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Description
Strong principal leadership is critical in establishing and maintaining effective elementary schools. However, evaluation methods to measure elementary principal effectiveness still lack in development and consistency. The complexity of the principal role makes it difficult to align evaluation processes to desired research based effective principal behaviors, and, unfortunately, principal evaluation is still a much underdeveloped topic in educational research. States and districts need to critically address principal evaluation practices and create systems that accurately measure principal performance and support principals in their professional growth. This qualitative study sought to better describe the status of current elementary school principal evaluation procedures and identify how elementary school principals perceive evaluation procedures support improvement of their leadership effectiveness. Interviews of 10 elementary school principals representing different school districts within Southern California served as the primary source for data collection. Additionally, principal evaluation instruments, district documents, websites, demographic data, and field notes supported this inquiry. A constant comparative method helped the researcher to organize and analyze data. The study describes the status of current elementary school principal evaluation procedures in 10 districts. Specifically, the study reports on processes and tools used in principal evaluation systems, the degree to which current principal evaluation practices align across districts, how practices align to research on effective leadership practices, and the degree to which elementary school principals perceived evaluation procedures influenced or supported improvement of their leadership effectiveness. Findings suggest that policies and practices across districts varied, principals did not feel that current evaluation practices influenced their leadership, and participants had little input into the development of the evaluation tool used by their districts. Data also point to the need for evaluation processes that focus on building trust between principals and supervisors, a desire for greater visibility of evaluators, and a need for ongoing and specific feedback regarding their performance. Participants' other suggestions for improvement included building relationships and trust, providing more formative feedback, engaging in regular conversations about leadership, visiting schools more often, being consistent in completion of evaluations, and aligning professional development to expectations. Study results support the need to revise and align current evaluation practices with established research on effective leadership behaviors. Processes and tools need to be consistent, and impact principal behaviors. Principals need to feel valued and have confidence in receiving beneficial feedback about their performance.
