Supporting Principals … Improving Teaching and Learning
In 2014, Des Moines Public Schools was honored to be a recipient of support from the Wallace Foundation, one of the first six school districts in the nation selected for an initiative to improve the supervision and support of school principals.
The Wallace Foundation is investing nearly $3 million in a significant five-year effort to help DMPS improve the effectiveness of our principal supervisors so they can better work with principals to raise the quality of teaching and learning in schools.
The grant to DMPS is part of Wallace’s $30-million national Principal Supervisor Initiative now involving 14 urban school districts across the country.
Wallace launched the new initiative because it believes the overlooked supervisor position has emerged as central to improving principals’ performance.
The Office of Schools at DMPS was organized in large part to provide better and more direct support for principals. The Wallace grant will allow DMPS to get to the recommended number of principals that each principal supervisor supports. At DMPS, the initiative will finance training and support for principal supervisors and help them reduce the number of principals these supervisors oversee. Support from the Wallace Foundation will also help DMPS develop better principal supervisors, central office support systems, and establish a pipeline for principals and central office leadership.
For more information about the work at DMPS made possible thanks to the Wallace Foundation grant, be sure to visit the link in the menu to the right.