Traditionally, the principal supervisor role has focused on administrative tasks. But principals need more support from their supervisors to improve teaching and learning and carry out an increasingly complex job.
From 2014-2019, six large urban school districts embarked on a four-year, $24-million initiative to redesign the principal supervisor position. The idea was to see if the supervisor's job could be a means to cultivating principals' skills in boosting teaching and learning in their schools.
The districts made structural changes to support the principal supervisor role. Some actions they took include:
- Reducing the number of principals their supervisors oversaw from an average of 17 to 13
- Training principal supervisors to recognize high-quality instruction
- Coaching on specifics like how to give feedback to principals
- Planning to organize the central office to better support supervisors
The districts faced some challenges in carrying out this work, including budget shortfalls and district leadership turnover. These factors made sustaining change more difficult.
Overall, the initiative was successful in changing the principal supervisor role to one that focused on providing support and guidance to schools and principals. Principals’ perceptions of their supervisors’ effectiveness improved over the course of the initiative, and changes districts made during the initiative led to a shared understanding of the principal supervisor role and equipped principal supervisors to better support principals.
For more information on the Principal Supervisor Initiative, see the full series of reports.
