The Views of Novice and Late Career Principals Concerning Instructional and Organizational Leadership within Their Evaluation

This study examined the perspectives of novice and late career principals concerning instructional and organizational leadership within their performance evaluations. An online survey was sent to 251 principals with a return rate of 49%. Instructional leadership components of the evaluation that were most important to all principals were: monitoring classroom performance of teachers to improve instructional practice, monitoring student achievement with assessments, and using data from state and local assessments to improve classroom instruction for students. All principals perceived providing a safe and orderly climate and using student data to make changes to programs as the most important elements of organizational leadership during the evaluation process. When comparing the attitudes of novice principals to late career principals, instructional leadership was significantly more important for principals with less experience.