Broward Schools Win Grant To Study Principal Supervision

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Broward County schools have won a Wallace Foundation grant to study the best ways to supervise principals.

Broward County schools have won a multimillion dollar, five-year grant to help improve supervision of district principals.

The grant is part of a $30 million nationwide effort from the Wallace Foundation to focus on a little-noticed slice of school administration in 14 urban districts. The foundation hopes districts spend more time developing principals’ school leadership skills.

“In many large school districts, principal supervisors oversee too many principals – 24 on average – and focus too much on bureaucratic compliance,” Jody Spiro, the Wallace Foundation’s director of education leadership, said in a statement. “This new initiative aims to help districts move principal supervisors’ focus to one of support, freeing them to better coach and develop principals to help them improve instruction.”

The program has four goals: Reduce the number of principals supervisors oversee; focus more on developing principals; find ways to change central administration to support principal supervisors; and study how well the changes work.

The lessons learned in Broward will be part of a $2.5 million study of whether putting more resources into supervision will improve principals.