The Principals Support Program uses a team of retired principals and educators who have outstanding records as principals of New York City public elementary, middle, and high schools. These seasoned educators serve as advisors and mentors to active principals, whether experienced or inexperienced. Each advisor is assigned to a group of principals and meets with them monthly. These meetings allow principals to come together to share problems and solutions, create new programs, enhance existing ones, and form a network of supportive peers. Frequently, members of these groups become trusted partners in education, regularly communicating with one another by telephone, fax, and e-mail.
Advisors routinely visit with each principal in their group.
These visits occur at the principals' schools, allowing them to share plans, problems, and solutions. Advisors also help to assess specific troublesome situations at the school site and frequently offer substantive counsel based upon their own experiences. Most important, they provide insight and a chance for reflection, and foster discussion about strengths, weaknesses, successes, and failures. Advisors in the Principals Support Program also help principals to identify children's instructional needs and to cope effectively with the challenges that change brings to a school. Acting as additional resources, advisors provide a vast array of information and counsel about curricula advancements, standards, assessment strategies, technology, and management practices.