The Prince George’s County school board has approved the first five future principals who were recruited and will be trained by a national nonprofit group.
All five have accepted the offers and will begin a five-week leadership development course in Boston later this month, according to Peter Kannam, executive director of New Leaders for New Schools Maryland Division. Four of the recruits already work in the Prince George’s system, and a fifth teaches in Montgomery County.
“They met an incredibly high bar,” Kannam said, “and we are just very excited for them to enter into the New Leaders community.”
Those from Prince George’s are Michelle Tyler-Skinner, an assistant principal at Thomas S. Stone Elementary School; Glynis Jordan, an English teacher at Laurel High School; Ingrid Reynolds-Lawson, a French teacher at the John Hanson French Immersion and Montessori School; and Chandra Brown, a reading specialist and testing coordinator at Port Towns Elementary School.
Tara Sanguinette is a reading teacher in Montgomery County.
“I feel that by becoming a principal, I can touch more students and help more teachers develop and learn ways to provide instruction for all students,” Brown said. “Because all students can learn.”
For the 2007-08 school year, the future principals or residents will pair up with mentor principals in the county’s school system. If that goes well, they will become principals in county schools the following year. In years two and three of their experience, they will continue to receive coaching and mentoring.
“One of the reasons I chose this path [to a principalship] … is because of the ongoing support,” Brown said.
Under the initiative, the county’s public school system will hire 28 new principals by the 2011-12 school year. Kannam said 129 people applied as part of the nationwide search.
Some criteria for recruits are belief in the potential of all children to excel academically, commitment to ongoing learning and possession of interpersonal skills, according to New Leaders’ Web site
