Dear principals—
We know you have a tough job.
You pull down nearly 60 hours a week. You worry a lot about teacher morale, student attendance, bullying, and of course, student safety. You also face constant challenges with funding and resources for your schools.
On top of that, you have to make sure assessments align with state standards, and when you start the 2018-19 academic year, you’ll have a new challenge to wrestle with: the Every Student Succeeds Act and making sure that changes related to the law work in your building.
Immigration. Weighted-student funding. Social-emotional learning. State and federal mandates that come down the pike without enough direction or support. Out-of-school factors (poverty, homelessness, incarcerated parents to name a few) that affect your students’ performance in school.
We want to report on solutions that can make you more successful in your role.
Education Week is working on a special report that will focus on the challenges that principals face on the job, with an eye toward helping you find solutions.
What do you need help with? What are the most pressing problems you run into in your schools and districts? What are those nettlesome, intractable roadblocks? Tell us, and we’ll help you find answers.
To send us your input, you can email Education Week editor Lesli Maxwell at lmaxwell@epe.org or send a tweet to @educationweek or @district_doss. Please use the hashtag #PrincipalSolutions in the subject line of an email or in your tweets.
We’re looking forward to hearing from you.
Best,
The District Dossier Team
P.S. Here are some of the most popular EdWeek stories read by principals in recent months.
- ‘Juuling’ Craze: Schools Scramble to Deal With Student Vaping
- Principals Say Coaching, Not Compliance, Is What They Need From Central Office
- The Secret to Student Engagement
- A Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Takes On the Master Schedule
- Quiz Yourself: How Much Do You Know About Principal Leadership?
- School Shootings: Five Critical Questions
Photo: Wayne Bevis, principal of the Lindblom Math and Science Academy in Chicago, speaks with freshman Alissa Anderson, 14, in front of the school’s historic facade in this 2016 photo.--Alyssa Schukar for Education Week/File