Crash Course for New Lead Evaluators

Several districts have had personnel changes during the middle of the year which has prompted the need for emergency Lead Evaluator Training.  To meet this need, we’ve scheduled a special two-day, intensive course for February 25th and 26th.  Here’s the registration link.

New Standards for Principals

Although not yet adopted for use by New York State, the ISLLC 2008 Standards have been replaced by a new set of standards: Professional Standards for Educational Leaders 2015. The new standards reflect interdependent domains, qualities and values of leadership that work together to describe an effective instructional leader:

• Develop, advocate, and enact a shared mission, vision, and core values of high-quality education and academic success and well-being of each student.
• Act ethically and according to professional norms to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.
• Strive for equity of educational opportunity and culturally responsive practices to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.
• Develop and support intellectually rigorous and coherent systems of curriculum, instruction, and assessment to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.
• Cultivate an inclusive, caring, and supportive school community that promotes the academic success and well-being of each student.
• Develop the professional capacity and practice of school personnel to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.
• Foster a professional community of teachers and other professional staff to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.
• Engage families and the community in meaningful, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial ways to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.
• Manage school operations and resources to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.
• Act as agents of continuous improvement to promote each student’s academic success and well-being. (Professional Standards for Educational Leaders 2015)

Right from the start you will notice that there are more standards (ten instead of six). As you look them over, you might agree that they are an improvement over the old set of six that were sometimes a little clumsy when it came to guiding (and evaluating) principals. And, of course, the old ISLLC Standard Six was a bear! These ten are more straightforward. Whether they are adopted by New York remains unclear. So much of APPR is now suddenly unsettled that these standards might not be taken up any time soon.

Leadership Dispositions

Accompanying the new standards for principals and other educational leaders is a list of the dispositions of leaders. These are probably the right dispositions for all educators:

• Growth-oriented: Transformational education leaders believe that students, education professionals, educational organizations and the community can continuously grow and improve to realize a shared vision for student success through dedication and hard work.
• Collaborative: Transformational education leaders share the responsibility and the work for realizing a shared vision of student success.
• Innovative: Transformational education leaders break from established ways of doing things to pursue fundamentally new and more effective approaches when needed.
• Analytical: Transformational education leaders gather evidence and engage in rigorous data analysis to develop, manage, refine and evaluate new and more effective approaches.
• Ethical: Transformational education leaders explicitly and consciously follow laws, policies, and principles of right and wrong in everything they do.
• Perseverant: Transformational education leaders are courageous and persevere in doing what is best for students even when challenged by fear, risk and doubt.
• Reflective: Transformational education leaders re-examine their practices and dispositions habitually in order to develop the “wisdom of practice” needed to succeed in pursuing new and more effective approaches.
• Equity-minded: Transformational education leaders ensure that all students are treated fairly, equitably, and have access to excellent teachers and necessary resources.
• Systems-focused: Transformational education leaders are committed to developing systems and solutions that are sustainable and effective district-wide and that generate equitable outcomes for all schools and stakeholders.

Standards for Supervising Principals, Too

In addition to the new standards for principals and other educational leaders, we now have standards for principal supervisors: Model Principal Supervisor Professional Standards 2015. If we want principals to be instructional leaders, in addition to effective managers, we have to supervise and coach them differently. These standards describe that:

• Principal Supervisors dedicate their time to helping principals grow as instructional leaders.
• Principal Supervisors coach and support individual principals and engage in effective professional learning strategies to help principals grow as instructional leaders.
• Principal Supervisors use evidence of principals’ effectiveness to determine necessary improvements in principals’ practice to foster a positive educational environment that supports the diverse cultural and learning needs of students.
• Principal Supervisors engage principals in the formal district principal evaluation process in ways that help them grow as instructional leaders.
• Principal Supervisors advocate for and inform the coherence of organizational vision, policies and strategies to support schools and student learning.
• Principal Supervisors assist the district in ensuring the community of schools with which they engage are culturally/socially responsive and have equitable access to resources necessary for the success of each student.
• Principal Supervisors engage in their own development and continuous improvement to help principals grow as instructional leaders.
• Principal Supervisors lead strategic change that continuously elevates the performance of schools and sustains high-quality educational programs and opportunities across the district.

The attention that is being paid to the supervision of principals is a signal of the importance of effective principals. In fact, the principal has a greater influence on student learning in a school than anyone else. Few superintendents or other principal supervisors have had training in principal supervision, other than what is now required by 3012-c and 3012-d. These standards can be used in that training.