AWSP Blog

AWSP and WASA are excited to share the latest opportunity for our two associations to partner in support of Washington’s education leaders and the students we serve. We want to hear your thoughts and suggestions about TPEP! AWSP and WASA are privileged to hold seats on the OSPI TPEP Steering Committee. To ensure we accurately articulate the desires of our members relating to evaluating teachers, principals, and assistant principals, both associations are launching the Thought Exchange prompt to gather ideas and suggestions from you:

As we close out National Principals Month, I have a few updates to share with you. First, I want to say thank you to all the amazing principals and APs who engaged with us on social media and through email during this month celebrating YOU. As a refresher, our prompts were:

As you can probably tell I LOVE to celebrate and show appreciation for people in my life. I believe passionately it is critical to have a heart of gratitude and thanksgiving. November is the perfect month to spend time thinking of the things or people that make you smile. Thank YOU for supporting me by reading this newsletter and sending me your pictures or email about how you are implementing the ideas.

School leaders, what if one of your students said, “We won an Emmy!”? Our ultimate goal as inclusive educational leaders is to have all of our students achieve at high levels. For Samuel Habib, an Emmy was never his end goal; he set out to document his life story so others can see the daily struggle, perseverance, and payoff for our students with disabilities when they are encouraged, supported, included, and advocated for. In honor of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, I encourage each of us to learn more about Samuel and your own staff and students with disabilities' journey. As you identify the barriers your students and staff face in your school and district, think about how you and other school leaders can use your privilege, title, and opportunity to remove some of those barriers. What can I (we) do to support and advocate for students and staff with disabilities? How can I (we) elevate their story of perseverance to pave the way and model for others?

Back in June, we gathered a small cadre of principals, superintendents, and staff members from AWSP and WASA to begin to identify short-term and long-term solutions to the leadership crisis in our state. We must do something to reverse the course of high turnover rates, small candidate pools, and decreased job satisfaction. While the focus of this committee is starting with easing the pressure on principals, it is much larger in scale. It’s about the entire leadership pipeline in our K12 educational system. If we want great future superintendents, we must cultivate and support future and current school leaders.