The Principal as Supervisor: Some Descriptive Findings and Important Questions Available to Purchase

Supervision is defined as the attempt by the principal to stimulate, coordinate and guide the continued growth of teachers. A team from the Center for the Advanced Study of Educational Administration at the University of Oregon, working with one U.S. school district, sought to arrive at a description of teachers' perceptions of administrative and supervisory practices in the schools of that district. It was found that teachers appeared to turn more often to their colleagues than to the principal for guidance on certain key professional issues and that the practices of the principal were often in conflict with teachers' normative expectations of supervisory behavior. Indeed, the principal's major responsibilities were seen as budget, coordination policy and public relations rather than instructional leadership.