Distinguished principals receive extra pay to mentor their colleagues. Principals also participate in collegial study groups, where they read relevant research and discuss issues such as how to implement high standards. In Bellevue, Washington, both the superintendent and the principals regularly visit classrooms, with the goal of learning to recognize and describe good teaching and to provide better instructional feedback to teachers. After multiple classroom visits, the superintendent and principal discuss their observations, then meet with the teacher and eventually with the students. Teachers and principals in this district are continually revising curriculum and refining lessons.
Principals also get together monthly to talk about instruction.
The superintendent also regularly teaches the same class of students. Second, they have developed a systematic process for giving and receiving feedback. Mary Russo, a principal in Boston, said that when her district made a concerted effort to focus principal groups on what they can control instead of what they can't control, the discussions turned primarily to instructional issues and were much more motivating. Instructional knowledge has traditionally received little emphasis in the hiring process for principals' jobs, but some districts are trying to change practice in this area. The interviewers quickly discovered that many people who did well in other stages of interviewing could not accurately describe the lessons they had seen.