Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam announced the participants selected for the 2018 Governor’s Academy for School Leadership, a one-year fellowship program for Tennessee assistant principals to increase their leadership capacity.
Launched in 2016, GASL is a partnership between the state, Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development and local school districts to cultivate future school leaders and improve school effectiveness and student performance. This is the program’s third annual cohort.
“I cannot think of a more important job than being a leader of a school, and that’s why it’s so important to identify and encourage future school leaders to help our teachers and students excel in the classroom,” Haslam said. “You can walk into a school and tell right away if there is a great principal who is leading effectively. Great principals attract and keep great teachers, and great teachers lead to student success.”
Each assistant principal selected for the 2018 GASL class is paired with an experienced principal mentor, must attend monthly group training sessions and a weeklong summer institute at Peabody, and intern three days a month at his or her mentor’s school. Upon completion of the academy, participants will be expected to pursue placement as a school principal in their districts or regions.
The assistant principals were nominated by their district’s director of schools and selected through an application and interview process. GASL is a function of Peabody’s Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations.
See the complete list of participants in the third class of GASL mentors.