Coaching and Collaborating for Instructional Leadership

New attention to the principal-supervisor relationship shows the possibilities for educators’ growth and students’ gains
BY REBECCA A. THESSIN/School Administrator, December 2020



Nicole Isley-McClure (standing), principal of High Point High School in Prince George’s County, Md., addresses her school’s full staff.
PHOTO COURTESY OF HIGH POINT HIGH SCHOOL IN PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, MD.
The principalship can be lonely, but it doesn’t have to be. Imagine a scenario in which your supervisor is also your partner in improvement. In the Prince George’s County, Md., Public Schools, two principal supervisor/principal partnerships built both principal and school-level capacity for improvement.

At 2,500-student High Point High School, Principal Nicole Isley-McClure worked collaboratively with her supervisor, Carletta Marrow, and with her administrative team in 2017-18, her second year as a principal. The partnership between Isley-McClure and Mar-row built the capacity of the leadership team to improve classroom instruction through professional learning they collaboratively pro-vided. High Point’s graduation rate increased by 2 percent and Advanced Placement scores improved by 4 percent following these efforts.

At Cool Spring Elementary School, the third-year principal, Cameron Millspaugh, partnered with his supervisor, Tricia Hairston, to improve his skills to observe classroom instruction and provide useful feedback to teachers. Even though Hairston was Millspaugh’s third principal supervisor in three years, their collaboration led to improvement at Cool Spring, a school serving 850 students, nearly all of whom qualify for the federal lunch program.

In the year following their work together, Cool Spring surpassed county averages in 2nd-grade reading and improved in 1st grade through a focus on guided reading in these grades. Math scores increased at all grade levels. Cool Spring subsequently moved from being a 3-star school to a 4-star school on the 5-star rating system.

Shifting Roles

Research published by Meredith Honig and Lydia Rainey in their 2020 book Supervising Principals for Instructional Leadership: A Teaching and Learning Approach describes how the principal supervisor role has shifted to center on leading high-quality classroom teaching and learning and to support principals’ instructional leadership growth, roles not traditionally fulfilled by the central office.

The evolving role of principals requires this change from a focus on supervision to one of growth and support. Principals now are responsible for facilitating teacher learning through the provision of professional learning opportunities and coaching to produce improvements in student learning, in contrast to their primarily managerial and operational responsibilities in previous decades.

In 2017-18, I had the unique opportunity to observe 12 principal/principal supervisor pairs with the support of a Spencer Foundation grant. The principal pairs that I profile here were two of those that made the shift from “supervising” to “collaborating and partnering.” Their collaborative relationships led to the use of new principal instructional leadership practices.

Six Considerations

These six facets should be considered when preparing and selecting principals and principal supervisors.

»Orienting the partnership on learning.

Millspaugh and Isley-McClure had strong desires to grow professionally as relatively new principals. They recognized the principal supervisor/principal partnership was more than a supervisory relationship. Millspaugh says: “I think when you get to a certain level, you realize that the work that you do is professional, not personal, and that what we’re trying to do is build each other’s capacity. We’re trying to learn from each other, and we’re trying to do what is right for students and the school.”

While her own principal experience was at the high school level, Marrow partnered with an elementary school principal to review the status of guided reading in her school and to develop an action plan based on teacher and student needs that improved student results. By demonstrating her desire to partner with the principal as a learner, Morrow enhanced her credibility with principals.

»Sharing a vision.

Isley-McClure and Millspaugh brought specific goals for school improvement to their partnerships with their supervisors. While Hairston focused on developing the principal’s coaching skills to provide meaningful feedback to teachers, she also supported Millspaugh’s goal to establish newcomer and dual language programs for students at his school.

Isley-McClure and her supervisor prioritized her goals for the year. As Isley-McClure explains, “I just had too many balls in the air, too much going on. … She asked me to sit down and think about and use my data to look at [things] and prioritize first things first.” Ultimately, Isley-McClure’s half-dozen areas of focus were pared down to three they collectively determined were the most high-leverage strategies.

These supervisors honored the principals’ goals and included them in their joint planning for improvement. The partners shared a desire to make a difference for students. “We are in this together to do what is right for students and their future and the best education we can give them,” Millspaugh says. “We don’t have separate agendas.”

»Scheduling frequent visits.

In these two productive partnerships, principals and principal supervisors met at least every two weeks and exchanged text messages, e-mails and phone calls between visits. To facilitate frequent visits, reducing the principal supervisor’s span of control is an essential first step. Hairston supervised 14 principals and Marrow supervised 12. Hairston ended each meeting with Millspaugh by reviewing action items and scheduling a follow-up. They were cautious in planning to ensure adequate time to complete action items. For instance, Millspaugh committed to observe an assistant principal delivering feedback to a teacher on her classroom instruction prior to Hairston’s next visit.

During their first year working together, Marrow was at Isley-McClure’s school every week. Marrow wanted to know not only the principal, but also the school community. “It’s my goal that when I walk in the building, I am known to staff and to students and not seen as an outsider from central office,” she says.

»Providing support.

Hairston and Marrow demonstrated support for their principals through their willingness to do the work of improvement alongside them. “Anything that I need her to do, she is more than willing to be hands on with it,” Isley-McClure says, describing how her super-visor would help when she was feeling overwhelmed. “It’s supportive but it’s also very equitable.”

At the end of each meeting between Isley-McClure and Marrow, the latter typically would ask, “Is there anything you would want me to coach you on?” Hairston usually concluded her sessions with Millspaugh by asking, “What other supports do you need?” and then asked central-office administrators to broker requested resources or training for Millspaugh and his team.

By providing encouragement and support, these supervisors inspired principals to believe and act in new ways and motivated them further. In turn, principals were receptive to the help and unafraid to articulate needs, for both their own professional growth as instructional leaders and for their schools. They understood and accepted their supervisor’s desire to support their decisions and actions, and the backing the principals then received propelled their work.
 Rebecca Thessin

»Exhibiting trust and collegiality.

In their article “Leadership Coaching: Coaching Competencies and Best Practices” in the Journal of School Leadership in 2011, Donald Wise and Marc Hammack describe how principal supervisors dedicate time to initiate positive coaching relationships and develop trust.

Marrow says she emphasized building rapport with principals she supervises. “In building that relationship, it’s important to learn about the things outside the job so that you do recognize when something’s wrong or when someone needs a different type of support.” She and Isley-McClure shared photos of family events and experiences about recent family trips. Isley-McClure points to the value of collegiality with her supervisor that extends beyond work, saying, “We genuinely care for one another.”

This trust and collegiality contribute to a feeling of safety for principals to test new approaches without fear or repercussion when something doesn’t work as planned.

»Engaging in joint work.

Engagement in joint work was the primary lever that led principals to change their instructional leadership practices, but successful outcomes require the previously described qualities of the principal supervisor/principal partnerships to first be in place. Joint work included planning meetings together, designing or providing professional learning to school teams and considering next steps.

Millspaugh and Hairston regularly engaged in planning their collaborative work and assumed ownership for next steps. They used a gradual release model in which Hairston would lead a learning walk through the school with the entire administrative team and then they would co-plan a subsequent learning walk. The principal would lead the walk with his supervisor observing, after which the pair would debrief.

Marrow worked with Isley-McClure’s administrative team to design and implement an early-warning indicator system to move struggling 9th-grade students through various color-coded stages of progress in achievement. To build the capacity of the school administrative team, the supervisor coached Isley-McClure’s assistant principals to lead this work.

Productive Possibilities

More school districts are reorienting principal supervisor roles to provide job-embedded coaching to support principals’ instructional leadership. As they do, it will be important to ensure two key elements are in place: principals who are ready to build their own capacity as instructional leaders with their school teams and principal supervisors who are equipped to engage with principals in leading school improvement.

The two partnerships I observed for 16 months demonstrate how the goal of supporting principals’ instructional leadership from central office can be achieved through productive principal supervisor/principal partnerships and the communication of clear expectations for principal and supervisor roles by central-office leadership.

REBECCA THESSIN is an assistant professor of educational administration at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Wallace’s Practical Resources

School leaders interested in establishing more effective supervisory relationships between the central office and school leaders may be interested in these reports available from The Wallace Foundation:

»“Changing the Principal Supervisor Role to Better Support Principals: Evidence from the Principal Supervisor Initiative” (2020)

»“Leading the Change: A Comparison of the Principal Supervisor Role in Principal Supervisor Initiative Districts and Other Urban Districts” (2020)

»“Trends in Principal Supervisor Leadership and Support” (2020)

»“A New Role Emerges for Principal Supervisors: Evidence from Six Districts in the Principal Supervisor Initiative” (2018)

OTHER INFORMATIONAL RESOURCES:

»Central Office Transformation Toolkit, produced by the Center for Educational Leadership, University of Washington, (2013)

»Model Principal Supervisor Professional Standards, published by the Council of Chief State School Officers (2015)