Project for School Innovation

Support Network for Innovative Principals (SNIP)


 

 

 
Support Network for Innovative Principals, is on hiatis but please read about the rich case stories and lessons learned from SNIP in:

Working With Your Faculty: Case Stories from the Experience of Public School Principals




 
 

 
 

A PSI intern from the Harvard Graduate School of Education recently conducted interviews with two of the 2009-10 SNIP Facilitators. To get a sense of their backgrounds and some of the successes and challenges in leading a cohort of principals, please click their image to be redirected to the interview.

 
SNIP Facilitator Joe Petner            
                              Joe Petner                        Nancy Brodsky
To hear an audio clip of remarks made by SNIP Co-Founder and Facilitator Ron Walker at the May 5th SNIP Alumni Gathering, please click his picture below.
SNIP Facilitator Ron Walker
Ron Walker

 

When those in K-12 education demand vision, accountability, leadership, and instructional direction, they demand all of this from one person: the school principal. The principal not only bears the growing weight of education reform, but also shoulders the pressures of managing faculty and staff, communicating with parents, fostering the school's mission, and serving students. In other words, the principal is someone everyone in the school community looks to for leadership, guidance, and support. However, there are few places to which a principal can turn for similar inspiration, replenishment, and camaraderie.

It is for precisely this reason that PSI formed its first Support Network for Innovative Principals in 2002. Since then, we have brought together eight cohorts — small groups in which eight to twelve public school principals meet for eight facilitated evening sessions to share their successes and challenges and offer  support, as they hone their critical listening skills and examine their own leadership strengths and weaknesses. Participants are veteran as well as first time school leaders. They are men and women, black, white, Asian American, and Latino. Their schools are urban, suburban, charter, district, pilot, and alternative. What they all have in common is their role. All are leaders of public schools, and all have faced many of the same questions and challenges.

Participation in this group has steadily grown over the years thanks in part to alumni referrals. We find that the best candidates for SNIP are those who strive to create school environments in which trust and adult learning form a foundation for effective teaching, student growth, and communal respect. They are committed to the belief that every student can excel.

We have convened SNIP cohorts in: Boston, Lowell, Malden, and again this year, in Southeastern MA with a cohort in Fall River.

SNIP Alumni Gathering 2010
SNIP Alumni Gathering- May 2010

 

SNIP Alumni Gathering 2009

SNIP Alumni Celebration - March 2009


 SNIP Alumni Celebration - April 2008
Second Annual SNIP Alumni Celebration - April 2008

 

Please click the picture below to hear a selection of remarks that SNIP Co-Founder Kevin Andrews delivered to the first gathering of SNIP alumni on June 13, 2007.

Kevin Andrews, SNIP Co-Founder