Chapter 6: From Mentoring to Coaching

The use of successful, experienced school principals to serve as mentors for newly-appointed principals has long been a widely used practice in the United States and in many other nations (Crow & Matthews, 1998; Hobson, 2003; Holcomb, 1989; Riggins-Newby & Zarlengo, 2003; Walker & Stott, 1993; Weingartner, 2009). Over the past 25 years, providing support for beginning school principals through the involvement of mentors has become a mandated activity (albeit, rarely supported financially) in many states, including Ohio, Colorado, Illinois, and others (Daresh, 2004). However, initial mandates have not always served to ensure the continuation of mentoring. Programs have been costly (salaries or stipends have been needed to reward principal mentors), and highly labor-intensive (those serving as mentors have frequently been expected to provide support for novice leaders while continuing to carry out other duties). As a result, principal mentoring has often been seen as a practice whose time has come, but that time has often appeared to be a time that left as quickly as it came (Daresh, 2004).