Insights: How Expert Principals Make Difficult Decisions

Learn to make the best decisions for your school!

Essential to inspiring and improving schools, principals make complex decisions on a daily basis. This invaluable resource offers extensive case studies which explore factors considered by expert principals to manage crises, navigate tough choices, and gain control of unsettling school environments. You will learn how priorities and school culture inform these decisions, and acquire powerful insights on decision-making best practices. You will find:

• Problem-solving strategies and cases focusing on data analysis and competing stakeholders
• Easy-to-use checklists, robust reflection questions, and a framework to define your professional core values
• Tools to coach and evaluate teachers, and bolster struggling students

About the Author
McLaughlin, Dionne V.: - "Dionne V. McLaughlin, Ed.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at North Carolina Central University. She is a British-born Jamaican educator who is an experienced bilingual high school and elementary school principal. Dr. McLaughlin has experience as a K-12 Director for a voluntary desegregation program in Massachusetts and as the Program Director for a Latino community-based organization. Additionally, she has 11 years of experience teaching, a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill and a Master's in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Research interests include: the principalship, Blacks in Latin America, Effective teachers of African American and Latino high school students, and examining the racial context of schools. Recent scholarly works include an NCPEA article on how administrators can improve schools by learning from the experiences of African American and Latino High School Students and a Teacher Education Journal of South Carolina article, "The Cultural Symphony in Schools: Effectively Teaching African American and Latino High School Students." Dr. McLaughlin also has another manuscript in progress for a SAGE book chapter, "New South Realities, Demographics, Cultural Capital, and Diversity" in a Guide on Educational Leadership and Management that will be published in 2015. Dr. McLaughlin has led workshops for teachers, principals and assistant principals on culturally responsive teaching, effective school practices, and making effective leadership decisions."