Principals in Baltimore City public schools will receive some assistance to help them handle the increased autonomy they’ve received under CEO Andres Alonso, officials said Tuesday.
Principal coaches will be assigned about a dozen principals each to discern and share strategies that work best to manage schools.
The school system created 15 coaching positions and filled them with former city principals who excelled at improving academic scores and working with the community.
The plan aims to give principals a successful peer from whom they can learn.
Alonso said the new support system for principals “taps our homegrown experts” and “will help us go from islands of success to a system of great schools.”
In his first year leading the city schools, Alonso overhauled the system, introducing a model that gave principals greater control over their schools and their budgets.
A primary focus in the first year with principal coaches will be for teachers and administrators to look at student achievement data together to find the best teaching techniques.
Union leaders have criticized the plan to push control down to individual schools.
On a Morgan State University radio station this past week, Jimmy Gittings, head of the administrators union, and Marietta English, head of the teachers union, blasted the school system, claiming principals aren’t being given enough training to manage their budgets.
Alonso, at a leadership meeting Tuesday morning for school employees kicking off the new school year, stressed several times that school leaders should seek help from the central office if they need it.
In turn, Alonso said, central office employees should never deny assistance.
“If we do business as we have, in the future we will not succeed,” Alonso said of a school system that has long underachieved.
“The work is going to be difficult and messy. Ask for help.”
The coaches, along with nearly 50 new principals, were introduced at Alonso’s leadership meeting at Morgan State’s fine arts center.
“It’s giving them the opportunity to collaborate and get the best practices,” Mary Minter, the school system’s chief academic officer, said of the coaching system.
Minter said the school system has had mentors and support for principals in the past, but this is the first time coaches have been used this way.
Principal coaches also help train principal residents, who are aspiring to become school leaders.
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