Administrator's Perceptions of Mentoring Programs for New Assistant Principals

Assistant principals are now required to serve as instructional and curriculum leaders. Assistant principal mentoring has been deemed as one way to make new assistant principals ready for the challenges that they will face as they begin their careers. The purpose of the qualitative study was to understand administrators' perceptions of mentoring programs for new assistant principals. The study was carried out in elementary, middle and high schools, and a district office in a Georgia Regional Educational Service Agency (RESA) that supplied funding to implement a mentoring program that would help mold assistant principals into quality school leaders. The methodology for this study consisted of semi-structured interviews. The researcher examined the interview responses from five assistant principals, three mentoring principals from elementary, middle and high school and one director of leadership development. Assistant principal participants and principal mentors alike all agreed that mentoring helped in the development of assistant principals into high performing leaders. Assistant principals and principal mentors all found that building relationships and participating in hands on activities were valuable to the assistant principal mentoring program. The data proved that mentor selection was vital to the growth and development of assistant principals and it also allowed principal mentors to sharpen their skills as school leaders. Data from the study showed that the assistant principal mentoring program was aligned to Georgia Leadership Institute for School Improvement's eights roles of leadership. Assistant principal mentoring programs also have barriers. Limited exposure, time constraints, and lack of support beyond the program were all considered barriers to the effectiveness of assistant principal mentoring. It was suggested that assistant principal mentoring is beneficial to assistant principal participants but the barriers must be addressed to enhance the program.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education in Education Administration (Ed.D.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation (open access)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Leadership, Technology, and Human Development

Year dc:date.available

2009

Author dc:creator

• Curry, Takila M.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Missy Bennett
• Charlotte Eady

• ETD
• Georgia leadership institute for school improvement
• Regional educational service agency
• Mentoring in education
• Assistant school principals
• School principals
• School administrators
• Educational leadership

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/315

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-1315