Recently, I received an email from one my awesome readers of this blog asking what advice I had for teachers who were aspiring to be assistant principals. He specifically asked:
• Do you have any advice for a current teacher looking to make the move to the assistant principal? As a teacher, what can I do to prepare for that role?
• What areas of education are often discussed when interviewing for assistant principal jobs?
After receiving this email for my feedback, I was inspired to answer these questions and to dive further into it to help not only him but all my readers. Below, I will give some of my thoughts on his questions. I definitely do not have all the answers, but I will give you advice based on my personal experiences. Take it all with a grain of salt, but I hope what you read and learn can help you in some small way.
Let’s begin:
Question 1: Do you have any advice for a current teacher looking to make the move to the assistant principal?
First and foremost, know who you are. Be completely and wholeheartedly grounded in who you are and what you believe in first. Leadership is hard work, but it is worthwhile work. With that said though, you need to have a solid understanding of what you believe in and how to collaborate with others before you influence others on a greater scale.
Here are some questions to reflect and ask yourself to get a pulse of where you are:
• What are the personal and professional gifts that I have to offer a school community, colleagues, parents, and students?
•What strengths do I have as a person and educator that I could offer as a school leader as well?
•Am I confident in who I am, but humble and willing to learn/grow?
•How will I bring out the gifts, talents, cultures, and the best in those around me- Students, Colleagues, Parents, and Community Members? What is my experience in these areas?
•What is my vision for education and how could that evolve with my future school community?
•Am I perseverant? Even when times get tough, am I willing and able to proceed and stay focused on my why? How?
All-in-all, leadership is an inside job. Although we lead through serving others, it really starts with who we are first and our understanding of that. Be honest and authentic with yourself so you can determine if leadership is your calling and/or if now is the right time for that. Life is all about timing. Trust the process, your gut, and all of the gifts you have inside you to determine what your next and best step is.
Question 2: As a teacher, what can I do to prepare for that role?
If leadership is your calling, dive into anything and everything within your school to get a bigger sense of what leadership means to you, your skills, your talents, and to gain wisdom and experience along the way. As a teacher, I dove into many leadership roles before jumping into my assistant principal role. To name a handful of roles, to give you an idea of what I did: I was a new teacher mentor, New Teacher Mentor District Facilitator for teachers in grades 5-8, led curriculum writing, and was the PLC team leader for my language arts and grade level department. Your school or district may have different roles or opportunities they offer, and that is totally okay. It is not necessarily the exact role you do that matters, it is the willingness to learn new things, fill a need in your school, discover your passions, and a willingness to collaborate and learn from others that matters most!
Also, connect with leaders at your school and at other schools in your district or surrounding area. Many people connect with leaders on Twitter, which is fantastic– I do that as well! But, if I am being honest, what I found most valuable is FIRST connecting with leaders from inside my school and district that I could shadow, learn from, and take advice from. Do not be afraid to ask: Someone to be your unofficial mentor or to ask a leader you admire if you can spend a half day or full day with them so you can learn from their years of expertise. The best advice I have ever gotten is always organic- It is not scripted or sit-down sessions where there is a Q & A session, but instead real and authentic times when I see someone in their element and can soak in, like a sponge, all of the amazing things they do. THAT is how you will learn and evolve in your craft now and as you continue down this path in leadership.
Question 3: What areas of education are often discussed when interviewing for assistant principal jobs?
Each district and school has different sets of questions based on their needs, school mission, values, and beyond. I could not even pretend to do a solid job of accumulating all of the questions, although I wish I could. But, below I have added bullet pointed topics are often asked about in a variety of ways in many different schools in the nation that I have just lumped together in my own words. Again, this is my cliff notes version (the list could be endless). But, it is at least a solid starting point. Let’s get to it:
-Your Experience in Education
This is not just about your school degree. What we really want to hear is what you have done within your role as an educator thus far that sets you apart from the rest- Leadership, skills, talents, experience, and beyond!
-Collaboration
How do you collaborate with others- colleagues and staff members? What is your communication style? What do you do if you do not agree with the idea that someone has? How do you bring ALL people together: Cultures, backgrounds, needs, and skill-sets? How will you bring out the best in others as a whole?
-Solid Instructional Leadership
What is your experience teaching and leading instruction? What is your experience in putting together professional development? How will you help teams of teachers to do this in a variety of content areas within your school? How will you meaningfully lead teachers to integrate innovation and technology into their practice?
-Student Support & Discipline Practices
How will you support students instructionally, socially, academically, socially, emotionally, behaviorally, culturally, and beyond? Do you have experience in social justice, restorative practices/conversations, peer mediation, and beyond? What is your viewpoints on school discipline?
-Parent Involvement
How will you team with and communicate with parents to help them be a leading member within our school? What do you do if a parent calls you with an academic, behavioral, or safety concern? How will you continue to increase parent involvement within your school community?
Readers- What other questions do you have? If I could help more in any way- Comment below! I can always do a part 2 to this blog post as well.
In closing, I also want to share this related post that may be helpful. Last year, I wrote about my reflections from my second year as an assistant principal on my blog post titled- 10 Tips for New School Administrators. Feel free to click and read if you think it will help!
Best of luck to you in any of your future endeavors. Follow your heart, trust your intuition, and be who God has called you to be.
