To improve student achievement schools need the leadership of knowledgeable, highly skilled, and visionary principals and superintendents. Exemplary school leadership doesn't develop in isolation, however. Strong leadership grows from dynamic, collaborative, and intentional interactions between superintendents and their principals. These savvy…

Principals must devote a vast amount of time and energy to campus funding and budgetary issues because budgeting and accounting procedures are an integral part of an effective instructional program. In fact, a principal's role in the budgetary process significantly impacts both budget development and instructional planning. Principals who fail to…

As the demands on school leaders expand, it's becoming more and more important to lead from one's strengths. The authors' review of literature on essential school leadership responsibilities led them to write "Differentiated School Leadership: Effective Collaboration, Communication and Change through Personality Type," which revealed 26 separate…

In 2000, the author took over the leadership of a large elementary school located in a small community in western Pinellas County, Florida. During her first year, the student population was around 950 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Today the school population is around 750 students, with 93 percent being white students who live in…

The second edition of NAESP's "Leading Learning Communities: What Principals Should Know and Be Able To Do" features new strategies to help principals structure and support learning communities to develop the whole child, prepare students for a changing global economy and society, rethink the learning day by bridging school and community, and make…

The key element in parental involvement is a sense of parent-school partnership. Parents can participate as decision makers, helpers, and coeducators. Facilitating parental involvement means removing five barriers: distance between parents and teachers, lack of teacher training, race and class biases, limited views of parental involvement, and…

Describes one principal's experience working with teachers to overcome their reluctance to collaborate in the decision-making process. Includes guidelines for effective group participation. (PKP)

School renovation projects, such as those undertaken by two Boston elementary schools, allow principals opportunity to influence quality and usefulness of renovated space as well as values expressed by school environment. Despite tight budgetary constraints, architects designed a series of vivid graphic images throughout Patrick O'Hearn School to…

In the new culture of shared decision making, strong principals recognize the need to improve the leadership skills of teachers and other staff. Believing that leadership is learned and can be nurtured, they take responsibility for arranging training focused on interpersonal, conceptual, and technical skills. As leaders of leaders, principals must…

Challenged to increase leadership opportunities for teachers, an El Paso elementary school principal appointed two master teachers to a vice-principal vacancy, increased teacher collaboration time, and experimented with vertical-team representation, teacher input for hiring decisions, and creative scheduling. Only the principal can actually…

Advocates creation of a steering committee of teachers to develop inservice education topics, find topic presenters, and establish inservice program procedures that will ensure active participation by teachers and sufficient interaction with presenters. (PGD)

Quality Circle members identify problems, select one for attention, analyze the potential causes of the problem, and identify and select preferred solutions that are proposed to the administration. Skills, knowledge, and experience gained by people in an education Quality Circle become theirs as well as those of the school. (MLF)

To involve teachers in curriculum matters, an upstate New York principal formed an advisory committee on school improvement. The group of five dedicated teachers served as a sounding board, an information-gathering body, a goal-setting and policy-making body, and a decision-making partner. All decisions were eventually presented to the entire…

Despite overwhelming obstacles, including teacher shortages and woeful underfinancing, the Nomlinganiselo School in New Crossroads, South Africa, is well managed. The teachers are dedicated; the students are fed, cared for, and eager to learn. The key ingredient is the partnership Principal Makasona has formed with teachers and parents. (MLH)

To help alleviate the severe shortage of principals in the next 10 years, advocates principals sharing leadership with teachers as a strategy for recruiting teachers to the principalship. Also suggests several ways principal training programs can support and foster collaborative leadership. (PKP)