The site administrator is the administrator who directly supervises the beginning teacher at the school level. Typically, this is the building principal. The site administrator may also be the program director. It is typical for staff in smaller, rural programs to be responsible for many tasks, wearing many “hats.” In larger programs, the site administrator is the principal, and the induction/mentoring program has separate leadership.

Regardless of the administrative makeup of the program, there are specific responsibilities and roles of the site administrator/principal that lead to beginning teacher and program success. One of the most important safeguards to ensure that success is to institute a firewall between the lead mentor and the site administrator responsible for evaluating the beginning teacher’s performance. The principal evaluates for the purpose of making decisions about retention and promotion. The lead mentor coaches the beginning teacher and uses formative assessment for the purpose of teacher development. Any sharing of observation data between the two will destroy the beginning teacher’s trust and undercut the mentoring relationship.

Site administrators are crucial to setting the stage for beginning teacher success and are essential partners. Administrators seek to secure assignments and establish working conditions for beginning teachers that maximize beginning teacher success, and they communicate with the beginning teachers and mentors in a formal, ongoing process.

Regardless of who fulfills the site administrator role, it is essential that there is a clear understanding of who is responsible for each of the criteria connected to Standard 4 and for all aspects of the program. In some cases, more than one person or group will be responsible.

The Standard 4 Subsections address the following issues:

While examining Standard 4, keep the following questions in mind:

• What is the current school culture when it comes to beginning teachers?
• Are there new policies and procedures that need to be created and enacted to achieve program goals? Who needs to be involved to make that happen?
• Who is going to be responsible for which portions of the induction/mentoring program? How are the roles and responsibilities going to be communicated among the stakeholders?
• What training is going to be needed for the site administrator?
• How is the training going to be delivered?

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