The Changing Role of the School Principal

The role of the school principal has changed much in the recent intervening years. Thus, he/she was formerly thought of as a manager and management of the local school. Management is poignant, but being a leader in improving teaching and learning situations is more salient. Leadership is needed to provide the best experiences for pupils in the school setting. The instructional objectives need to be relevant and possess clarity. Vague statements, ambiguous in nature, have little value in teaching and learning situations. Then too, varied learning opportunities for pupils to attain objectives should be motivating and challenging; appraisal procedures need to be valid and reliable. Standardized test results are limited in what they measure. A variety of approaches must be utilized including everyday teacher observation of learner obtained knowledge and skills. The Principal as Leader of Curriculum Improvement School principals must believe in pupils being able to achieve optimally in school and in life. Thus, reasonably high expectations need to be in the offing. Pupils are human beings who have definite needs in life which must be met. They need to have adequate nutrition such as school breakfasts, lunch, and dinner. The latter has not been met by most schools unless they have an after school program of quality learnings. Weekend food packs to take home provide learners with some nutrition needs over the weekend. There should be a clothes closet in the school setting to provide suitable clothing for those in need. Cooperation with agencies in society should be stressed to secure necessities for all, including school supplies. The principal must advocate collaborate endeavors in different curriculum areas to promote pupils having belonging needs met. These endeavors must truly emphasize pupils accepting each other with positive feelings involved. No one likes to be an isolate and be shunned by others. Pupils need to feel they possess worth, and principals need to assist teachers to recognize accomplishments of learners. In everyday lessons, the teacher may notice improvement of a learner over previous performances in mathematics, science, social studies, reading and the language arts, as well as citizenship behaviors. These need to be recognized and thus, each pupil might receive recognition. A brief statement of honest praise such as that's fine may suffice. Different words and phrases might well be judicially utilized in the recognition process for pupils to have esteem needs met. Communication between communicator and communicatee need to be clear, concise, and accurate. Poor communication hinders with pupils failing to secure directions, explanations, and conveyed information (Ediger and Rao, 2013). Principals must become self efficacious in knowledge and skills in curriculum development. There are selected areas in which principals may play leadership roles in assisting teachers in teaching and learning situations; among others, the following are examples: In reading, teachers need to assist pupil * use of context clues, as well as selected learnings in phonics as the need arises * utilization of phonics in initial consonant recognition in word identification. Additional phonic elements may be added as necessary * application of close reading skills so that learners truly understand ideas in reading comprehension * ability to read critically and problem solve * use background information to attach meaning to the ensuing reading lesson. In mathematics, teachers need to guide pupils to * acquire and attach meaning to structural ideas * utilize reasoning and inductive methods of achievement * think analytically and engage in problem solving * being creative in the use of algorithms * use in different levels of complexity as to the commutative, associative, and distributive properties in mathematics * diagnose and remediate in daily lessons and units of study * sequence learnings to accomodate algebra, and geometry in a K-12 order. …