National Board for Professional Teaching Standards

The Principal’s Role – Support

I. School Climate

A. Create a climate where learning and collegiality are valued

B. Create ways to give teachers access to other good teachers in your school, other schools, workshops, conferences

C. Teacher evaluations might include teachers’ analysis of and reflection on their own work. “What teachers know about students which lead them to make the educational decisions they did? What did they learn about their students or about teaching from their experiences with the lesson?”

II. Professional Development

A. Support the individual nature of teaching

B. Create conversations about accomplished teaching

1. Daily interactions with individuals

2. Professional development opportunities including teacher’s special interests, grade level concerns, departmental level, school level, system wide

III. Help Teachers Make Good Decisions

A. When to begin the NBPTS process

B. Obtain the NBPTS Assessment and Scoring Kits for the professional library in your school

C. Focus on the value of NBPTS process for professional development – 3 years

D. Help teachers clear their calendar

E. Solicit help from other teachers, parents, your school system, business and industry

IV. Support Teacher Learning

A. Get involved – Read the NBPTS Standards and portfolio requirements.

B. Have conversations with teachers on teaching and learning. Much of teaching is intuitive. Teachers are able to write what, but need support in writing the analysis and reflection. Why? What did you learn? Now what?

C. Make budget decisions which will support teachers who chose to participate in NBPTS in ways that will broaden their professional development

V. Technical Support

A. Local support from Media Coordinator

B. Video tapes, equipment, camera operators

C. Access to professional publications and other professional publications

D. National Content Standards

E. Readers – not just proofreaders