Great Principal Strategies

• General
• High Expectations
• Staff Activities
• Staff and Faculty Meetings
• Student Activities
• Student Leadership

• Anti-Bullying / Anti-Harassment
• General
• Student Discipline

• General

• General

• Fiscal Management
• General
• Human Resource Management
• Time Management

• Communications
• General
• Meetings and Open Houses
• Outreach to Parents/Families
• Parent Activities

• General

• Encouraging Innovation and Risk Taking
  Recognition for teachers taking risks and thinking outside of the box.
  
  
• Student Success Plans by Grade Level
  Designed by White River High School's Dean of Students, Greg Benjamin, the following documents detail a "Student Success Plan" to help parents and students as they transition from middle to high school. Success plans are broken down by grade level (9th through 12th).
  
  
• Closing a School
  When Principal Mary Chapman learned that her school was put on the closure list last year, she had to think fast. How does one go about closing a school? Chapman re-tasked an existing school committee to plan for the closure of Hunt Middle School in Tacoma and to support students, staff, parents and the community in the process. This well-designed list of activities is something we hope you never have to use.
  
  

Welcome to GPS: Great Principal Strategies!

It’s a fact: Some of the best ideas come from your colleagues in the principalship. But it’s also a fact that a principal’s schedule is hectic. You don’t have time to make calls, visit schools and attend a workshop every week, just to glean ideas for ways to meet the challenges of school leadership. AWSP has the solution — GPS: Great Principal Strategies. Designed to help members navigate through the principalship, this resource puts innovative, effective, tried and true strategies at your fingertips.

The GPS tool, available only to AWSP members, is organized according to the eight leadership criteria for principal evaluation, as identified by the 2010 Legislature in E2SSB 6696. Each of the colored circles in the "Principal Evaluation Criteria" wheel above represents one criterion. Click on any circle, and you will be taken to a cache of strategies that support a principal's work in that specific area. Many strategies align with several criteria; they are cross-listed for easy reference. 

As an AWSP member, you will be both a consumer and a content-generator for the GPS tool. We will be relying on you to contribute your best ideas, suggest subcategories and let us know what kinds of strategies you would like to see added to the cache. To submit a strategy, simply click on "Submit Your Strategy" link at the top of this page. To provide feedback, contact AWSP's Linda Farmer at lindaf@awsp.org or 800.562.6100.

To learn more about the eight leadership criteria for principal evaluation, download AWSP's Principal Leadership in a Performance-Based School.