Review Backs New Tool for Principal Evaluation

This from Ed Week:

An examination of how to size up the performance of principals has found that one evaluation method is best suited for judging the effectiveness of school leaders: the Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education.

Created in 2006 and just now widely available for districts to purchase, the assessment, called VAL-ED , is the newest of the principal instruments in the review conducted by Matthew Clifford and Christopher Condon, researchers with Learning Point Associates, a nonprofit educational consulting firm based in suburban Chicago. ("Assessment to Rate Principal Leadership to Be Field-Tested," Jan. 16, 2008.)

Mr. Clifford said the impetus for the review was the growing recognition that principals, second only to classroom teachers, affect student learning. Districts need as much information as possible to make high-stakes decisions about whom they hire as principals, how or whether they should invest in their improvement...

The VAL-ED is a multi-rater approach to measuring the effectiveness of school leadership behaviors known to influence teacher performance and student learning. The VAL-ED measures core components and key processes. Core components refer to characteristics of schools that support the learning of students and enhance the ability of teachers to teach.

Key processes refer to how leaders create those core components.

•High Standards for Student Learning—There are individual, team, and school goals for rigorous student academic and social learning.

•Rigorous Curriculum (content)—There is ambitious academic content provided to all students in core academic subjects.

•Quality Instruction (pedagogy)—There are effective instructional practices that maximize student academic and social learning.

•Culture of Learning & Professional Behavior—There are integrated communities of professional practice in the service of student academic and social learning. There is a healthy school environment in which student learning is the central focus.

•Connections to External Communities—There are linkages to family and/or other people and institutions in the community that advance academic and social learning.

•Performance Accountability—Leadership holds itself and others responsible for realizing high standards of performance for student academic and social learning. There is individual and collective responsibility among the professional staff and students.

Key Processes Refer to How Leaders Create Those Core Components

•Planning—Articulate shared direction and coherent policies, practices, and procedures for realizing high standards of student performance.

•Implementing—Engage people, ideas, and resources to put into practice the activities necessary to realize high standards for student performance.

•Supporting—Create enabling conditions; secure and use the financial, political, technological, and human resources necessary to promote academic and social learning.

•Advocating—Promotes the diverse needs of students within and beyond the school.

•Communicating—Develop, utilize, and maintain systems of exchange among members of the school and with its external communities.

•Monitoring—Systematically collect and analyze data to make judgments that guide decisions and actions for continuous improvement.

It's a Battle Out There. ...and some guys wannna be Rambo.

This from San Francisco Weekly:

The Principal Matter

...Before distributing diplomas, [Principal Gil ] Cho stepped up to the microphone. "As many of you know," he began, "I'll be leaving Dr. Martin Luther King Academic Middle School next year."

There was a beat, and then the students erupted into applause.
For a significant number of the teachers, this was as amusing as it was deserved.

Since Cho took over at the school in 2004, a vocal group of teachers and parents has complained about his condescending, dictatorial management style; his reported manhandling of students; and his dismissive treatment of the teachers' union. Some staff have quit. Some retired early or left for other districts. Many have written to the Board of Education and the superintendent, and several have filed grievances with the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) and the Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

Despite all the complaints, for three consecutive years assistant superintendents evaluated Cho and apparently recommended that the board award him new contracts.

In California, it's widely recognized that because of the strength of the teachers' unions, it's nearly impossible to release an ineffective teacher. What many don't realize is that sometimes a problematic administrator can bounce around in a district (or, in some cases, many districts) for just as long. Cho has been an administrator in California elementary, middle, and high schools since 1987.

Back in the auditorium, in a smart black suit and diagonally striped purple tie, Principal Cho stands quietly before the audience, his face expressionless, as he waits for the inappropriate applause to subside. He adjusts the microphone, as if that might be the problem, and continues his speech, invoking a fatalistic passage from Slaughterhouse-Five that appears in the book each time someone dies.

"The great author Kurt Vonnegut said, 'And so it goes,'" Cho tells the audience. "With that, I would like the class of 2008 to stand up." ...

Tip of the hat to Alexander Russo:

dude. do u need a bag?

OK...so, this principal confiscates a kid's cell phone...uses it to call one of his buddies ...and entraps him in a drug deal?!

This from the Boston Globe:

Principal lured drug suspect to arrest

CONCORD, N.H.—A Concord High student is fighting a suspension after being lured to an alleged drug deal by the principal of another school who was posing as the student's friend through text messages.

Police say Brady High School Principal Jean Barker arranged the alleged drug deal with 17-year-old John Huckins through text messages on a cell phone she had confiscated from one of Huckins' friends.

Police reports say Huckins began the exchange of text messages by asking his friend if he needed a bag. Barker suspected that meant marijuana, said yes, arranged for the student to come to Brady and called police.

Huckins is charged with possession of a controlled drug with intent to distribute. He was suspended from Concord High for 10 days after his arrest last month. But Concord school officials are also trying to suspend him for the rest of the year because they allege Huckins began the drug transaction on his cell phone while on Concord High property.

Barker is defending her decision to pose as a student to set up an alleged drug buy, saying Huckins' alleged willingness to bring drugs to Brady put her school at risk....

Teed Off by Principal's Golf Cart

This from the Washington Post:

Some Question Need, Expense

The redesigned $87 million Richard Montgomery High School, flagship of the Montgomery County school system, occupies a building that's as long as two football fields. So Moreno Carrasco, the principal, decided to purchase a golf cart to help him get around.

This has not gone over well with some in the school community.

Parent activists have seized on the golf cart as a symbol of administrative excess in a school system that is asking everyone else to endure cuts. Superintendent Jerry D. Weast has curtailed all but essential spending as the county seeks to close a $297 million budget deficit.

"It gets to the point where you have to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation," wrote Jeanne Taylor, a Silver Spring parent, on the e-mail list of the Parents Coalition of Montgomery County. "A teacher hiring freeze is on and kids are being denied services left and right -- but we can buy golf carts." ...

Meanwhile in Des Moines... Another Principal 'under duress'

I saw this at the Des Moines Register and it sounded interesting. In Des Moines apparently the school board gets involved when a principal resigns. I wonder... What, if any, role did the Fayette County School board play in whatever went on between Peggy Petrilli and Superintendent Stu Silberman?

Principal will fight to regain his job

Jedd Sherman, who last week resigned from his job as Spirit Lake High School principal, said he plans to push to get his job back.

The Spirit Lake school board, on a 3-2 vote Tuesday, approved Superintendent Doug Latham's recommendation to accept Sherman's resignation effective June 30.

The board placed Sherman on paid leave until then.

Sherman, in an interview with The Des Moines Register, said his resignation was made under duress.

He said he sent a letter to the superintendent and school board Friday rescinding his resignation and asking to be reinstated.

"I need to take an objective look at the letter he sent us and then pass it on to our
school's attorney, and it will then be passed on to the school board, but for now the board's decision stands," said Latham.

Sherman attributed the resignation to "differing opinions that were carried over from last year." He said he believes that the previous superintendent was upset that he was critical of the district for overspending its budget...

If you promise it will get the kids to proficiency ...I'm willing to try it

High Stakes testing prompts

Principal to seek help from on high

Santeria priestess to 'drive away bad spirits'

A Manhattan principal determined to rid her school of "negative energy" paid a priestess to drip chicken blood on the floors and stalk the halls with dozens of lighted candles during bizarre Santeria ceremonies, investigators and sources revealed yesterday.

Principal Maritza Tamayo invited a neighbor to perform the rituals twice in Unity Center for Urban Technologies in SoHo - hoping "it would calm the students down," according to a report by schools investigator Richard Condon.

"She had the ceremony to drive away the bad spirits in the school," said an upset teacher. "Why would you bring someone doing voodoo into the school?"

Tamayo later forced her assistant principal to pay the Santeria priestess $900, then improperly paid her $350 more to drive children to school for Regents exams.

Education officials are pushing to fire Tamayo, a 17-year veteran of city schools who earned $133,998 last year.

The peculiar events began in early 2006, when Tamayo told former Assistant Principal Melody Crooks-Simpson that she believed that Santeria - a South American and Caribbean religion known for its unusual rituals - could calm misbehaving students.

The Sixth Ave. school, once a second-chance haven for dropouts, isn't among the city's most violent but has had consistently low test scores.

Several weeks after the conversation, over midwinter break, two staffers saw Tamayo in a white headdress and carrying branches, elephant plant leaves and incense up to the school's fourth floor.

Walking beside Tamayo was her neighbor Gilda Fonte - carrying on her head a silver tray with about 40 lighted candles.

Though there were no children in the building and no witnesses to the ritual itself, staff members told investigators the fourth floor smelled of incense and was "really smoky." School sources said chicken blood had to be cleaned off the floors.

Later that week, Crooks-Simpson agreed to participate in one of the rituals and heeded Tamayo's creepy warning: "Wear white. If there's anything evil, it won't get on you."

Crooks-Simpson sat in a conference room as Fonte "took two puffs from a brown cigar," spoke in another language and read tarot cards, according to yesterday's report.

Tamayo - who displayed a black doll wrapped in purple fabric with its head covered in pins in her office - later insisted that Crooks-Simpson write a $900 personal check for the ceremony.
This January, Fonte returned to the school, this time to drive five chronically absent students to Regents exams for $350. Tamayo paid her with teacher contributions and school funds.

Tamayo didn't return calls for comment yesterday but gave investigators lengthy excuses for every allegation. She denied holding the ceremonies, said the head with pins was an interior design project and that the cloth doll belonged to her predecessor, according to investigators.
Fonte told probers she was Catholic, "prays all the time" and does not participate in Santeria.

Report from the Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation

This from the New York Daily News.

The Principal Principle

Many things go into making a high school great,

but a strong, effective principal is always at the top of the list.

...So much goes into making a high school great: excellent teaching, vibrant student populations, creative classes, strong extracurriculars. The NEWSWEEK Challenge Index measures one: the number of IB and AP tests students take.

But just as important is the person who leads the school.

Good principals may seem unlikely superheroes—unless you're a student, teacher or parent. They set the tone for what happens from the moment the opening bell rings and can turn a troubled school around with a combination of vision, drive and very hard work. It's a 24/7 job. "Schools aren't just about just reading, writing and arithmetic anymore," says Penna. "School faculties now have the additional roles of mentor, adviser and quasi parent."

Principals also have to be politicians, crisis managers, cheerleaders, legal experts, disciplinarians, entertainers, coaches and persuasive evangelists for their school's educational mission. Add to that already daunting list the task of statistician, thanks to reams of data required by the federal No Child Left Behind law and local testing. "Sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in data," says Jill Martin, the principal of Doherty High School in Colorado Springs, Colo., who won the 2007 Principal of the Year title from the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Who can fill that intimidating job description?

"It certainly helps to be somebody who doesn't need a lot of sleep," jokes Martin, 61, who, like Penna, routinely works 12- and 14-hour days and makes sure to show up at school plays and games on weekends. Endless energy does seem to be a requirement, as does a talent for getting the best out of a large team. "It no longer works to be the dictator or the sage on the stage," says Martin.

"You have to be a leader of instructional leaders. You have to be someone who can really motivate people to go the extra mile because the job of a teacher is far more difficult and complex than when I started teaching."

A good principal has to be up to speed on constantly expanding education research and know how to apply the latest data. Above all, says Martin, you have to be someone who understands teenagers' needs.

Although the demands of the school have changed in her 38 years as an educator, Martin says kids are the same: "They still want someone to care about them. The principal has to be someone who really loves kids and understands what it takes to motivate teachers to change every child's life." ...

This from Newsweek on MSNBC.

Principal prompts uproar. Teachers, parents angry over charges of grade-changing.

Angry parents confronted Chicago Public Schools administrators Tuesday about allegations that a Southwest Side elementary school principal faked grades for 23 eighth-graders.

The principal, Eugene Taylor, was removed from McKay Elementary last week but continues to be paid while school officials investigate.

In his first public remarks since his removal, Taylor denied the allegations and dubbed it a "witch hunt" by disgruntled staff members and Chicago Board of Education officials. Taylor, who was not present when parents confronted school officials, shifted the blame to an assistant principal who he said ordered teachers to change the grades.

"It was not me . . . No one is questioning [the assistant principal]. It's all me because I'm the fall guy, I'm the principal," Taylor said. "They are out to get me . . . this is ridiculous."

During their meeting with administrators at the school, parents and teachers blasted Taylor's leadership during his 18 months at McKay. They also lashed out at administrators for not informing them that Taylor, 59, had been suspended for five days in February without pay over alleged mismanagement of school funds and personnel issues.

This from the Chicago Tribune.

Job Opportunities in the sunny south

New Orleans is looking for a few good Principals

A non-profit group retained to recruit 40 new principals for New Orleans Public Schools is using an unusual lure: A year-long, intensive training residency before candidates even take over schools — plus bonuses that could add up to nearly $40,000 if President Bush approves them.
Under pending legislation, principals in high-performing New Orleans schools could earn up to $14,500 a year in bonuses. They'd also qualify for up to $2,500 in relocation costs, monthly $500 housing subsidies and student loan forgiveness of up to $7,000 a year.

Veteran principals who agree to lead a school and mentor younger principals could earn as much as $27,000 in bonuses.

This from USA Today.

Principal Sues Youths Over MySpace Fakes

A [Pennsylvania] school principal sued four former students who he claims posted parody MySpace.com profiles saying he smoked pot, kept beer at school and liked having sex with students.

In the lawsuit, Eric W. Trosch alleged that the three profiles created in December 2005 on the social networking Web site damaged his reputation, humiliated him and hurt his earning capacity.

The profiles "went far and beyond what you would see on a bathroom wall in a school," said Trosch's attorney, John E. Quinn.

Trosch was co-principal of Hickory High School at the time the profiles were created and is now principal of Hermitage Middle School, in the same western Pennsylvania school district.

According to the suit, which seeks unspecified punitive damages, a profile by defendant Justin Layshock said Trosch smoked marijuana and kept a keg of beer behind his desk. Trosch alleges that another profile created by Thomas Cooper said his favorite movie was pornographic, and a third created by brothers Brendan and Christopher Gebhart said Trosch liked having sex with students and brutalizing women.

Layshock was suspended and sent to an alternative program after Trosch learned of the profile. In an effort to return to regular classes he sued, claiming the profile was protected by the First Amendment, but a judge last year declined to order the school to transfer him back.

Layshock's father, Donald, said he could not comment on Trosch's lawsuit because of the pending federal suit. Attorneys for Cooper and the Gebharts also declined to comment to The Herald of Sharon, Pa.

Quinn said it remains unknown who created a fourth Myspace profile that he described as "the most graphic and lurid of them all."

This from Breitbart.com.

Principals starting to receive long-needed help

Get used to the idea of principals having a sidekick to deal with the nuts-and-bolts side of their job.

The concept of a school administrative manager, which began with a handful of Jefferson County schools in 2003, pushed out into the state this school year and is poised to expand even further next year. The pilot program is being funded in part by the Wallace Foundation, which has a focus on developing education leadership.

"We’ve had a lot of calls and interest," said Debbie Daniels, who oversees the school administrative manager – SAM for short – program at the Kentucky Department of Education. "I think it’s an answer to a struggle that principals and school districts have had for a long time, in that principals don’t have time to do what they need to do instructionally."

Graves County school leaders are sold. The district’s Wingo Elementary added a SAM this year, one of six schools added to the list of pilot sites.

The others include three elementary schools in Fayette County, two in LaRue County and one in Pike County. Daniels said 10-12 more schools will be added next school year, including, for the first time, some middle and high schools. The Jefferson County district will place administrative managers in an additional 20 schools.

At Wingo, school administrative manager Rita Pirtle handles bus unloading, the principal’s schedule, student discipline, after-school event scheduling, playground facilities and school safety. She also oversees custodial and food services functions, budget and finance, and coordinates maintenance and repairs.

"I can’t see how a principal could be expected to do what I’m doing now and be able to have time to get into the classrooms, work with students, work with teachers," Pirtle said.

This from the Kentucky School Boards Association.

Principal charged with dealing drugs out of his office!

CNN reports, "a middle school principal was charged with dealing crystal methamphetamine after police found the drug in his school office."