The best leaders use multiple frames or lenses to view common challenges and to solve their most difficult problems. This book contains a series of dialogs between a novice and a master teacher, and between a new and a seasoned principal as they demonstrate how framing and reframing challenges can bring clarity, help to anticipate problems, and…

Concerned about improving beginning principals' professional development, the Minnesota Administrators' Academy initiated an administrative mentoring program in the early 1990s. A recent evaluation found that successful mentoring relationships involved mutually respectful pairs that met at least monthly and participated in various activities…

Careful planning can help principals manage two schools without eroding their sanity. Two-school principals should use color-coding to keep meetings straight, devise a work schedule that accommodates both schools, develop a workable off-campus communication system, eat lunch with students, and create a card-and-candy student-recognition system.…

New principals need a game plan for an orderly transition. This article outlines a plan organized by seven significant areas of school leadership: administration, curriculum and instruction, professional development and supervision, staffing, student issues, student activities, and communication with important school constituencies. Being…

Elements of California's Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment Program, which provides new teachers with one-on-one mentoring and professional support in their first two years of practice, are being applied to UC Santa Cruz's pilot project for beginning principals. Principals need intensive coaching and support when assuming their duties. (MLH)

Supervising administrative interns for university credit can be challenging unless principals understand their role is critical, make work plans, establish an evaluation form, explain interns' role to staff, involve interns, explain decisions, provide frequent feedback, discuss interpersonal skills, create supportive conditions, and help interns…

Uses a model of job change gains and losses to underpin research on new (British) headteachers and deputies, examining gains and losses accompanying the deputy-to-headteacher transition, the degree these were anticipated, and seriousness of their effects. Many of the 87 deputies were deterred by headship burdens; 37 new, well-prepared principals…

Purpose: The paper aims to provide insights into the work of beginning principals in their first year through the experiences of one beginning principal during his first year in post. Design/methodology/approach: In order to illuminate the problems of beginning principals the paper sets out to answer the personal question: "What can I say…

This text offers guidelines, checklists, advice from other principals, and reflections intended to make a principal's day on the job run more smoothly. Several themes are stressed throughout the book: school administration as a human-relations enterprise; increasing awareness of the principal's socialization process; the leader as a lifelong…

This study identifies the factors leading to the socialization of new principals. The study examined the identification of new principals, the socialization or learning processes that lead to the principal's professional development, the extent to which other principals (peers) play a part in that socialization, the extent to which the selection…

This study examined the impact of external influences on beginning headteachers in England. A self-administered questionnaire was mailed to 50 beginning headteachers who started their positions in September 2000. The research was part of a larger study on the experiences of beginning headteachers and principals in several countries. This paper…

Most administrator training programs focus on what educational leaders should do rather than what they should not do. To help administrators in their roles, an overview of mistakes to avoid is offered in this ERIC digest in Spanish. The emphasis on the negative stems from the belief that undesirable behaviors are far fewer than desirable ones. The…

Mentorship programs are a promising approach to the professional development needs of new principals. The Southeastern Regional Principals' Academy provides professional development and collegial support for early-career principals in the primarily rural schools of southeast Ohio. For its 1999-2001 pilot program, 19 principals were organized into…

Results of a survey examining Missouri superintendents' perceptions of successful beginning principals, based on ratings on six Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium standards, were compared with another study rating unsuccessful Indiana principals by the same standards. School culture, instructional program, and management are essential…

In a study investigating principals' career life cycles, five urban secondary principals were interviewed. When analyzing interviewees' perceptions of their leadership, different role perceptions emerged that appeared to be influenced by length of time in service. Experience may lead to a lessening of creative tension via intrusion of current…