Dive Brief:

• The NYC Leadership Academy’s latest report, “Power in Numbers: Coaching principals to build teams that transform schools,” serves as a guide for anyone helping school leaders better run their buildings.
• The guide helps coaches ask the right questions to build principals’ self-awareness, model team development strategies, and help principals hone their own coaching skills.
• Besides stories and lessons learned from the leadership academy’s own principal coaching, the report offers tools for schools to create a more systemic approach to building and fostering teams.

Dive Insight:

Teachers often get the most attention when it comes to professional development efforts but it is important for districts to budget this type of work for principals, too. Teachers may have the greatest impact on student learning inside the school building, but principals are the ones who create environments where their teachers can succeed, and they can be the deciding factor when teachers make retention decisions.

Besides fostering strong collaboration, principals can be literacy leaders in their schools. Most principals don’t have backgrounds in literacy, however, and shy away from taking on this role. This is another area where professional development can help.