June 2002 — Features
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Build It and They Will Not Necessarily Come
The Effectiveness of a Professional Development Web Site for Entry-Year Principals
The Northeast Ohio Principals' Academy Entry-Year Program (EYP) was one of five regional programs that received funding from the Ohio Department of Education for 1999-2001 to develop policy recommendations for state licensure of beginning principals, effective fall 2002. Each program had two university-based co-directors, and the Northeast Ohio region also used a 20-person coordinating committee consisting of superintendents, principals and representatives of higher education. All regional programs were charged to develop, pilot test, evaluate and offer recommendations for sound and workable licensure procedures. To encourage creativity, the leaders of the programs were directed to work independently.
In this project, a diverse group of 30 entry-year principals, recommended by their superintendents, and 30 active or retired principal mentors from a 14-county area received training in the Ohio Administrative Competencies. These competencies were based on the "Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium Standards for School Leaders" (1996), available online at www.ccsso.org/isllc.html, and adopted by the Ohio Board of Education in 1998. The participants were provided with mentoring education or support, training and practice in portfolio preparation, opportunities for informal networking, as well as a range of additional professional development activities. Some activities took place at general meetings of the program, but most occurred in monthly cluster meetings held in four geographic areas within the Northeast Ohio region. The cluster meetings were planned and led by program facilitators who were active or retired principals selected for their professional success and interpersonal skills.
The program Web site was designed to enable electronic communication to achieve four instrumental objectives:
1. Facilitate the coordination of program and cluster activities.
2. Encourage formal and informal networking among participants by overcoming the physical distances between them.
3. Reduce the personal isolation often experienced by principals.
4. Provide links and references that would support principal professional development.
The co-directors and coordinating committee viewed the Web site as potentially useful to the participants and, therefore, as an important element of the project.
Each participant was offered the use of a Compaq Prosignia 150 notebook computer or a stipend of equal value; almost everyone chose the notebook. Those who accepted the computer were allowed to keep it upon the project's completion. The computers were intended to:
