Abstract
The goals for this qualitative study were to examine principals’ perceptions regarding their own supervision and evaluation. Two research questions guided the qualitative inquiry: (1) What are the greatest strengths of your own supervision and evaluation? and (2) What recommendations would you give to superintendents to improve your own supervision and evaluation? The study used an online tool to gather perceptions from principals regarding their own evaluation and supervision. Participants solicited included 275 principals from elementary, middle, or high schools, in a mountain west state. Out of the participants solicited, 95 principals agreed to participate (35% response rate). The emerging themes for the first research question were (1) trust and communication and (2) goal setting. The emerging themes for the second research question were (1) regular observations with feedback and (2) components to improve supervision and evaluation. Results from this study provided implications for those who supervise principals, as well as for those who train superintendents.
The influence of principals regarding effective schools and gains in student performance (Branch, Hanushek, & Rivkin, 2013; Marzano, Waters, & McNulty, 2005) is part of the national perspective for successful schools (Superville, 2014a). In addition, the leadership of principals has reached the distinction of being critical to performance of schools (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, & Whalstrom, 2004) and is second in importance only to the influence of teachers. Because of the attention and research supporting the impact of principal leadership, the supervision and evaluation of principals has become a focal point with several national organizations creating requirements and emphasizing principal evaluation tools (New Leaders, 2012; The Wallace Foundation, 2013). The National Association of Elementary Principals and the National Association of Secondary School Principals both recommend the involvement of principals in the formation and implementation of a principal evaluation system (Clifford & Ross, 2011). Principals have not been involved and or had a voice as prior principal evaluation systems have been developed (Clifford, Berhrstock-Sharratt, & Fetters, 2012; Superville, 2014a).
In the past, the evaluation of principals has been steered by federal legislation including the School Improvement Grants for turnaround schools (U.S. Department of Education, 2014), Race to the Top (U.S. Department of Education, 2009), and No Child Left Behind Act (2002). These federal legislations have directed states to focus on accountability for schools and the performance of students as evidenced by the evaluation of principals. This dramatic increase in the importance of school accountability has in some cases negatively affected highly successful principals due to the integration of accountability into the principal evaluation process (McGhee & Nelson, 2005). In fact, since the passage of Race to the Top and the resulting emphasis on accountability, 34 states have implemented principal evaluation systems (Jacques, Clifford, & Hornung, 2012). As cited by Superville (2014b), Goldring describes the majority of principal evaluation systems with three different approaches: first a 50-50 percentage model with 50% of the evaluation coming from student achievement and 50% from a performance rubric, second a matrix model with 50% based on student achievement and 50% from a rubric based on performance with the score from a matrix as opposed to a formula, and finally a student “data trump” model where student performance might be less than 50% but high student performance would “trump” other factors. With the passage of Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015), which describes state and local entities driving accountability efforts as opposed to federal regulations, additional changes will take place in the future regarding principal evaluation. Although 91% of the states in Council of Chief State Officers action group report the importance of combining principal evaluation with ESSA school improvement only 21% report making progress (Riley & Meredith, 2017).
A potential positive result of ESSA (2015) could be allowing states to use funds to develop systems of support to benefit principals to remain in the profession and improve principal performance (Pollitt, 2016). Riley and Meredith (2015) report 18 states out of 24 states surveyed as developing programs or resources for the professional development of principals. Clearly, there is an increased focus on improving the practice of principal leadership and preparing principal leaders (National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, 2008).
More recently, Goldring et al. (2018) described the importance of developing principal supervisors to improve principal evaluation. This principal supervisor initiative began in 2011 in six urban districts (Turnbull, Riley, Arcaira, Anderson, & MacFarlane, 2013) to improve the performance of novice principals. Important findings from this initiative focused on improving the performance of principals include 76% of 352 first, second, or third year principals reporting mentoring or coaching from a principal supervisor led them to make changes in their work (Turnbull, Riley, & MacFarlane, 2015). Additionally, this initiative also emphasized the need for standards to be actively used to guide the performance of principals (Turnbull et al., 2013).
It appears as if policy makers in states and districts know what principals should know and do as evidenced by the adoption of standards describing principals’ performances in schools (The Wallace Foundation, 2008). For example, 46 states have used the Interstate School Leadership Consortium (ISLLC) standards (Canole & Young, 2013) to build their principal evaluation systems. Derrington and Sharrat (2008) reported these ISLLC standards are used in 43 states to certify principals. Catano and Stronge (2006) in a review of 100 principal evaluation instruments in Virginia found a strong reliance on the ISLLC standards. In contrast to this alignment of ELCC standards with principal evaluation in Virginia, is in Washington, where only 45% of superintendents were familiar with ISLCC standards used in principal evaluations (Derrington & Sharrat, 2008). In the mountain west state where this study took place, Illian (2011) reported the use of principal evaluation systems by the 48 districts in the state as: 31 districts using the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning Principal Evaluation System, eight districts using an ISLLC—based instrument, and nine districts using other principal evaluation instruments including the Danielson-based instrument, the Principal Performance Evaluation System (Reeves, 2009), and unreported other instruments.
With the advent of the Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (PSEL) in November 2015 (National Policy Board for Educational Administration, 2015), states are engaged in improving school leadership by aligning principal standards with PSEL (Riley & Meredith, 2017). In a survey of 24 states, 83% of the states indicated they would update current state standards with PSEL and 71% of the states plan to use the new PSEL standards in their evaluation systems (Superville, 2017). In this third update of educational leadership standards, the importance of student learning is emphasized as well as the importance of educational leadership (National Policy Board for Educational Administration, 2015).
In a review of 20 principal assessment systems, Condon and Clifford (2010) found only eight evaluation systems were reliable and valid. Kearney, Lara-Brady, Mattson Almanzán, and Vince (2012) provided 10 commercially available evaluation systems for selection by states and districts. It is less clear what effects the implementation of these principals evaluation systems are having on successful schools and improving the performance of student achievement. Reeves (2009) describes the evaluation of school leaders as ““infrequent, late, unhelpful, and largely a source of administrative bother” (p. X). In a review of the evaluation systems in all 50 states, Fuller, Hollingworth, and Liu (2015) found scant evidence of research regarding principal evaluation. In an interview in Education Week, Goldring responded about the lack of research regarding principal evaluation, “Principal evaluation is the stepchild of teacher evaluation . . . There has been a ton of work around teacher evaluations and measures of teacher quality . . . much less work on principal evaluations” (Superville, 2014b, p. 20).
As principals require feedback from the superintendent during the supervision and evaluation cycle to improve instructional leadership (Hvidston, Range, & McKim, 2015), researchers report the unsystematic methods for delivery of these evaluation systems and the lack of meaningful, timely feedback as integral component in the supervision and evaluation of principals (Davis & Hensley, 1999; Ginsberg & Berry, 1990; Harrison & Peterson, 1988; Reeves, 2009; Stronge, 2013). Arne Duncan, former Secretary of Education, stated regarding the importance of feedback in principals’ evaluations, “All of us want really good, honest, comprehensive feedback as to how we’re doing in our jobs. In far too many places, principal evaluation doesn’t help principals learn and grow” (Connelly, 2010). Furthermore, a paucity of research exists regarding the evaluation of principals in peer reviewed journals with only 20 primary source articles published between 1980 and 2010 (Davis, Kearney, Sanders, Thomas, & Leon, 2011).
In many districts, the superintendent is charged with the task of supervising and evaluating principals. If the district is large, as characterized by sizeable student enrollment, the supervision and evaluation of principals is typically administered by an assistant superintendent (Casserly, Lewis, Simon, Uzzell, & Palacios, 2013). Other titles for this position include the following: instructional leadership directors, instructional superintendents, and principal supervisors (Saltzman, 2016).
Active and involved superintendents or principal supervisors are critical to the process of supervising and evaluating principals (Murphy, Hallinger, & Peterson, 1985). More recently, districts are reducing number of principals to be supervised as well providing training and standards for these principal supervisors (Anderson & Turnbull, 2016) to focus on the effectiveness of principals. Honig (2012) describes instructional leadership directors’ or principal supervisors’ central purpose is to increase principals’ instructional leadership abilities by modeling, providing differentiated support, engaging in joint work, brokering supports between central office and principals, and using tools to engage principals.
An understanding of principals’ perceptions of the strengths of principals’ supervision and evaluation with recommendations to give to superintendents to improve supervision and evaluation might give some insight into this process. In the past, principals have not been involved in the formation of tools for their supervision and evaluation (Clifford et al., 2012).
Research Design and Methods
The goals of this qualitative study were to examine the perceptions of principals concerning their own supervision and evaluation; and recommendations to improve their supervision and evaluation. Two research questions guided the qualitative inquiry:
“Qualitative research is a form of inquiry in which researchers make an interpretation of what they see, hear, and understand” (Creswell, 2007, p. 39). Qualitative research is interpretative, that is, it strives to understand individual’s experiences based on the information collected. Qualitative research also has an emergent component (Bryant & Charmaz, 2010), which means views are constructed over time and influenced by many external factors. This study used qualitative research to represent the individuals’ experience of supervision and evaluation. The ultimate goal was to reduce the individual’s experiences into an overall understanding of supervision and evaluation.
Several methods were used to support trustworthiness of the findings including research reflexivity, use of quotations, and in-vivo coding (Given, 2008). Acknowledging the researchers bias and prior experience allowed them to ensure they were representing the data as it appeared, removing their prior thoughts. The use of quotations from the data allows the readers to have increased belief in the findings. Some themes involve in vivo coding. For example, the trust and communication them came directly from the participants’ responses. The use of the participants’ words as the themes provides more trustworthiness in the findings. The study used an online survey tool to gather perceptions from principals regarding their own evaluation and supervision.
Study Participants and Instrument
Participants solicited included 275 principals from elementary, middle, or high schools, in a mountain west state. The survey was administered by using an online university survey tool with an introductory e-mail. The e-mail explained the general purpose of the study and served as the consent form containing a link to an online survey. Two reminder e-mails were sent each week for 2 weeks to remind principals to complete the survey.
Out of the participants solicited, 95 principals agreed to participate (35% response rate). In this mountain west state, the supervision and evaluation of principals were usually conducted by superintendents. For the purpose of the study, the person who supervises and evaluates principals will be referred to as the superintendent.
Principals were asked two open-ended questions: one question asked about the greatest strengths of their own supervision and evaluation and the other question asked about recommendations for superintendents to improve your own supervision and evaluation. These two questions, part of a larger study, were developed to provide principals’ perceptions regarding the strength of their supervision and evaluation and also to make recommendations to superintendents. The survey concluded with a few demographic questions including years of service. Majority of respondents reported having more than 3 years of experience as a principal (76%).
Data Analysis
The responses to the open-ended questions were analyzed thematically to determine codes and themes. These representative responses were from all 95 principals. The process included coding and recoding representative responses until themes emerged (Creswell, 2013). The qualitative approach was to explore the data in a systematic, inductive way. The responses were read numerous times while identifying key phrases each time. These key phrases where coded. The codes were then used to identify themes. This involved codes being combined and evaluated on the existing support from participants’ responses. The whole data analysis process ensured the themes were supported by the participants’ voices.
The process ended with four themes, two themes per research question. The emerging themes for the first research question were Trust and Communication and Goal Setting. The emerging themes for the second research question were Regular Observations with Feedback and Components of Supervision and Evaluation. The findings of the study are organized by each research question.
Findings
Research Question 1
Research Question 1 asked, “What are the greatest strengths of your own supervision and evaluation?” The two emerging themes as represented by greatest strengths for Question 1 were (1) Trust and Communication and (2) Goal Setting.
Trust and Communication
Principals offered many examples of trusting relationships between principal and superintendent as one principal reported: “I trust his feedback and look to him as a resource for many things.” Another principal discussed visiting with the superintendent with a “high level of trust to problem solve.” Relationships with the superintendent are described as “I can turn to my supervisor when I need advice and support.” One principal described the need for a superintendent to have experience as a building principal in developing trust: “Trust is one component that is essential to any evaluation relationship. Along with trust comes the credibility of the evaluator and his/her ability to convey best practice while celebrating solid performance.”
Communications with superintendents were characterized by focusing on “student engagement and meaningful conversations,” as well as “communication of expectations.” The conversations were framed as “open and honest conversations about students and school needs” and as “face to face meetings.” The communication between principals and superintendents also provided for self-reflection and then discussing these insights with superintendents.
The communication from the superintendents included “both positive reinforcement and constructive criticism.” Several principals referred to communication with the superintendent with such statements as the superintendent “asks me questions that require me to reflect on my growth and progress as a principal” and “my input is valued.” One principal valued a superintendents’ “willingness to address hard issues.” One principal described the communication with the superintendent as “Talk to me. Listen to me. Visit my school. Seek genuine feedback. Empower me.” Another principal described the communication as, “Be honest and let us know when it is time to move on, which comes in every principalship. Don’t destroy our careers in the process.”
In contrast to many of the previous statements, some principals described their response to the greatest strengths of their supervision and evaluation as “none” and “I only listen to myself” referring to a lack of trust and communication. “The evaluation should be based on [the] actual evaluation of the administrator and not just artifacts or hearsay.” One principal emphasized communication with staff with “many discussions where we can continually improve student performance.”
Goal Setting
Principals consistently referred to importance of goal setting based on standards as a strength in their own supervision and evaluation. One principal stated, “we meet on a monthly basis, establish goals, and monitor them throughout the year.” The goal setting was described by one principal as “sitting down with my superintendent and setting goals based on my self-reflection document.” In addition, one principal reported, “the use of artifacts were useful to determine areas of strength and are objective references [as opposed to] subjective.” When evaluating the achievement of goals, one principal reported the “opportunity to provide documentation or evidence of some of the things I do to lead the school.” Another principal described “the best part [of my supervision and evaluation] is that I get to establish my own SMART goal [specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound] to improve not only myself but our school.”
The process for setting goals for the principals should be carefully planned for by the superintendent. The superintendent should be prepared and knowledgeable. The evaluation of principals should be also be organized with adequate time so that the goals are “clearly defined” with focused objectives.
One principal was critical of the use of the standards used to set goals principal evaluation, “I am not a fan of this . . . system. Any canned system has limitations.” Another principal was supportive of this same system describing the tool as “focused on student learning, achievement data and PLC collaborative systems.” Standards should be “clear” and focused on “student learning and achievement data.” The language to set goals from one principal was “based on the same framework as the teachers [which] allows for common language. The system is differentiated, allowing different principals to have separate goals.”
Research Question 2
Research Question 2 asked, “What recommendations would you give to superintendents to improve your own supervision and evaluation?” The two emerging themes regarding recommendations from this question were (1) Regular Observations with Feedback and (2) Components of Supervision and Evaluation.
Regular Observations With Feedback
Principals discussed the importance of regular observations by superintendents to improve supervision and evaluation. One first year principal stated that these observations should not be random visits but should allow the superintendent to observe the principal in different roles, “such as conducting staff development or staff meetings” or “actually engaging in instructional leadership.” Another principal described the observations of the principals by the superintendents could also incorporate different performance activities such as “conducting staff development, staff meetings, open houses, parent nights, or at a parent teacher association meeting.”
Feedback was emphasized by many principals including receiving “critical guided feedback” and engaging in reflective conversations. One principal reported being “hungry for this feedback.” In addition, another principal stated, “I would like to receive more feedback positive/negative from my superintendent so I would know if I am on the right track. Even an atttaboy now and then is enough for me to know that I am on track.” One principal described feedback as originating from all stakeholders: Who better to assess the principal’s role across all demands of the job than those who experience the effort first hand? I have tried this informally in my career and have always been provided meaningful feedback that affirms areas of strength while guiding work on areas of needed improvement.
Components of Supervision and Evaluation
Principals reported the need to have a meeting at the beginning of the year to “outline the expectations and articles . . . to keep throughout the year.” One principal commented discussing and revisiting these goals as set for the school year “to develop a long-range planning vision for the building.” These “goals should include items that help increase the instructional leadership of the building.”
Following the initial meeting where goals and procedures are discussed by the superintendent and principals, many principals requested observations such as “frequent school visits with classroom walkthroughs and attending building level professional learning communities (PLC).” One principal reported, “spending time in buildings would be useful” as another principal commented, “actually being in the building would be a step in the right direction.”
One principal described “meeting mid-year to monitor how I am doing on progress toward my goals” and “looking at teacher, student, and parent input.” Another principal reported meeting “twice annually to reflect on our strengths and write goals around our growth areas.” These meetings with superintendents “should be quarterly or every semester . . . based on superintendent walk-throughs and attendance at meetings or other building functions.”
Principals reported different methods for superintendents to gather data about the performance of principals including “recommending no anonymous survey data should be collected from staff” and “a rubric scale with or without comments would be fine.” In contrast, one principal described being an advocate of the 360 model where all stakeholders served by the principal are given an opportunity to offer feedback.” Another principal requested to “improve the observation tools to make the tools easier to use.” One principal identified the need to have artifacts to “support areas of strength [which] are objective versus subjective.” The evaluation should be “a dialogue. Check lists do not help.” Several principals mentioned a consistent rubric in use as a positive recommendation.
Several principals included mentoring and additional supports for new principals. One principal reported superintendents should “spend more time with new principals so they don’t feel like they are learning by trial and error.” Superintendents should also “meet regularly with principals, especially those early in their career.” A first-year principal recommended “more mentorship from the administrative team and superintendent . . . to collaborate with others . . . to receive constructive criticism to help with growth.”
Principals described needing professional development to “grow as an instructional leader [to] stay current on best practices, teacher evaluation, parent/community involvement and improving student achievement.” Professional development was described by one principal “as a cycle of inquiry that allows for individual growth and alignment as a system.”
Discussion
This qualitative study, limited to the viewpoints of principals in a mountain west state, examined principals’ perceptions regarding their supervision and evaluation. Because the performance of principals is vital to the functioning of successful schools (Leithwood et al., 2004), the supervision and evaluation of principals should be improving principals’ leadership skills and behaviors thus improving student achievement (Stronge, 2013). The results can be summarized as follows: principals identified trust and communication between principals and the superintendents as strength for the supervision and evaluation of principals. Second, the setting of goals was identified as a strength in their own supervision and evaluation. Recommendations from principals to give to superintendents to improve the supervision and evaluation of principals included regular observations with feedback and components of supervision and evaluation.
The supervision and evaluation of principals should be characterized by developing and maintaining a trusting relationship between principals and superintendents. The importance of trust is supported by Oksana, Zepeda, and Bengtson (2012) who describe, The theme of trust and respect was conceptualized in terms of principals’ willingness to accept the evaluators’ feedback and to follow their recommendations for improvement. Trust was also manifested by the principals’ acceptance of evaluation criteria and instruments as designed by the superintendent’s office, thus being an important piece of their evaluation (p. 227).
The linchpin between developing trust and a positive relationship is communication. The importance of communication and improving the communication between superintendent and principals is supported by Yavuz (2010) as well as Oksana et al. (2012) who describe this communication as a transparent dialogue. Anderson and Turnbull (2016) define this communication as a “year long conversation between principal and supervisor, intended to produce steady improvement in principal practice” (p. iii).
Goal setting was critical strength in the supervision and evaluation of principals. Goal setting was identified as part of a principals’ evaluation by 76% of principals (Protheroe, 2009). After establishing goals for the school—the superintendent should monitor and meet with principals throughout the school year. Goal setting was the first step where principals meet with superintendents to set school improvement goals or principal improvement goals (Anderson & Turnbull, 2016). Lunenburg (2011) posits the “participation [between superintendent and principal] in the goal-setting process tends to enhance goal commitment” (p. 3)
Principals recommended superintendents engage in regular observations with feedback to improve the supervision and evaluation of principals. These observations should represent the both informal and formal feedback. This finding is affirmed in a study of six large school districts, where approximately 76% of novice principals over a 3-year period reported the quality of feedback they received was good or excellent from their evaluations and more than 50% of novice principals reported some type of feedback indicating they needed to show improvement in at least one facet of professional practice (Anderson & Turnbull, 2016). These generally positive perceptions of feedback from the superintendent have not been a hallmark of past principals’ supervision and evaluation as feedback has not been meaningful or frequent (Reeves, 2009) and has not been delivered in a reasonable amount of time sometimes occurring “three to six months after the fact” (Hvidston et al., 2015, p. 25). One superintendent in a study engages his principals in four visits a year focusing “on school improvement, the impact of the data and evidence to support the principals overall assessment” (Zepeda, Lanoue, Price, & Jimenez, 2014, p. 345).
Principals recommended some specific components for superintendents to continue to utilize to improve the supervision and evaluation of principals. The recommendations included an initial meeting where supervision and evaluation procedures were discussed. Some of the procedures included goal setting and ongoing meetings throughout the year with classroom walk–throughs and school visits. The data gathered from the supervision of principals could include survey information from stakeholders and artifacts from the school demonstrating accomplishments. Principals also acknowledged the need for novice principals to receive mentorship and additional supports. Professional development was also identified as a needed part of the supervision process. Muenich (2014) found profession development was not valuated within principal evaluation by over half of the responding principals in one study.
Implications
Principals were able to identify strengths of their supervision and evaluation and to also make recommendations for improvement. These findings could be supported in several ways. First, the perceptions regarding trust and communication are central to the supervisory and evaluative process (Derrington & Sanders, 2011; Saltzman, 2016). Second, goal setting should be considered as a critical factor in the supervision and evaluation of principals (Educators 4 Excellence, 2012; Vitcov, 2011), as how else can principals and superintendents know progress is occurring during supervisory formative meetings and at summative meeting during evaluations regarding the achieving goals? Principals need to know the goal target to begin marshaling resources and to meet goals. In addition, these goals could be focused on principals’ weaknesses to improve the performance of principals (Educators 4 Excellence, 2012)
The recommendations for improvement affirm the supervisory and evaluative purposes. First, regular observations with feedback provide an essential element for superintendents to present summative feedback based on authentic performances from principals. Second, within the process of supervision and evaluation, principals were able to identify components for superintendents to utilize. Many of these components are represented in best practices for the supervision and evaluation of principals including: an initial goal setting meeting, multiple sources of data with feedback, and at least two meeting during the year, with evaluative meeting at the end of the year (Derrington & Sanders, 2011).
These findings also describe the importance of mentoring or providing additional supports for new or novice principals. Superintendents perceived new principals “having a lack of experience and knowledge of what the job entails . . .” (Cray & Weiler, 2011, p. 934). The complexity of the principalship for new principals and the need for differentiated supervision is supported by Hvidston, McKim, and Mette (2016) who describe the perceptions of novice principals experiencing more frequent school visits from the superintendent as opposed to less frequent visits for experienced principals. Novice principals also benefitted from mentoring and yearlong coaching in a Council of Chief State Officers supervisor principal initiative (Turnbull et al., 2013)
The supervision and evaluation of principals should result in the improvement of principals’ performance in schools as evidenced by student academic growth. The supervision of principals coupled with accurate feedback from superintendents is a critical factor in this process. As states and districts select and implement principal evaluation systems, recommendations from principals regarding the execution of these systems could provide insight into improving the outcomes of assessing the performance of principals. Ultimately principals need to see these systems as valuable tools for improvement as opposed to another bureaucratic hoop to jump through to meet federal or state requirements.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.