Q&A: How do principals distribute instructional responsibilities?

In this blog:

• A summary of three principal staffing models that can provide coverage for key instructional tasks

• A Q&A with CEO Emily Freitag about the principal’s role in instructional leadership

School leaders balance countless responsibilities every day—but when it comes to supporting instruction, what exactly should their role be? And how should they divide instructional leadership responsibilities across their teams? Principals and their supervisors are often left to answer these questions for themselves, with little guidance or strong examples to follow.

We conducted an extensive review of existing research and interviewed leaders from 15 school systems to learn more about how principals and system leaders distribute key instructional leadership tasks between themselves and their teams. Our findings reveal a lack of clear and shared expectations about the principal’s role in instructional leadership.

Despite unclear expectations across the education field, individual schools and systems have developed clear and effective approaches to leadership role distribution. In our research, we identified three principal staffing models that provide role clarity, ensure coverage for key instructional tasks, and offer ongoing support for leaders.

Q&A with Instruction Partners CEO Emily Freitag

During a recent webinar, Instruction Partners CEO Emily Freitag answered educators’ questions about principal staffing models. The questions and answers from the session are below—edited and abbreviated for clarity.

If instructional leadership is distributed, what are the best practices for standardizing what teachers experience?

EF: Based on our work supporting role clarity with districts, we’ve found that it’s important for district leadership teams to get clear on the “what” of teacher support (i.e., What types of support should all teachers experience?) as well as the “who-does-what” (i.e., Who will deliver that support?). These two questions must be answered separately—and it’s important to establish the answer to the “what” question first. We’ve also found that the answers to these questions need to include specifics and frequency. We cannot rely on commonly used phrases (e.g., “coaching”) to have consistent understanding or meaning. If the goal is consistent understanding for leaders and consistent experiences for teachers, we need to define the activity in detail.

Did you find any examples where the district set a clear bar for expectations around instructional leadership activities? 

EF: Yes! We saw a wide range of clarity in expectations for teacher support and leader actions, but we definitely found some examples that were clear and specific. Looking at expectations around collaborative planning (i.e., PLCs) and observation and feedback (i.e., coaching), we found that two things differentiated precise/clear descriptions from more general descriptions:

1. The description of the activity clearly defined terms—rather than relying on common terms to be shortcuts to clear understanding.
2. The expectations were specific. The focus was clear, the people involved were defined, the frequency was noted, and there was enough clarity of purpose to be able to evaluate whether that purpose was accomplished.

The Principal Role Clarity white paper compares and contrasts a few examples of general and precise descriptions of instructional leadership activities. 

What are the situations in which a principal would choose the “Designate” versus the “Deliver” model?

EF: The principals we interviewed suggested motivations for the “designate” model included both 1) community expectations for the principal that were not focused on instruction and 2) a desire to support instruction while meeting operational expectations for the principalship.

We also saw it when there were areas of emerging learning for principals (e.g., “We have a principal that is great in math but still building knowledge around reading instruction, so we are using a ‘Designate’ model in that specific subject area while we support that principal’s learning.”)

Did you notice any patterns in terms of school size or tenure of the leader?

EF: Not that we could say with confidence. Qualitatively, I have heard people talk about feeling a need to use the “Deliver” model when they are a new principal or starting in a new school. Of course, the school size tends to influence the  budget—so staffing allocations will vary based on size in many cases. However, we’ve seen examples of small schools that used all three of these models, and I’ve seen examples of larger schools that use both “designate” and “coach” models. There’s typically a “deliver” challenge when you get to a certain size.

Did any models stand out as more effective at driving improvement and student achievement?

EF: We do not have any evidence to say which of these is more effective than others—and we are not working under the hypothesis that there will be one that is better across contexts. We think context matters. My sense is that we shouldn’t aspire to get to one right model; instead, we should try to identify three to five workable models that allow for clear definitions and role support but still allow teams to adapt to their specific context. In the next phase of this project, it’s our aspiration to understand: Are there other models? And in what types of environments would each model make sense?