Empowering Principals, Strengthening Schools

The South Central Conference Office of Education in Nashville, Tennessee, had a unique opportunity in the 2023-2024 school year to start from scratch and map out what their new Administrative Team wanted Adventist Education to look like in the South Central Conference. After several meetings, they settled that their motto would be Christ-Character-Curriculum to ensure they always focused on a wholistic approach to Adventist Education. However, they realized the only way their vision would be fulfilled in each school was to start with a strong mentorship program with their principals.

Superintendent Walton stated, "If we pour into our principals, they will pour into the teachers, the teachers will pour into the students, the students will be a blessing to their parents, and we will have a strong school culture system-wide if we take principal mentorship very seriously."

Immediately, the conference implemented the following Principal Mentorship Initiatives: Annual Principals Retreats; Quarterly Principal Meetings; Funding to attend Regional and National Conferences; Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Committees (CIAC); Executive Coaching; School Board training and Regular Communication

The South Central Conference Office of Education started hosting the Annual Principals Retreat at the end of the second quarter because they noticed that some new principals needed encouragement and a "Lifeline" to address some of the challenges they were facing in their schools. After the first principals' retreat, it was obvious that this gathering had to happen annually because the administrators needed to know that they were not alone. They were part of a larger community of administrators facing similar trials.

The conference knew that annual retreats were essential for the principals to get away, reconnect, and refuel, but they also realized that the principals needed quarterly check-ins. The quarterly training gave the principals what they needed to carry out the many tasks given to administrators. The conference made it a point to differentiate their quarterly principal meetings to address the needs of each administrative group (small school principals, large school principals, novice principals, and seasoned principals.) The differentiating of needs allowed more robust conversations and training as well as opportunities to focus on the felt needs of the administrators.

Over the past two years, funding has been set aside by the South Central Conference administration to allow their administrators to attend regional and national conferences together. According to Superintendent Walton, "Attending regional and national conferences together with my administrators has been amazing because we get to hear from the most prolific educators in the country while having time in the evening to process ways to implement the strategies in our territory."

The conference didn't hesitate to create Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Committees (CIAC) to ensure that the Office of Education received relevant and timely feedback from the field. Nikkia Hampton Gibbs, Instructional Coach for South Central Conference, stated, "It's important that we model on the conference level what collaboration, active listening, and application looks like during our CIAC meetings, so administrators and teachers will be able to duplicate the process in their schools."

The South Central Conference Office of Education believes in the methods and strategies of most executive coaching models in the sense that our principals should be empowered to come up with their own solutions. They recognized that it's important for the principal to have buy-in to their solution vs. being told how to handle the situation subscribed by the conference. In their executive coaching process, they assist their administrators in navigating difficult conversations with their staff, teachers, parents, and/or board members. The conference team also walks them through how to handle various situations, sometimes by doing role play. However, at the end of the coaching sessions, it's important to the team that the administrator develop their own solutions. They have learned that this approach has boosted their administrators' confidence and ability to handle future challenges.

The conference noted the need for school board training as they assisted small school principals in their leadership training. Klossmeryl Francois, South Central Conference Associate Superintendent, shared with leaders at the beginning of the year that "Partnership must happen before leadership." Francois has taken up the mantle for the last two years in providing annual school board training for the small schools, while Superintendent Walton has supported the administrators by instituting quarterly conference-wide meetings for school board chairs and treasurers.

Lastly, but most importantly, mentorship should happen on a regular basis. The conference team communicates with their administrators every week. It's not out of the norm for principals and the conference team to have a discussion on best practices and not about a crisis. The South Central Conference Office of Education has intentionally developed positive mentorship experiences at the conference level to minimize the feeling of loneliness at the local level.

The conference team believes effective mentorship is the cornerstone of a thriving and robust school community. Success is not the result of a single teacher or principal's actions but rather the outcome of their partnership. The most successful schools are not led by a single individual but by united teams, where leadership and mentorship are no longer a top-down directive but a shared dynamic endeavor.