value.

Resources

The Principal’s Guide to School Budgeting — Richard D. Sorenson and Lloyd M. Goldsmith

District budget guidelines — Sample from the School District of Philadelphia

School Budgets 101 — American Association of School Administrators

Instructional Materials Evaluation Tool — Achieve the Core

Making Sense of Dollars and Cents — NAESP Principal

Improving Student Learning When Budgets Are Tight — Allen R. Odden

You’re the Principal! Now What? — Jen Schwanke

Money Talk: 3 Terms

Finance officers come from a different mindset. Creating relationships with the central office is a Professional Standards of Educational Leaders tenet, so begin by learning three key money-management terms.

1. ROI, or return on investment: It means “bang for the buck.” If a line item isn’t delivering, strike that spend from your budget.

2. Restricted funds: Many allocations are earmarked for specific purposes. Know them and avoid missteps.

3. Fiscal responsibility: Finance officers are doing a high-wire act of keeping the district solvent without overburdening taxpayers.

Words of Wisdom

Carpe budgeting because it’s one of your most crucial roles, say veteran educators.

“It’s a constant needs assessment of what we need in our school, what’s going to work best, and what’s going to get us to our goal to make sure that each child grows at least one grade level.”—Shanessa Fenner, principal, William T. Brown Elementary School, Spring Lake, North Carolina

“The key is not to always be doing the latest and greatest. Go back and loop on the things you did before and build on them. What do you think is the critical element? You’re sort of placing your bet, but you’re always coming back to the things that are important as a school.”—Mark McCord, director of curriculum and instruction, Columbia Falls District #6, Montana

“When you’re spending tax money, you shouldn’t be buying anything that doesn’t have a research base.” — Roseanne Lopez, consultant, Strategic Partnerships Inc.

“That partnership between buildings and district offices is the check and balance. In the area of money, there’s no room for lack of integrity.” —Jeremy Patterson, assistant superintendent, secondary curriculum, Jackson Public Schools, Michigan

“On a program we purchased, what are we getting that shows it really is positively impacting student achievement and helping us meet our goals?” — Jayne Ellsperman, school leadership development, Leading with Purpose and Impact

Keys to Success

Budgeting is your responsibility—and a team effort.

Ask questions. Know what you don’t know.

Work with PTA/PTOs and clubs on spending internal funds as intended.

These are public funds. Engage the entire school community on how to spend them.

V. Sowing Seeds of Success

— V. Sowing Seeds of Success —

Principal magazine article

How to Form Strong Networks

New principals grow in leadership by connecting with thought leaders nationally and globally

Spend 10 minutes a day surfing the globe and chatting with the world’s education innovators, and you become a better principal.

Far-fetched? Not to experienced principals who harness the power of networks to hone their skills as principals and people. Through networks, principals stock their toolboxes with the capabilities and knowledge needed for effectiveness and agility. Women, principals of color, and leaders of diverse schools find communities of empathy. All principals find peers who provide support—and challenges when they are called for.

Networks such as the NAESP Centers for Advancing Leadership link principals to experts in facilitating collaboration and learning communities, among other behaviors essential to effectiveness. Principals who discover and implement practices in fostering openness and trust grow capable at creating the consensus-building among teachers that cultivates leadership for improved student learning, as revealed in the 2021 Wallace Foundation-supported research synthesis “How Principals Affect Students and Schools.” Effectively instituting PLCs sows trust by instilling teachers with the flexibility and adaptability needed to improve student outcomes, the research finds.

Take a few tips from principals who are experienced in network participation—your fact-finding trip around the world starts now.

Networks offer ideas for effectiveness from world-class leaders: Effective leadership delivers impact across a school’s multiple dimensions, note the researchers in the Wallace-commissioned report. Academic achievement goes up. Absenteeism and exclusionary discipline go down. Teachers experience improved working conditions and reduced turnover. Veteran principals say that they learn practices for effectiveness by networking and connecting with thought leaders worldwide.

“It’s essential for school leaders to be connected nationally, and even globally, to better seek perspective, support, and ideas that they may not receive locally. We often get stuck in our own bubbles, and as strong as those around us may be, seeking outside advice offers unique perspectives.

“Our job as school leaders is spotting emerging trends. If we can see these things coming and observe how others handled them, we get an edge as we lean into the situation. Instead of being overwhelmed, we can start thinking ahead on how to handle things. By feeling prepared, we lower our stress.

“An effective network is more than just support and positive intentions. If your people really care about you, they hold you accountable and even challenge you to be your best self. If you avoid tough conversations, then you won’t grow.

“Just because you connect via social media does not mean that you have a thriving and supportive network. Try to connect in many ways. It’s all about relationships, and these are built over many moments and over time. Don’t undervalue a five-minute call to catch up. That person may have needed you in that moment more than you know. If they cross your mind, reach out.”
—Andy Jacks, Ed.D., senior fellow, NAESP Centers for Advancing Leadership, and principal, The Nokesville School in Nokesville, Virginia

Insight from leadership experts helps principals connect the dots: Principals who want to “effect positive change” in schools need skills and expertise in instruction, with people, and with organizations, according to the Wallace-supported research.

“One of the paradoxes of being a principal is that you’re in the position because people rely on you to be competent and give direction, support, and empathy. However, we can’t know everything, and we shouldn’t pretend to know everything. One of the aspects of our jobs is connecting dots. The more we can connect dots between schedules, budget, vision, servant leadership, and equity efforts, the more we’re able to do that not with answers, but with questions. Learning from a global cadre of learners has made me a better dot-connector.

“Work hard to connect not only with people who affirm and celebrate your efforts, but also people who think differently or have different backgrounds from you. Once people start to realize that you’re interested in learning and know you have blind spots, they’re more willing to help.

“I’ve learned to listen better. I’ve learned to ask better and different questions. There’s no doubt that taking conversations deeper enhances instructional leadership, whether you’re in a PLC meeting, a one-to-one meeting, or meeting with a parent.”
—Brad Gustafson, Ed.D., principal, Greenwood Elementary School, Plymouth, Minnesota

Make the Most of Professional Learning Networks: 12 Tips

Networking. Ugh. Shoehorn yourself into cocktail-hour conversations, or break into the cozy virtual chats of the multitudes following legendary educators. How is a rookie principal to make a splash?

Take a deep breath and dive in, say veteran principals. It’s a must because networks remain vital sources of the fresh ideas and moral support that nourish your leadership capabilities.

Try these 12 steps to find, engage in, and leverage networks. Pretty soon, you’ll be swimming with confidence in a sea of professional learning networks.

Find Your Networks

1. Go with the flow: Pursue your goals, but discard predefined notions. Curious about a hashtag? Follow it.

2. Don’t be intimidated: Break through your comfort zone, and reach out to those who intrigue you—even the networking superstars. Their responses open doors to relationships.

3. Stop counting: Don’t obsess about your number of followers. You’re there to learn, not to gather acolytes.

4. Avoid echo chambers: Effective networks welcome members of different cultures and strengths. If people are affirming but also nudging their peers to rethink old notions, this is the network for you.

5. Seek out veterans and newbies: Find “vertical” mentors who are old pros, and “horizontal” mentors who, like you, are new to the job but offer thought-provoking perspectives.

6. Chat away: At conferences, don’t wait for formal networking events. Strike up conversations everywhere. Reconnect with your new friends later, and you’ll engage organically with their networks.

Engage Thoughtfully

7. Start small: Share an interesting blog post or a book that’s taking your school by storm.

8. Contribute consistently: Don’t just parachute in occasionally. Regular comments help other networkers get to know you. When it’s time to seek advice or share a unique perspective, your recognizable presence generates responses.

9. Make the time: Find 10 minutes a day for scanning social networks. For in-person networking, plan ahead and lean on your professional and personal teams for backup.

10. Ask for help: It’s okay to be vulnerable and seek advice. As Andy Jacks, senior fellow for NAESP Centers for Advancing Leadership, said in a June 2021 #naespchat, “Leaned on my colleagues so much this year. No way we get through this except together!”

Put Learning Into Practice

11. Call on the team: When an idea sets your brain on fire, take it to your leadership team. If they agree, you have a crew that will row with you. If they suggest unforeseen downsides, you won’t waste time trying to make it work.

12. Keep it simple: Choose an area of focus, and consider its impact on you or your school. Absorb all angles from conversations, social media posts, and articles. Finally, reflect on possible outcomes, and you’re ready to implement an initiative with real pop.

Getting Started

Chances are, the organizations you already know offer entryways to dynamic networks:

@NAESP and #NAESPchat: Virtual and in-person networking with school leaders who share your challenges.

NAESP Centers for Advancing Leadership: Centers for Diversity Leadership, Innovative Leadership, Middle-Level Leadership, and Women in Leadership equip principals to devise targeted strategies.

BOLD Leadership: For Black male educational leaders and allies committed to elevating leadership practices.

edWeb: Professional learning on how to sharpen skills—your own and those of your teachers.

The Principals’ Network, Harvard Graduate School of Education: Online professional learning network for K-12 school leaders.

The Principal’s Desk: Facebook space for information on educational leadership, tech, innovation, curriculum, assessment, research, and comparing notes on daily dilemmas.

National Alliance of Black School Educators (@NABSE_org): Conferences, Facebook discussions, and resources to improve the educational experiences and accomplishments of Black students.

CASEL: A pandemic-era must—summits, webinars, and resources to build knowledge and capacity for strengthening social and emotional learning competencies.

Apply a strategic but open-minded approach to networking, and before long, you’ll be privy to a wealth of new ideas, new leadership practices, and new friends ready to share your challenges and cheer your successes!

Networking cultivates an inclusiveness perspective: Principals who build an equity lens to scrutinize practices for their impact on diverse students and staff can make schools more inclusive and instruction more culturally responsive, say the researchers.

“The principalship can often be lonely. Principal networks give a leader an umbrella of support and resources. As a woman of color leading a diverse school community, my networks and professional learning communities have given me encouragement through challenges and motivation when the work seems unbearable.

“The signs of an active and productive network are consistent communication among the members and dissemination of current best practices and strategies. A productive network also includes leaders and voices from various backgrounds and communities. The best way to find the right networks to join is to do your research, solicit recommendations, and determine what you are hoping to gain.

“As a new principal, you don’t know what you don’t know! When a new principal is a part of an active and productive professional network, it enables them to strengthen their leadership skills in areas they are still developing. Collaborating with leaders who have had more experience in coaching teachers and impacting climate and culture enables new principals to learn from and gather best practices that they can utilize.”
—Ryan Daniel, NAESP Center for Diversity Leadership fellow and principal, Fort Foote Elementary School, Fort Washington, Maryland

Diverse school leaders find support: Even as principals are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, growing representation gaps with students are a concern. Demographic diversity among principals is linked with better outcomes for students of color, including test score gains, and nonachievement outcomes, such as the likelihood of receiving gifted services, according to the researchers. Outcomes for teachers of color are better, too, with a higher likelihood of being hired and staying.

“The benefits that a new principal can receive from being in active principal networks are practical, common-sense knowledge, a focused direction, and hopefully, a safe place to vent when needed.

“As a second-year African American principal, one of the most enlightening and rewarding experiences of my career thus far has been being part of an affinity group for African American male administrators called BOLD Leadership (boldleadershipconsultants.com). Being able to brainstorm ideas or ask veteran administrators questions about situations that I encounter has been invaluable.

“The men in BOLD Leadership are minorities not just in race but in gender. For me, [it] has been critical to have a safe space to share with other school leaders who look like me in a field where, according to the Stanford Graduate School of Education, only 2 percent of America’s teachers are Black men.

“Choose an area to focus on, and [decide] how you want that area to be impactful. Then incorporate ideas generated from conversations, social media posts, magazine articles, or anywhere else into your best practices. Sticking to one area and then reflecting on how these practices worked or did not work, it will help prevent being overwhelmed with information overload.”
—Farrell Thomas, principal, Waterloo Elementary School, Greenville, South Carolina

***

— V. Sowing Seeds of Success —

Strategies, Ideas, and Lessons for Early Career Principals to Be Successful

Learning curves for early career principals in a pandemic era environment can be steep. Join our panel of speakers as we discuss effective strategies, ideas, and lessons for principals to survive and be successful in their early years.

Play Webinar

Link: youtube.com/watch?v=rqR4966D3r4