The Principal Supervisor Initiative (PSI) was launched by the Wallace Foundation in 2014 to redefine what principal leadership looks like in six urban school districts (Broward County, Fla.; Baltimore City, Md.; Cleveland, Ohio; Des Moines, Iowa; Long Beach, Calif.; Minneapolis, Minn.). A new report from Mathematica Policy Research and Vanderbilt University examines how well the project met its objectives across its five core components:
- Revising the principal supervisor’s job description to focus on instructional leadership.
- Reducing the number of principals supervisors oversee and changing how they are assigned.
- Training supervisors and developing their capacity to support principals.
- Developing succession planning systems to identify and train new supervisors.
- Strengthening central office structures to support and sustain changes in the supervisor’s role.
In 2017, participating supervisors spent almost half of their time visiting schools. Although this was only a small increase over the time they spent in 2015, participants noted that they were doing more targeted walk-throughs and coaching than in the past. Principals reported that they met with their supervisors at school an average of four times in three months and that they spent more time on instructional issues than on operational ones.
Overall, researchers found that it is possible to change the principal supervisor role, but that districts will need to focus on better defining instructional leadership, balancing the time spent in the central office and in schools, and developing greater capacity to train current and potential supervisors.
Source: Goldring, E.B., Grissom, J.A., Rubin, M., Rogers, L.K., Neel, M., & Clark, M.A. (2018). A new role emerges for principal supervisors: Evidence from six districts in the Principal Supervisor Initiative. New York: Wallace Foundation.
