High School Principal

Luling ISD - High School Principal

School Year

Direct and manage overall campus operations. Responsible for leadership of the campus instructional program ensuring high standards of instruction and student achievement, compliance with district policies, application of instructional programs, and effective operation of all campus activities.

The principal must believe in, value, and be committed to:

• Student learning as the fundamental purpose of schooling
• The proposition that all students can achieve high standards of learning
• Collaborative problem solving with staff and stakeholders
• Ongoing collection and analysis of data
• Data-driven decision making
• Life long learning for self and others
• Focus and alignment to achieve goals
• Doing the work required for high levels of personal and organization performance

The principal must have knowledge and understanding of:

• The relationship of assessment to improving student outcomes and strengthening instruction
• Information sources, data collection, and data analysis strategies
• The school improvement planning process
• Texas state content standards, core learning goals, and learner outcomes
• School district curriculum guidelines
• Evaluation and assessment strategies
• Strategies for classroom teachers to monitor student understanding and progress
• Research-based best practices
• Collaborative problem solving and consensus-building
• Systems thinking
• The change process for systems, organizations, and individuals
• Effective communication strategies
• Technology as a tool in organizing and analyzing data and in monitoring progress

Promoting collaborative problem solving and open communication.

The principal–

• Collaborates with stakeholders in the school improvement process
• Shares student achievement data with all stakeholders
• Provides time for collaborative problem solving
• Demonstrates effective group-process and consensus-building skills in school improvement efforts
• Communicates the school vision, school goals and ongoing progress toward attainment of goals to staff, parents, students, and community members
• Recognizes and celebrates the contributions of school community members to school improvement efforts
• Nurtures and develops the leadership capabilities of others
• Evaluates the collaborative skills of staff and supports needs with staff development

Collecting, analyzing and using data to identify school needs.

The principal–

• Ensures that multiple sources of data are collected and used to assess student performance
• Engages the entire staff in analyzing student achievement data
• Identifies discrepancies between current and desired outcomes
• Engages staff and other stakeholders in a collaborative process to clarify the problem(s)
• Facilitates the identification of priority needs, based on the data analysis, to address in a school-wide effort
• Models the use of data to make decisions
• Regularly asks staff to identify the data they used in making a decision
• Evaluates the assessment competencies of teachers and supports gaps with staff development
• Uses a variety of tools including technology to organize and analyze data

Using data to identify and plan for needed changes in the instructional program.

The principal–

• Ensures that the school improvement plan is based on data analysis and problem clarification
• Facilitates the development of an improvement plan in which goals, evidence of attainment, objectives and strategies are clearly aligned and articulated
• Identifies with staff the knowledge and skills that teachers need to implement the school improvement instructional strategies
• Ensures that the school improvement plan has identified activities to support strategies, milestones to assess progress toward goals, staff development to support staff needs and staff responsible for each implementation step
• Ensures that assessment, curriculum, and instruction are aligned
• Provides opportunities for staff to learn about research-based strategies that address the identified problem(s)
• Provides opportunities for staff to seek successful strategies data from similar schools that have outperformed them

Implementing and monitoring the school improvement plan.

The principal–

• Facilitates the…