Case Studies

National Association of Elementary School Principals

The National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), founded in 1921, is a professional organization serving elementary and middle school principals and other education leaders throughout the United States, Canada, and overseas. Principals face many challenges in leading for the 21st century. Transformations in school systems and communities in the U.S. and around the world have greatly expanded the leadership role of principals. NAESP advocates for the support principals need to be successful 21st century leaders—to achieve the highest results for children, families, and communities.

In 2015, NAESP, with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, developed a robust professional learning experience for principals at its annual national conference, “Best Practices for Better Schools.” NAESP contracted with School Readiness Consulting to develop a dedicated conference strand for “Pre-K-3 Leadership” focusing on building the knowledge, tools and resources for principals, assistant principals, leadership teams including teacher leaders from Pre-K and grades K-3, early childhood education center directors, teachers and related educators through special two-hour concurrent professional learning sessions, and featured plenary and luncheon sessions. Sessions featured presentations by SRC staff and high-profile early childhood researchers and practitioners related to leadership and collaboration in the Pre-K-3 field, focusing on best practices and alignment of early childhood education and K-3 standards, curriculum, instruction and educator evaluation.

In addition to the core programming of the Pre-K-3 strand, SRC assisted NAESP in developing and executing four special “Innovations Lab” sessions on Pre-K-3 education and leadership.  The NAESP Innovations Lab was a special forum that provided 30 minute “mini” sessions using a new integrative approach for delivery of content using social media, primarily on Twitter. During the course of the conference, NAESP had over 1,000 conference attendees engaged. The goal of the Innovations Lab session was to provide complementary and on-going dialogue on conference topics through social media. SRC, along with NAESP communications staff, hosted important discussions on key issues and practice concerning Pre-K-3 leadership and education, to share additional knowledge presented during the session.