Reconceptualizing the Assistant Principal Role to Leverage its Transformative Potential

Abstract

Assistant principals (APs) can act as powerful agents for ensuring equitable educational access. Given their close proximity to students’ academic and behavioral experiences, they have their fingers on the cultural “pulses” of their schools and are often positioned to influence decisions that significantly impact student trajectories. However, many APs are still underutilized and underdeveloped by principals who hold outdated conceptions of the position, using it mainly as a catch-all for supervisory duties and discipline. When relegated to low-level management roles, and in the absence of appropriate mentoring and training, APs often prematurely quit their positions, disrupting school improvement initiatives, morale, and leader succession. This study explores how a group of early-career APs experienced a unique, year-long Inclusive Excellence fellowship that offered targeted professional development and group support; it also gathered perspectives on how specific supervisory practices impacted their capacity to act transformatively and their willingness to persist in their roles.