90 PREPARATION OF SCHOOL LEADERS
Coaching and Mentoring for New Principals
This involved university faculty members providing coaching support for graduates in
over 12 regional districts. This coaching helped graduates reflect and focus on key areas of
need during this critical career juncture.
Online Credit Modules for School Leaders
The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction now requires school leaders to earn
5 (of 15) credits in the areas of: teacher effectiveness, teacher evaluation, teacher support
programs, teacher leadership, teacher empowerment, and teacher retention. These online
modules provide flexible, convenient, and meaningful professional development designed to
fit the busy schedules of regional practitioners.
New School Leaders Seminars
These seminars are designed for new principals and assistant principals. They focus on
leadership coaching and induction support with an emphasis on administrators in the first
three years of a school leadership role. The target for this initiative will be ECU graduates but
all administrators in the first three years are welcome and encouraged to participate. These
seminars will be informal and will allow participants to discuss issues and challenges faced in
their respective roles. ECU faculty will serve as facilitators and seek to provide relevant
information and support.
The conceptual framework for this induction effort is based on balancing the needs of
regional school districts with the service efforts and abilities of the university. The initial steps
included meeting with district superintendents and other regional leaders to discover the
specific needs of new administrators. University faculty met as a team to review the results
from the area and found that most district superintendents interviewed did not have a systemic
principal induction program and welcomed the university’s involvement in this area. This
resulted in four regional “New School Leaders Seminars” in geographically selected areas
(northeast region {2 locations}; south central region; and north central region) of eastern
North Carolina (see Figure 1). School leaders from 42 school districts were invited to attend
one of these sessions offered simultaneously on March 26, 2007.
These informational overviews were attended by 32 participants who expressed interest in
participating in monthly seminars during the 2007-2008 school year. The 32 participants from
the aforementioned regions consisted of the following: 14 participants from the Northeast
region, 8 participants from the North Central region, and 10 participants from the Southeast
region respectively. Additionally, the participant years of teaching experience revealed 6.9
years of teaching experience for participants in the Northeast region, 5.5 years of teaching
experience for participants in the North Central region, and 2.4 years of teaching experience
for participants in the Southeast region (see Table 1). Participants were surveyed and asked to
rank the top challenges they face as school leaders. The most listed issues selected for having
broad implications across eastern North Carolina included: stress, teacher overload, parental
support, discipline, and motivating students (see Table 2).
As a result, 8 meetings have been scheduled during the 2007-2008 school year for the
purpose of coaching new principals in these particular areas of need. The format will be to
coach one another using the Critical Friends Protocol for sharing feedback from a variety of
experiences and backgrounds. This approach is based on ethics of collaboration, reflective