The educational challenge, the principal as strategic thinker, and standards-based instructional systems are topics that 48 participants from throughout the state of Minnesota are learning about so that they can train principals next year. Funded for two years by the state legislature for the purpose of providing quality professional development to principals, the Minnesota Principals’ Academy was launched in September. Each month, 40 principals, current as well as retired, along with participants from the State Department of Education and the University of Minnesota, come together to learn best practices in school leadership. The train-the trainer delivery model will enable Minnesota to builds its internal capacity to provide continuing leadership development for principals.

The curriculum for the academy is the research-based program of the National Institute for School Leadership (NISL), an initiative of the Washington, D.C.-based National Center on Education and the Economy. The NISL executive development program was developed over six years with major support from national foundations and is being used to provide leadership development for school principals in Massachusetts, Florida, Pennsylvania, and other states. Leadership best practices from education, business, the military and other fields are the center of NISL’s leadership development program. In addition to attending the monthly 3 – 4 day workshops, participants have books and readings as well as on-line tutorials. The commitment is huge for this program.

The University of Minnesota’s participants are Ann Zweber Werner, program director, and Gloria Kumagai, coordinator, both of the Licensure and Leadership Development Program, along with Carole Gupton, director, Continuing Professional Studies Program, and Cynthia Moeller, program director, Center for School Change. Kent Pekel, executive director, Consortium for Post-Secondary Academic Success, is coordinating the partnership between the Minnesota Department of Education, the Minnesota Elementary Principals Association, The Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals, the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, and the University of Minnesota, that is working together to provide the academy.

The recruitment and rigorous selection process for the leadership team began this summer and was done by a team from the University of Minnesota that included our program, the Continuing Professional Studies program, and the Consortium for Post-Secondary Academic Success. There were over 100 applicants, indicating a big interest in this type of leadership development for principals.

To date, the evaluations of the participants have indicated a positive response to the NISL materials. Training of the leadership team will not be completed until August 2007. Updates on the Minnesota Principals’ Academy will be done in future issues of The Leader.