Cultivating strong leaders
When Peggy Murdock became principal in 2008,
she made significant changes to several major
aspects of the school – its appearance, organizational structure, philosophy toward teaching and
learning, culture, and partnerships. She formulated
a “leadership family” that concentrates on safety,
positive behavior, and academic success. She
also instituted a new approach to discipline and
a positive way to monitor teacher performance
and provide feedback. While Murdock has made
substantial changes to the school, she emphasizes that she leads by example. “I believe it is my
responsibility to give more,” Murdock said. “I need
to get here early, I need to give a little more during
the day, and I need to stay after if I’m not finished.”
Developing a culture of pride and professionalism. Shortly after Peggy Murdock became
principal of Covington, she started by working with
others to create an attractive physical and social
environment where people wanted to come to
school, took pride in their surroundings, and liked
each other. To that end, she had the school painted in attractive colors and updated equipment and
physi cal structures. She developed expectations
for the ways that teachers interacted with each
other and with students, strongly emphasizing a
student-based culture, rather than one that was
centered on the needs of adults. The new emphasis meant that all adults and students were to be
respectful of each other and the school environment. Murdock led by example, taking a nurturing
approach to leadership which emphasizes student
and teacher needs. “I believe the only way I can
help my students and the teachers is if they know
that I care about them as individual people,” she
said. “I think, once you understand where they are
inside, where they come from and what is going
on in their lives, you can help make everyone
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Pathways to the Prize
Lessons from the 2012 SCORE Prize School Winners
successful. Heartfelt leadership is necessary if you
are going to help people be who you know they can
be.”
Reorganizing for success. When Murdock came
to the school, she recognized that both people and
schedules needed to be reorganized for effectiveness and efficiency. To determine the best types of
leadership structures for the school, Murdock first
discussed the responsibilities associated with each
leadership role and the effectiveness of the way
roles and responsibilities were allocated. She then
identified each assistant principal’s key strengths
and reorganized, assigning her assistant principals
roles that maximized their strengths in positions that
made systems more efficient and effective. For example, one assistant principal had very strong data
analysis skills, so she has been assigned to generate and explain the data spreadsheets given to all
teachers. She has also been given leadership roles
for professional learning community facilitation.
This assistant principal also serves as curriculum
coordinator and helps to ensure alignment of curricular needs and instructional practices. The other
two assistant principals worked particularly well
with students, so they were assigned to manage
discipline. In addition to these duties, all assistant
principals serve as instructional leaders by observing classrooms and providing feedback to teachers.
Creating a culture of high expectations. When
Murdock came to the school, she recognized that
teachers were not consistently pushing students to
reach their personal best. They were not analyzing
data to improve their own instruction, and were
focused more on what was taught rather than what
was learned. Her strategy to change these practic-