Navigating the Principalship

Key Insights for New and Aspiring School Leaders

James P. Spillane, Rebecca Lowenhaupt

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781416627715
• eBook ISBN: 9781416627746
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Leadership in Education

In Navigating the Principalship, James P. Spillane and Rebecca Lowenhaupt look at the major challenges of the principal position, examining how new principals adapt to the role, set an instructional agenda, and build cooperation and collaboration. They focus in particular on the dilemmas that mark the principalship—the inevitable, complicated conflicts that arise from a clash of worthwhile values and resist simple solutions, such as - Addressing the demands of various internal and external stakeholders
- Accomplishing seemingly limitless tasks in limited time
- Sharing leadership duties while maintaining ultimate responsibility for the school and everyone in it
- Creating a safe space for teaching and learning while building bridges to the outside world
- Balancing work life and home life

Based on original research conducted with new principals in an urban environment, and rich with authentic voices discussing real conflicts and proven strategies, this book presents pragmatic ways to manage the most difficult parts of the job. Use it to spark both reflection and action and chart a course for effective, rewarding school leadership.

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Chapter 1

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Stepping into the Principal's Office

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All kinds of people become principals. Some bring a decade or two of classroom teaching experience to their new principal position, while others come with just a handful of years. Some are seasoned administrators who have spent a decade or more in various school leadership positions, while others are novices in the world of school administration. Some enter schools they know little about, while others assume the principal position in schools where they have worked for years and know inside out.

Some actively pursue the principal position. Others were coaxed into it by colleagues and family members. Kathy, a 40-something Caucasian mother of three, is an example of the latter. She never imagined she would become a principal, despite having grown up in a family of teachers and principals. As Kathy put it, "The day I graduated from college, my grandmother said to me, 'I know you'll be a principal someday.' And I thought, 'Oh, never!'" When Kathy was a teacher, colleagues encouraged her to pursue a leadership career. The first principal she worked for pushed her to get her administrator license and then supported her internship. Finally, after more than 20 years as an educator and a stint as an assistant principal (AP), Kathy stepped into the position.

Whether those who become principals actively pursue it or were encouraged by others, as Kathy was, they tend to share two common motivators: a desire for personal fulfillment and a sense of social obligation.

Personal Fulfillment

Alejandro described his path to the principal's office as a series of professional moves in an ongoing search for more challenging work. "Growing up as a kid, I never wanted to be a teacher," Alejandro recalled. Nonetheless, he valued the six or seven years he spent in the classroom. "I really enjoyed myself teaching," Alejandro explained. "Then I started to lose a little desire. It was not so much that I didn't enjoy the kids; [teaching] just wasn't as challenging for me." Taking the assistant principal position in the school where he taught offered Alejandro new opportunities for growth. However, after a few more years, and although he liked that work too, he began to feel dissatisfied all over again. Seeking new challenges that would stimulate him and help him grow, Alejandro took his first principal position at Hoptree Elementary.

Located outside Chicago's city center, Hoptree serves several hundred students in grades pre-K through 6. Nearly all of these students receive free or reduced-price lunches. Most students at the school identify as Hispanic,¹ and almost half of the student body has been identified as English language learners. The neighborhood where Hoptree is located has long been a home to immigrants. European immigrants flocked there in the late 1800s, and a century later, Hispanic immigrants, along with some eastern Europeans, began to move in. Over the first decade of the 21st century, the neighborhood became primarily Hispanic.

Alejandro, a Hispanic man in his 30s, was born and raised in Chicago and spent the first part of his career as a teacher and assistant principal in the district. Shifting neighborhood demographics, entrenched divisions among staff, and the school district's decision to put Hoptree on probation due to poor student performance on state tests meant that as a new principal, Alejandro was facing many challenges. He knew the school district had high expectations for him, and he welcomed that. As he put it, "If I'm not making a difference here—not just based on [the district's] standards but on my standards too—then I shouldn't be here. Quite honestly, I should do something else."

Although Alejandro did not see his new position simply as a stepping-stone, he suspected it would not be his career finale, either. He expressed interest in serving as a district administrator someday, perhaps an associate superintendent with responsibility for curriculum and instruction, as that would allow him to have a broader impact on more than one school. Alejandro explained that, for him, the bottom line was having challenging work. "I want to be here as long as I feel challenged," Alejandro explained, "but I'm open to going on to a different challenge—not in any set time period, but when the opportunity arises."

For educators like Alejandro, becoming a principal is the logical next step once the work of assistant principal no longer provides sufficient challenge. It is a way to find stimulation and keep growing professionally and personally. Oscar, a new principal at Tulip Elementary, voiced a similar enthusiasm for learning, and this commitment figured prominently in his pursuit of the principal's office. A Hispanic man in his mid-40s, Oscar had spent two decades as an educator, 10 of them as a classroom teacher, when he realized he was ready for a new challenge. "I was looking for an opportunity" Oscar explained. "I had been an AP for six years already. I felt [becoming a principal] was my next step; there was nothing else for me to learn."

A few weeks before he began his first year as principal at Tulip, Oscar shared,

I've always been the person who likes challenges and likes to keep progressing and learning new things. Right now, I feel that I'm there, I'm learning some things that I didn't know. I feel that when I was an AP, I got to a certain limit. But now, as a principal, there are a lot of new issues for me to learn about, and I like learning.

Social Obligation

It's common for educators to step into the principal position because they are seeking opportunities for professional growth and self-actualization. But intertwined with this somewhat individualistic and personal focus is a sense of social or moral obligation—to society in general, and to its more vulnerable members in particular.

Oscar took his first principal position at Tulip, a large elementary school serving a high percentage of Hispanic students. After working as a teacher and administrator for over a decade, being principal at Tulip helped address Oscar's thirst for new challenges. At the same time, he purposefully sought out a school in a Hispanic community where he might become a community leader and a role model. "There were very few models up there for students, and we have a large population of Hispanics," Oscar explained. "I think it is important that our students see some people who are like them in leadership positions. That was something that motivated me to become a principal." For him, the principal position offered the possibility for both personal fulfillment and social service—motivations that are closely intertwined for him.

Kathy's first principal position was at Nyssa Elementary, a small magnet school on Chicago's North Side that serves a diverse student population drawn from neighborhoods across the city. She had worked there for numerous years as an assistant principal before making the move to the principal's office. She, too, was motivated by a sense of social obligation. As Kathy put it, "We are present for the kids and for their families. My vision is that we provide resources and provide support for our children who are going through difficult times, and their families as well." For Kathy, becoming a principal was about obligation, a desire to help others who are less fortunate.² Serving Nyssa's students was her first obligation, but she was also committed to helping families.

A sense of responsibility for and obligation to others was also central to Nelson's decision to be a principal. A 30-something African American who was himself a graduate of the school district, Nelson wanted to work in one of the lowest-performing schools to fulfill this sense of obligation to serve others. He explained, "I want to feel like I'm being of use. It's how I get motivated, because students are behind their potential. That's the only way I could get really, really motivated about it." A former football player, Nelson started his education career as a teacher and coach. Through coaching, he recognized his talent for motivating and influencing others and decided to pursue a career in leadership. "I'm a people person," Nelson explained, "and, as I go back over my coaching, I guess I was a player's coach. My players would always want to run through a brick wall for me."

After stints as an assistant principal, Nelson was confident that he was ready for his first principalship at Birch, a large, low-performing elementary school with a primarily African American student population. Birch was the sort of school Nelson had been searching for, one where he could fulfill his sense of social obligation. He explained that he had been raised by parents who provided regular access to parks, museums, and a host of other out-of-school activities. Compared to his own experiences, Birch's students seemed to have very little. The chance to create opportunities for them that they had been denied by virtue of circumstance was a prime motivator for Nelson. As he put it, "It's really on me. I get to get out there and do what I feel needs to be done."³

Becoming a principal is a way for many educators to continue working directly with children and deepen the commitment to service that drew them to the profession in the first place. Alejandro explained that becoming a principal was a way to have a bigger impact while still being able to work directly with students. "As a young teacher, I figured I could save the world," Nelson remembered. He explained, "I have to be able to help kids, and that's what keeps me going—seeing the look on their faces when they're learning and knowing that I had a lot to do with that." Kathy described a similar commitment and a similar sense of reward. "Being the daughter of a teacher, I grew up surrounded by teachers, and I'm very, very comfortable in this environment," she said. "I spent a year at central office about 10 or 11 years ago, and I hated that. I hated working in a cubicle. I will always be with kids. It's the best part of this job. I can't ever imagine moving beyond the school level to do something that didn't involve kids."

Challenging Circumstances

Becoming a principal offers plenty of opportunities for educators seeking new challenges—and this is often especially the case for those who choose to work in an urban environment. While today's classrooms may look similar in many respects to classrooms 100 years ago, the circumstances in which schools operate have changed in several important respects. Significantly, over the past quarter century or so, state and federal policies have reshaped the circumstances in which teachers and school administrators work.⁴ Standards and high-stakes accountability tied to student assessment results have become staples in the daily work of both teachers and administrators. Policymakers and the public writ large hold schools accountable based on their performance on a few key metrics—chief among them student achievement and attendance. The charter school movement has introduced an additional element of competition. Principals must navigate these changing and challenging circumstances as they transition into their new role.

Performance Metrics

Just prior to Nelson's first school year as principal, the district informed Birch that student and teacher attendance rates, test scores, and graduation rates all needed to increase. Nelson took the job knowing that these measures would be the means through which he would ultimately prove his value to district administrators. Metrics were also a core concern for Kathy, even though she became principal at a relatively high-performing school under no threat of district probation. As she explained at the time, "The district expects me to take the school to the next level. They expect the reading scores to be higher."

Government policies increasingly hold school principals and their staff accountable for their performance, usually on a handful of performance metrics. Most principals are well aware of the need to attend to performance metrics. While student achievement in core school subjects tends to be their chief concern, they also focus on two other metrics: student attendance and teacher attendance. Although some feel pressure to raise scores primarily from the district and sometimes the state, others also feel accountable to communities, parents, and themselves. Regardless of where the pressure comes from, principals feel a sense of urgency about getting the scores up. Principals who work in particularly challenging circumstances can feel helpless. Nelson reported feeling like it would take a miracle to improve the performance metrics at his school, comparing his situation to "being on the Titanic and we're heading toward the iceberg. I'm spinning the wheel and trying to keep us from hitting it."

Principals may be aware of the limitations of mandated performance metrics, but they know they cannot ignore them. Most are of two minds about these measures of and guideposts for academic development. For example, although Oscar recognized the use of student test scores in driving improvement and as an indicator of progress, he lamented the heavy focus on them. "We're creating human beings. They need to be prepared and to be given exposure to the arts, the humanities, and all that," Oscar said. "Sometimes we just have to focus so much on making sure that we have the scores for reading and math that we limit students' exposure to other things."

When he took the principal position at Tulip Elementary, Oscar promised himself that once students' scores in the core tested school subjects improved, he would expand the curriculum so that students could experience a broader array of subjects—ones he believed to be essential for cultivating "good human beings, good citizens." Of course, Oscar's ambitions depended on more than just the efforts of Tulip's staff and would take time. A principal who tables a proposed action until after certain performance metrics are met might find it takes years to hit those marks, long after the current students have moved on. Yet faced with the very real accountability pressures of testing, Oscar and other principals who are similarly motivated by social obligation maintain their commitment to do more than just teach to the test; they strive to fulfill a duty to care for students in a more holistic way.

Competition

Today's principals cannot take student enrollments for granted. Competition from charter, magnet, and private schools means principals must ensure families opt for their school and are satisfied with the services it provides. In some respects, this increases the sense of urgency surrounding improvement on performance metrics, but it also means acknowledging that families are often looking at much more than student achievement data when selecting a school. Oscar explained, "You want to have a place where parents and children want to be." Principals like Oscar know that the competition for students requires considering factors beyond how well the school does in terms of the handful of metrics that district administrators use to evaluate a school. Parents have a broader repertoire of things they consider in choosing a school for their children, such as school culture and community.

As a principal in a high-achieving magnet school that has a high profile with the public at large, Kathy definitely felt the press of competition. Because parents actively opt to send their children to Nyssa, they constantly challenged Kathy to provide particular services tailored for their children. And then there are parents who have the means to be demanding in all aspects of society, so they feel that they should be able to be demanding in school too. Some parents expected Kathy to have her staff tutor their children one on one after school to ensure the children's competitiveness in the high school placement process. For principals like Kathy, competition also comes from outside the system—from neighboring charter schools, private schools, and the threat of school closure. It's not uncommon to lose children to nearby competitor schools that are not necessarily any better in terms of student performance but have "great marketing." Principals must manage these complex competing pressures if they are to maintain and grow enrollments.

Policy Churn

While standards, high-stakes accountability tied to student assessment, and competition may be staples in the policy environment, instability is everywhere. Policy churn is a constant, with district and state policymakers regularly changing their minds and enacting new policies and regulations on everything from evaluating teacher performance to budgeting. In part, this is because policymakers are always trying to figure out how best to incentivize and support instructional improvement. It also reflects the reality that district administrative regimes are striving to make their mark.

As one principal described it, keeping up with constant changes in the policy environment feels like "surfing without a surfboard." Responsible for compliance with a vast array of demands, principals must learn about and work with teachers to implement new testing policies, curriculum standards, teacher evaluation approaches, and other reforms on an ongoing basis. And often, once they learn how to address one set of policy requirements, the requirements change. Being a principal means adapting constantly.

Growing Poverty

Circumstances...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. Stepping into the Principal’s Office
• Chapter 2. Bearing Responsibility
• Chapter 3. Diverse Stakeholders
• Chapter 4. Managing Tasks and Time
• Chapter 5. Cooperation and Coordination
• Chapter 6. Sharing Leadership
• Chapter 7. Creating a Safe Space
• A Final Word
• Appendix: Study Methods
• References
• About the Authors
• Related ASCD Resources
• Copyright