The Texas Principal Evaluation & Support System (T-PESS) was designed with the  purpose of providing principals a list of best practices that improve instructional quality, school productivity, and student achievement. I was hired to evaluate how this paper and pencil assessment could work from principles and administrators as an online assessment.

• Partner(s): Region 13 Education Service Center

• My Role: User Experience Research

  • Researched and developed personas for the web presence of the Texas Principal Evaluation and Support System (TPESS).

  • Conducted industry research and analysis into the world of school principals to better understand their day-to-day priorities.

  • Interviewed all stakeholders and reviewed the TPESS curriculum/materials.

  • Established user interviews and surveys with TPESS Principals & Principal Advisors to better understand needs.

  • Collaborated across multiple teams and stakeholders to strategize and move content into its relevant spot in the sitemap & Combined all relevant information into actionable User Personas.

• Design: Journey Map, Persona(s)

• Tools: Sketch, Google Docs-Sheets

• Duration: 3 months

• Website: Teacher Principal Evaluation & Support System

Project Background

Using research on effective school-level leadership (Waters & Cameron 2007; Marzano, Waters & McNulty, 2005; Waters, Marzano & McNulty, 2003), the Steering Committee identified 21 specific leadership responsibilities and 66 associated practices that demonstrate a statistically significant link between principal leadership and student achievement. These 21 responsibilities have been strategically placed in a framework that will simplify the complex and demanding components of the principals job. This framework will assist them in selecting the right work, effectively managing change while implementing strategic initiatives, and building resilient, purposeful communities of practice that help improve student outcomes. T-PESS seeks to establish with this process that: 

• Professional development is an ongoing process for all principals regardless of their level of proficiency

• Development isn’t isolated in single-year snapshots of performance but is continuous and consistently building off prior efforts and attention

• Principals have a say in and monitor their own goals and growth throughout the year, with appraisers seeking to provide the support that principals need to achieve their goals

A Day in the Principals Office

Conducting basic research into a principals world, I found that each of the thousands of school districts and millions of classrooms in the United States has its own unique set of challenges that reflect a wide diversity of students, teachers, resources and communities.  Texas as a state has very different settings and problems just due to population size of the city verse rural community.  Yet each school system also confronts similar facilities and business issues that cut across differences in population, geography and wealth.

The job description of school Principal calls on them to provide overall leadership and vision, but some have been known to serve lunch in the cafeteria, fix a leaky sink, shovel snow and scrape gum off the gym floor. Then there are drugs, and violence, and truancy; and, a few years back even, swine flu.

Once I decided to start a list of the day-to-day struggles principals face, I realized it could go on at some length. These few points listed below are among the top issues that continually crop up as challenges for Principals to overcome or goals to achieve. These might not be the top priorities for every district, but at some point, most school administration will have to decide how to address them.

THE GOOD...

Being a school principal is a tough job. Many principals stick with it because the joys of the job far outweigh the frustrations. During the interviews I conducted with Principals, I tried to focus on what the happy points were in their day, in an attempt to understand what gets them out of bed each morning.

The Bad...

FIRST YEAR PRINCIPALS IN URBAN SCHOOLS ARE NOT STAYING

Principals new to their school face a variety of challenges that can influence their likelihood of improving their schools' performance and their likelihood of remaining the principal. Understanding the actions that principals take and the working conditions they face in the first year can inform efforts to promote school improvement and principal retention.

PARENTS AS ROADBLOCKS

"Some of the biggest frustrations that I face as principal range from a shortage of quality teachers and under-funded federal and state mandates to aging facilities," said a principal from a small Texas town. "Another issue that frustrates me would be families who do not value education and support their school's efforts." Family support is required in order for education to be successful. 

FRUSTRATED BY "LOST STUDENTS"

A lot of principals spoke about their top frustration as a principal being "losing a student." By that, I mean that a student -- for whatever reason -- decides that their education here has no relevance to their lives and leaves school without a diploma.  One principal explained  "I know what kind of job and existence awaits those students, and I want more for them than they want for themselves."

AND THE UGLY.

SECURITY & SAFETY

Principals may wear a lot of hats in schools—instructional leader, coach, disciplinarian, mediator—but their first priority undoubtedly is to keep students safe. After the spate of school shootings in the late 1990s that culminated with the tragic slayings at Columbine High School in Colorado, school administrators have moved security to the top of their priority list.  

FUNDING

Principals can identify their facility needs and devise creative solutions, but without money, educators can't transform those visions into reality. To build grassroots support for construction and renovation projects, many districts are inviting all the stakeholders in their communities to take part in planning facility improvements.  

UNFUNDED MANDATES

Laws such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act call upon schools to provide services or accommodations, but the mandates often do not include funding to carry out the provisions of the law. 

REPAIR OF FACILITIES

The average school building is more than 40 years old (US Dept. of Education), and many classrooms are inadequate or obsolete. Last year, the National Education Association estimated that public school systems nationwide would need $322 billion to repair and modernize facilities. A U.S. Department of Education report, "Condition of America's Public School Facilities: 2013," found that three-quarters of schools need to spend money on repairs, renovations and modernizations.

ENROLLMENT BOOM

School enrollment continues to grow, and communities continue to struggle to accommodate. That means that even if school districts had their facilities in good enough shape to accommodate current enrollment, they still would have to find ways to add classroom space for the growth that is expected.

STAFF TRAINING & RETENTION

A growing population of students, a trend toward smaller class sizes, and the accelerating pace of teacher retirements mean districts across the nation will be struggling to find enough competent teachers to instruct the next generation of students. Nationally, the turnover rate for beginning teachers is 40% to 50% (Gallup research 2015).  Principals define their schools’ working conditions and culture. It is impossible to create a positive learning environment for students if the school fails to provide a positive working environment for the adults.

CONFLICTING INFORMATION IN THE CLASSROOM

With students coming to class with smartphones, the probability rises that for every opinion taught in the classroom there are 10 conflicting opinions being presented to the student almost immediately through the Internet -- much of which from questionable sources. The challenge of the next generation teacher will be how to respond to the deluge of misinformation students will be able to access almost immediately.

Ethnographic Field study

Utilizing ethnographic methods, I observed principals and super intendants and recorded their time use to eliminate bias associated with self-reports and to allow for more detailed description of time-use than usually possible in surveys. I shadowed 15 principals across the Texas Public School system, each over the course of a full school day, and collected detailed information on time-use at five-minute intervals.  5 elementary, 5 middle school, and 5 High School principals for comparison. The scale of the data collection is large enough to allow for explicit modeling of the links between principal actions and school outcomes. 

1. What do principals do?
2. Where do principals spend their time?
3. How do principals' roles vary by school characteristics?

Principal Job Tasks by Category

I populated the list below of 43 task codes based on the broad categories of principal duties described in the T-PESS Evaluation.  It would be difficult for  43 separate tasks to be observed so I broke them down into six categories of tasks: Internal Relations, Organization Management, Administration, External Instruction, Instructional Program,  and Day to Day.  

Survey

PRINCIPAL EXPERIENCE OF FEEDBACK MODEL

REALITY:

Every day, Principals are managing hundreds of informal feedback moments from students and through reflection, are processing how best to translate those moments into action. This action must align to both long-term classroom and student goals and near-term (in-the-moment) needs of individual students. At the same time, Principals are reaching out to their peers for advice and to share student updates.

Without proper documentation of many of these informal (and valuable) feedback moments, the broad sharing of ideas or actions based on informal feedback is left to the discretion of the Principal. Often, these actions do not correlate to the formalized feedback mechanisms in place by administrators driven by student assessment data. This formal feedback is seen as one-sided, infrequent, and based on a homogenized view of the role of Principal. Even a Principals goals, which should catalyze agency over their own growth, are not always aligned with a Principal’s personal school admin and student goals.

Principals are persistently torn between the informal feedback they value the most (which is actionable, dialogue-based and offers time for reflection) and the formal feedback that evaluates effectiveness. This disconnection between the formal and informal creates a situation where many teachers are unable to meaningfully translate their evaluation scores into everyday practice. 

THE IDEAL: A NEW, COMMUNITY-ORIENTED PRINCIPAL FEEDBACK MODEL

An ideal feedback system is a connected community of learners working in unison toward student learning and achievement. Professional growth goals and student goals, established at the start of the year, would be the constant that ties all of the formal and informal feedback together. Adaptation (both near-term and long-term) would occur based on the relevant needs of the Principal and evaluator. Principals would have access to their peers for assistance, support and collaboration.

There would be open dialogue between all players, including regionally, allowing Principals to be involved in discussions around initiative implementations within their school or district. As a community of learners, each person would be there to learn, knowing that by everyone growing in knowledge, students are benefiting and ultimately achieving. 
 

Journey Map

System Mapping Web Content