Imagine a professional basketball team stacked with talented players and led by a respected, capable head coach. On the surface, it looks like the ingredients for a winning season are all there. And truthfully, with that kind of talent and leadership on the court, the team might even string together some impressive wins. But behind the scenes, the story is very different.
The front office—the engine that’s supposed to support the team and power the organization—is dysfunctional. There’s no clear vision, decisions are inconsistent, and support systems are fragmented. Despite the skill on the court, this dysfunction at the top quietly erodes the team’s foundation.
The team struggles to recruit new talent, and retaining key players becomes increasingly difficult. Promising strategies never fully materialize because the infrastructure needed to sustain them is weak or nonexistent. Resources are delayed or mismanaged, and the synergy required to build something lasting never quite clicks. While the team may enjoy brief flashes of success, it will never reach its full potential—not because of a lack of talent or leadership on the floor, but because the systems meant to support them were never built to win.
A school can face similar challenges without adequate support from its district central office—the educational version of a sports team’s front office. An effective central office is able to help identify, develop, and support school leaders; provide necessary resources; and put the school in position to win for the students they serve.
A school can face similar challenges without adequate support from its district central office—the educational version of a sports team’s front office.
Strong school principals, like sports team coaches, are necessary for team success. They do everything from providing instructional leadership to establishing a positive school climate to supporting and training teachers. In fact, research shows that the impact a principal’s work has on student outcomes is even greater than previously thought.
Principals shouldn’t have to do this work alone. District leadership can help ensure that an effective principal leads every school by prioritizing principal support and development. But who in the central office can help principals thrive and grow in their roles for the long haul?
Enter the Principal Supervisor
Principal supervisors lead the charge on principal support and development. They are the essential coaches and mentors who bridge the gap between schools and the central office. Their role is to cultivate principal growth and proficiency to enhance teacher performance and student outcomes. A supervisor’s support should be focused, intentional, and timely.
The central office must be designed to support principal supervisors and nimble enough to adapt to schools' daily needs. While it is possible for a school to achieve good results in the absence of a high-performing central office, schools and the school district as a whole are more likely to reach truly transformative results if principals receive strong, coherent support from principal supervisors and the district.
A district should be crystal clear on how it positions principal supervisors to best support and lead principals. Those that codify the principal supervisor as the point person for principal support and development can create a system that is aligned on how to grow, retain, and coach its school leaders.
The Line of Accountability
In order to have a winning team, everyone’s role in a school system must lead to student success. However, some roles have a more direct hand in student results than others. Teachers, for example, are on the hook every day for their students’ work, growth, and skill development. Beyond that, a district should have a clear “line of accountability,” so that everyone can understand their relationship to the school’s and district’s goals for students.
The line of accountability clarifies who is directly accountable for student learning. In the following graphic the superintendent has ultimate accountability for student learning and there is a direct line of accountability from the superintendent to the student. Those in this direct line are accountable for student learning, everyone else’s role is to support those in the line of accountability.
For example, the head of human resources is not directly accountable for student success. But that role is charged with supporting the leaders in the line of accountability by providing pools of candidates for open positions, developing protocols for interviewing and hiring, and handling the onboarding process for new employees who may be in the direct line of accountability for student success.
While all central office staff contribute to the overarching goal of student success, direct accountability for student outcomes rests primarily with those situated within the formal line of accountability. Among these individuals, principal supervisors occupy a critical role. Positioned to directly influence principal practice, they serve as a pivotal link between district leadership and school-level execution.
Principal supervisors are uniquely situated in the district hierarchy as they maintain closer proximity to the schools under their purview than any other central office personnel. This closeness affords them a deep, often nuanced, understanding of the schools and communities they support. Their regular engagement with school leaders enables them to develop insight into the specific needs, challenges, and assets of each campus. Moreover, in many districts, principal supervisors are also responsible for the formal evaluation of principals, further underscoring their integral role in ensuring leadership effectiveness and, by extension, student achievement.
Ongoing Support
Once a district has a clear line of accountability for student success, the central office is poised to provide support to leaders in the line. Based on our experience, the following is a set of district practices that leverage the clear line of accountability and provide a strong foundation for supporting school leaders:
- Position principals as the primary lever of change Many central offices try to improve student learning without including principals in these efforts. They design policies and create (or purchase) programs to improve student learning with little regard for principals and the impact school leadership has on student achievement. These policies and programs may then fail to achieve the desired increase in student outcomes. Instead, the central office should anchor learning improvement efforts in a clear understanding that principals are the primary strategy for implementing this work.
- Tap into the knowledge and expertise of school leaders Principals know things about their schools and students that the central office might not know. They have frontline experiences that the central office does not always have. Whether developing new policies, creating new programs, or deciding new administrative routines, the central office should incorporate the principal’s lived experiences to ensure systems work for everyone, especially students, educators, and leaders at the school level.
- Authentically engage principals in decision making True principal engagement in decision making is critical to ensure decisions have ownership by school leaders, effective implementation on the ground, and ultimately a positive impact on student learning. Unfortunately, principal engagement is often sporadic and superficial. Oftentimes, district leaders make decisions with little or no principal engagement and then try to “sell” it to principals. A central office may even have an internal strategic planning meeting on how they will convince principals the decision is a good one. This type of inauthentic principal engagement is commonplace in school systems and creates a culture where principals know they really don’t have a true voice in decision making.
- Acknowledge and support the diverse roles of principals Instructional leadership clearly is a school leader’s priority. But a principal’s work also includes creating a positive environment for learning, managing resources, organizing and developing people, and engaging with the community. Effective principals must implement these additional roles, which provide the foundation for strong instructional leadership.
An effective relationship between principal supervisors, the central office, and school leaders should not be hierarchical; conversely, it should be collaborative. All parties should aim to create a seamless system where student success is paramount. By aligning central office functions with the needs of school leaders, districts can help transform schools into a winning team that leads to high levels of learning and achievement.
