This article describes a professional learning plan created in the Fort Wayne Community Schools (Indiana, USA) for principals working and learning together on the RISE Indiana Teacher Effectiveness Rubric. This training plan ensures that principals are observing instructional practice in the same way and in agreement with the district's instrument…

A web-enabled computer simulation program presents real-world opportunities, problems, and challenges for aspiring principals. The simulation challenges areas that are not always covered in lectures, textbooks, or workshops. For example, using the simulation requires dealing--on-screen and in real time--with demanding parents, observing…

This article describes a novel effort in New York City, the Learning Partners Program, which matches veteran principals with two or more newer ones. In 2014-15, the first full year of the effort, the city's Department of Education put 73 of the city's more than 1,800 schools into 23 groups of threes and one group of four. Every group comprised one…

Being a principal was the most demanding job the author ever had. He worked hard, mostly in isolation. Like most principals, he struggled to manage the position's political and bureaucratic necessities in order to concentrate on what he thought was the fundamental work of schools: teaching and learning. He struggled to continue to learn and grow…

Educators and policy makers have placed leadership development at the top of the school reform agenda, believing that aspiring and new school leaders can learn the necessary skills to improve the most challenging schools. Leadership development builds the capacity of educators (teachers and administrators) to be effective in leadership roles or…

Findings are reported from a series of studies of staff development coordinators, principals, and superintendents carried out in Georgia. The staff development needs of the three groups are identified, ranked, and compared. Implications for staff developers are proposed. (IAH)

This article describes principals' centers and the principals' center movement, identifying key issues raised by them. Future directions and persistent questions for the principals' center movement are developed. (MT)

The Metropolitan Principals' Academy was formed in 1984 by eight suburban school districts in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in order to help administrators become more effective. The academy is described, and the research-based model of leadership which guides it is examined. (MT)

The Akron Public Schools conduct three interrelated programs for principals to ensure school improvement. They are Administrative Supervision Workshops, /I/D/E/A/ Principals Inservice Program, and Operation Curriculum for School Improvement. The programs, and how they overlap, are described. (MT)

"Even Champions Have Coaches" is a North Carolina program begun under the assumption that preparing principals as trainer/coaches for their peers would allow them to understand how change occurs in schools and increase the probability of successful implementation of state educational initiatives. (MT)

Staff developers need to recognize management practices that interfere with the establishment of conditions necessary for professional growth, then seek alternative to those practices. The article describes 13 management myths and presents alternative actions that encourage viewing the school as a community of leaders. (SM)

This article describes the complex nature of the principal's job and discusses four programs that help principals acquire the skills needed to be successful. These programs are (1) Peer Assisted Leadership (PAL); (2) Cognitive Coaching; (3) Developmental Supervision; and (4) Differentiated Supervision. (MT)

Of all the educators and administrators who affect the success and quality of a school, school principals are the most important. Modeled after teacher centers, the primary purpose of the principals' center would be to stimulate professional growth and effective administrative practices. (JN)

In Dade County (Florida) the Executive Training Program and its Educational Leadership Appraisal seminar help aspiring and practicing educational leaders develop reflection, self-analysis, and growth. Participants learn to view the work setting as an arena for their own growth and a place to perform the work of helping others grow. (SM)

Discusses promising professional development strategies for schools seeking to operate as learning communities. Recent shifts in conceptions of schools and implications of these shifts for school leadership are explored, and the principles of professional development are discussed which are then connected to recommendations for staff developers.…