Corrected: This article was updated to reflect the name of the school.
At Shorewood High School in Shorewood, Wisc., Associate Principal Amanda Jamerson has overhauled student discipline practices and focused on creating an equitable school environment.
Jamerson received the 2026 National Assistant Principal of the Year award at the high school level on April 17, 2026, in Washington, alongside a middle school honoree. The awards recognize leaders who strengthen school culture and improve approaches to student behavior and mental health, according to the National Association of Secondary School Principals.
Jamerson was recognized for fostering a “restorative, equitable, and student-centered school culture,” according to the press release by NASSP.
Education Week spoke with Jamerson shortly after her win.
“It was like nothing that I’ve ever experienced. It felt like the Oscars—having everyone cheering, the camera spanning, and being recognized for work that I love to do,” said Jamerson.
"[Work] I believe is hard, and it has impacted me, my students, and my community, so it felt amazing.”
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How has your background shaped your capacity as an assistant principal?
[Being a former special education teacher] has allowed me to be extremely creative in the way that I think, the way that I push teams to work collaboratively together. It has also allowed me to push for full inclusion because I truly believe in that. [Inclusion] is what I pushed [for] when I was in a most restrictive placement class, where I wanted to make sure that my students got out of the classroom into the general education classroom, and so it’s something I’ve always believed in.
What challenges do you expect to face in the next year?
I expect to tackle some different challenges as it relates to decreasing enrollment, as that is something that is consistently happening across the country. [Another one is] budgets and being creative with how we do staffing and how we support our educators and our students in our spaces.
What’s your advice for improving student behavior?
It’s all about students knowing what is expected of them, understanding, and being restorative. We have to coach students and teach them what we are expecting to see.
As the educators in this space, we also have to understand that behaviors are different from student to student, and we have to support them through that process on what that means to come to school and learn, because every kid is not going to sit in all day and follow along with the curriculum as others do. It’s all about being able to work with students individually on what they need to be successful.
When I got to Shorewood High School, one of the things I noticed was looking at our office discipline referrals and our out-of-school suspensions data, and being able to see [that] a lot of our issues were happening in the hallway or in the restroom. Then we started to see an increase in classroom management behaviors.
When I would meet with students about what they did, what occurred, they would say, “I didn’t know that was a code of conduct violation.”
So, really working with students, making sure they were aware of what our code of conduct violations were, and then working with staff to make sure they understood how to best support and what the main office managed was a really key area.
How did your school’s cellphone policy take shape, and why?
Staff challenged the administration with, “Hey, we’re seeing cellphones are a big issue.” My supervisor, [Principal] Timothy Kenney, and I decided to collaboratively work together to enforce the cellphone policy.
Our cellphone policy was fully [communicated to] all of our stakeholders. We had parents, students, and our staff involved. We really wanted to get stakeholder input... [We asked] when students are in the classroom, and they’re on their cellphones, what is happening there? We also were asking parents what their concerns are. That’s why we make sure we have a phone in our main office where all students can utilize it during the school day, during instructional time, and we make parents aware of that.
We looked at cellphone policies from different school districts and what they were doing. Then we created a process that was [tailored] for just Shorewood High School. We have five different buildings [on campus], so we wanted to make sure students were able to still have their cellphones when they went between buildings.
Students can have [cellphones] during passing time, but when it’s instructional time, those cellphones are put away, and our students all follow it [the policy]; they understand it. That first year was a rough patch, but our parents supported it, and that’s been phenomenal for us.
What’s the most important in building an equitable school environment?
It is important that everyone understands what that means and that we are all on the same page. Within our district, we were able to create “Collaborative Commitments for Equity” (our team at the high school helped come up with that name). We use the ICS [Integrated Comprehensive Systems] for the equity framework, and they’re called equity non-negotiables.
[This includes collective accountability, so if a student is struggling, it is an institutional responsibility to help. Other examples are data-informed inclusivity and continuous professional learning.]
Anytime we present, we talk about what CCE is, [what] we’re pushing students or staff toward, which has been really instrumental. Even when we present it to parents or if it’s an open house, my boss and I, we have that [the policy] on the screen so that it reinforces what we believe in and what we do every day.
What do teachers at your school need most right now?
Time—that is something that we consistently are working toward giving teachers back. They want more time to be able to meet with their colleagues to say, ‘Hey, I’m working on this. This is what we’re doing in our classes. Or let’s look at overall discipline areas, what are we seeing?’ ”
Next school year, my supervisor and I have worked together to give them more collaboration time.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
I want to give a major shout-out to my students. My students are by far some of the most amazing kids you will ever meet, and I am just blown away. They worked with our leadership team at the high school to send me this amazing [congratulatory] video yesterday, and it had me in full-blown tears, and I’m just so proud to be their AP.
I am proud of the work that they do every day. I’m proud that they push me to be my best. They will tell me, “Hey, Jamerson, we need to fix this, we need to work on this.” I am so proud, and I want them to know that I absolutely love them and I’m so thankful for the amazing culture that they’ve helped create at Shorewood High School.
This is a win for all of us. One of the students said in the video, “Thanks for putting us on the map,” and I want them to know they put me on the map.
