The Principal Influence: A Framework for Developing Leadership Capacity in Principals

Veteran school administrator and leadership expert Pete Hall has dedicated his career to supporting the improvement of our education systems. In addition to his teaching experiences in Massachusetts, California, and Nevada, he served as a school principal for 12 years in Nevada and Washington. This is his sixth book to accompany over a dozen articles on school leadership. When he’s not competing in triathlons, Pete currently works as an educational consultant as a member of the ASCD Faculty and trains educators worldwide. You can contact him via e-mail at [email protected] or connect on Twitter at @EducationHall.

Dr. Deborah Childs-Bowen is an internationally recognized transformational educator having served in diverse roles as teacher, principal, district administrator, educational researcher, and university professor. She is an ASCD Faculty member with Marzano, senior consultant with Learning Forward, and past president of NSDC (2004). Her knowledge, expert facilitation, executive coaching, and school improvement practices enhance transferring research into application. Deborah is a contributing author to books, toolkits, and professional journals through SERVE, ASCD, NSDC, Corwin, and NASSP. She consolidates all of this as educational consultant with Creative Mind Enterprise, deborah@creativemindenterprise.com, building capacity and equitable learning opportunities that affect results for all students.

Ann Cunningham-Morris has served educators for over 35 years. She is the former director of professional development for ASCD. She has also been a district-level instructional administrator, school-based administrator, teacher leader, and classroom teacher in seven different states. Additionally, Ms. Cunningham-Morris is an ASCD Faculty member and has served as an educational consultant to many school systems throughout the world in the areas of leadership development, curriculum development, effective professional learning, and instructional best practices. She has written articles, blogs, and provided interviews on these topics for professional publications. She can be reached at [email protected].

Phyllis Pajardo is presently the assistant superintendent in Fairfax City, VA, schools. Prior to that, Phyllis served Fairfax County (Virginia) Public Schools for 34 years; she was the assistant superintendent of Human Resources as well as cluster II, where she was “lead learner” for 28 schools/principals. Pajardo has been an elementary teacher, consulting teacher, assistant principal, principal, specialist, project manager, and director. She is an adjunct faculty for George Mason University and the University of Virginia and serves on the ASCD Faculty, facilitating professional learning on leadership and consulting on leadership development approaches. A native Virginian, Pajardo’s dissertation was published in 2009. She loves mentoring and developing aspiring leaders, watching professional basketball and football, listening to contemporary jazz and gospel music, and traveling with her family.

Veteran educator Alisa Simeral has guided school-based reform efforts as a teacher, dean, instructional coach, and professional developer. Her emphasis is, and always has been, improving the adult-input factors that contribute to increased student-output results. She has spent the past 10 years studying and writing on this topic, and she is coauthor to several ASCD books. Alisa currently works as both a district-level instructional coach in Reno, Nevada, and educational consultant on the ASCD Faculty. Her mantra is “When our teachers succeed, our students succeed.” You can contact her via email at [email protected] or catch her Twitter feed at @AlisaSimeral.