In collaboration with district partners, UNC Greensboro Principal Fellows Programs / Principal Preparation for Excellence and Equity in Rural Schools (PPEERS) assessed future school leadership needs and used this information to develop a proposal for additional funding. During the April NC Principal Fellows Program Commission meeting, PPEERS was awarded funds to increase its cohort enrollment from 20 to 27 Principal Fellow members in 2024-26 and 2026-28.
Initially, in the fall semester of 2022, the PPEERS Leadership Team (Dr. Christopher Kelly, Dr. Mark A. Rumley and Onna Jordan) began to research ways to raise the number of Principal Fellow candidates in PPEERS 4 to the number of Principal Fellow candidates that PPEERS is allotted for in our current North Carolina Principal Fellow Grant Award. They began by launching a Capacity Study for the PPEERS program by initially inquiring from their partner District Point Persons (DPPs) if they had identified any potential Principal Fellow candidates in their school districts to begin in the spring semester of 2023 to be a part of the current PPEERS 4 Cohort. The feedback they received from the current DPPs was that although they did not have any potential future leaders to recommend for the spring semester of 2023, there were future leaders they had identified to begin in the fall semester of 2024 for the PPEERS 5 Cohort, which may garner an increase of requested seats for their individual school districts respectively.
From this, as part of the Capacity Study, the PPEERS Leadership Team inquired from their partner districts’ DPPs to submit the number of seats they would be requesting for our PPEERS 5 Cohort based on their need for growing future leaders in their school districts. This inquiry was made to DPPs somewhat earlier than normal due to being informed by DPPs that there may be an increase of requested seats for their individual school districts. The findings from this specific inquiry revealed that there were multiple partner school districts that were requesting a greater number of seats for the PPEERS 5 Cohort.
Further in the research, they wanted to inquire from some neighboring and currently non-partner school districts if they would be interested in partnering with the PPEERS program as well. They presented their proposal to explore partnerships and provide neighboring non-partner school districts the same opportunity to possibly have potential Principal Fellow candidates to begin in the spring semester of 2023 if they had an urgent, identified need in their school districts for future leaders. Some non-partner school districts did identify that they had the need for the development of future leaders in their school districts’ with the PPEERS program for the PPEERS 5 Cohort. These school districts identified that they had a need for two seats each in our PPEERS 5 Cohort. At this juncture, the PPEERS Leadership Team identified the total number of seats requested for PPEERS 5 based on school districts’ needs. Additionally, Asheboro City Schools expressed that they did have an immediate need and agreed to partner with the PPEERS program beginning in the spring semester of 2023.
The proposal for additional candidates supports the needs and better serves the partnering districts, because rural school districts face disadvantages when they recruit prospective principals. With the challenges that rural districts face in recruiting and retaining principals expected to grow more acutely in coming decades (Cruzeiro & Boon, 2009), the development of rural principal pipelines is imperative (Wood, Find, & Mirecki, 2013). Various studies show that the rural principal must dedicate time and effort toward forming strong school-community relations by promoting a sense of mutuality, understanding, harmony, accord, confidence, and respect between school and community organizations (Hands, 2012; Harmon & Schafft, 2009). Drawing on this research, they are hopeful that the potential partnership with the 14 rural districts for PPEERS 5 that struggle to find and keep effective principals for high-needs schools will develop strong, sustainable leadership pipelines within these districts.
PPEERS 5 will prepare and license new principals for high-needs and rural schools. PPEERS is designed to cultivate skills that research indicates are key for principals in high-needs schools, i.e., instructional leadership, including data use and supervision; distributive leadership; talent management, including cultivation of effective teams; change leadership; building a positive school culture; and promoting equity, excellence, and social justice. Furthermore, the internship is the heart of PPEERS, in that it provides authentic, site-based learning as well as the application of what PPEERS’ candidates are learning in their coursework, leadership development, special topics seminars, and enrichment experiences. Students will also continue to receive significant leadership growth support through experienced Leadership Coaches during the internship experience.
