Finally, Professional Development for Principals
By SARAH ELZAS

“The role of Principal has changed over the last ten years,” explained Supervising Superintendent Joyce Copin at the New Principals’ Summer Institute, an intense, five-day professional development program for principals with two years or less of experience, held recently at the School for the Physical City. “Principals have to learn a set of new skills,” she continued. They have to be more focused; they have more demands due to bigger and more diverse schools.

The Institute is one of the ways through which the BOE’s newly-formed Center for Recruitment and Professional Development provides “ongoing support” for these new principals, explained the Executive Director, Mary Butz. The Center was established by the Chancellor in order to train and retain educators in NYC. Since January, cohorts of 10-12 new principals have been meeting with experienced, ‘distinguished principals’ to discuss issues and share ideas about the job. “This model allows us to provide intensive training across the [school] system,” said Copin.

Until this year’s Institute, there has been no systematic congregation of NYC principals for the purpose of training and, just as importantly, networking. The changing role of the principal may account for only part of the reason why there has been little large-scale interaction of this kind among principals across district lines. Another, perhaps more pervasive reason may have to do with fundamental conceptions of collaboration within the system, said Anne Marie Carillo, Principal of PS 116 on 33rd street and a ‘Distinguished Faculty’ at the Institute.

Carillo explained that principals often meet within their districts to share ideas. Now, with the advent of the Center, Carillo has a cohort of new principals from all over the city. Through these cohorts, new principals can visit the distinguished faculty members’ schools and, as is the case in Carillo’s cohort, exchange teachers between schools.

“Cohorts have become a fantastic means of support,” said Wildon Rodriguez. A member of Carillo’s cohort, Rodriguez has been Principal of PS 38 in Staten Island for two years. For example, the cohort helped him come up with ideas on how to effectively involve parents in his school.

The Institute was organized along the lines of the NYC Standards for School Leaders, a set of guidelines tailored to NYC that articulates the leadership standards of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium that have been adopted in more than 38 states. Through panel discussions, workshops and talking with fellow principals, Institute participants learned, among other things, how to incorporate the arts into their classrooms, how to manage difficult staff members and how to integrate special education students into mainstream classes—essentially, how to be better principals.

According to Coppin a successful principal “above all has a sense of mission.” He or she is able to collaborate and knows the curriculum. “At the center of being a successful principal is being an instructional leader,” she said. “That’s what its all about–the teaching of the children.”

The enthusiasm that radiated from the principals as they participated in the workshops, and their rapt attention at the panels was a sure sign that the time for a large-scale, system-wide professional development program such as the New Principal’s Summer Institute was long overdue

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