Last week, The Chicago Principal Partnership hosted its first Town Hall to hear directly from principals, principal residents and partners committed to principal quality about the tools needed to help make Chicago the best city in the country to lead a public school. Learn more about the Town Hall and how you can get involved.
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Great principals in schools result in better outcomes for students. Fostering an environment where great principals know they can get the professional support they need to keep getting better means attracting and keeping high-caliber leaders. Alongside Chicago Board of Education President Frank Clark, CPS CEO Forrest Claypool and Chief Education Officer Dr. Janice Jackson, principals from around the city assembled at Malcolm X College to discuss why that support is so important to Chicago, as part of The Chicago Principal Partnership’s first Town Hall.
The people who lead and comprise The Chicago Principal Partnership (The Partnership) know making Chicago the best city in America to lead a public school takes more than platitudes and good vibes – it takes professional development (PD) resources for those who choose to take up the mantle. Unfortunately, sometimes those PD resources don’t match up with what people need in the field. As principals Ricardo Trujillo and Christopher Goins mentioned, less than 25 percent of principals surveyed rated their current PD as “very good” or “excellent,” and 65 percent of principals surveyed said they wanted PD to be tailored to their needs.
The Partnership seeks to collaborate, to design solutions with principals. And to that end, Principals Goins and Trujillo led a presentation of four potential PD tools for development from members of The Fund and The Partnership community:
- Learning Tracks – PD resources organized into areas of choice with topics for your given needs, skills and school contexts.
- Encyclopedia – An accessible and more organized site to search for and find resources that are more useful for principals.
- Forum – Connecting principals in an online community with live discussion where people are generating their own content and sharing it with others.
- Match – (billed as the “eHarmony” of PD) focused on matching principals with PD resources that are aligned to the needs and competencies they specify, using survey answers to customize the focus of the resources offered.
Everyone in attendance participated discussed the four proposals, and voted for a winner, which, overwhelmingly, turned out to be Match. We look forward to seeing what new resources come out of the Town Hall.
Join The Partnership today and see how you can continue the work we’ve begun to support our principals. On August 23rd, the Partners Council for Principals will meet to co-create a PD tool for principals. The Partners Council for Hiring’s first meeting to refine existing tools meets on September 21st.
Nothing makes hard work easier than knowing people who are invested stand with you. In the words of Principal Cynthia Miller, an Advisory Committee Member of The Partnership:
“I’ve been around for a long time and I’ve seen a lot, some good and some not so good. My experience with the fund has been overwhelming positive and the Partnership continues to inspire me to reinvent myself, to make a difference and to serve – and this is where my faith is…with the Fund and the Partnership. Engage with us, connect with us and stand with us as a member of the partnership. Because if not us, then who, and if not NOW, then when?”
The Fund is a lead partner in The Partnership to ensure a citywide commitment to strong school leadership.