We expect administrators to learn on the job, but responding to conflicts in a virtual world helps them learn without real-world consequences. American schools are facing a crisis in the lack of professional learning for school leaders.

There is a silent crisis undermining school improvement efforts. As in any major organizational change effort, leadership is a key ingredient to success. However, in educational leadership, the abilities to communicate, coordinate, and make decisions are not enough to address the “painful” trade-offs regularly faced by leaders in education. Their challenge is not just about making good decisions, which is daunting enough. They must also manage highly-public and often emotionally-charged issues among a diverse student and adult population. The state of our leadership pipeline, though, and our efforts to support their work, call for a dramatic shift in approach.

Ed Leadership Sims is excited to announce 2 new additions to the SchoolSims management team. Brian Biddulph-Krentar joins SchoolSims as the new Chief Strategy Officer and Mary Pat Fralick is the new Chief Operating Officer.

Leadership turnover in public schools is skyrocketing.  Computer simulation can quickly provide inexperienced administrators and superintendents with essential practice to deal with challenging situations.

As a school leader, you must know the signs of child abuse and neglect, and know how to act sensitively, accurately, and legally toward all parties involved. When accusations are made, you need to act promptly and appropriately, as well.

Preparing new school leaders and further developing those who’ve already found roles in administration is a broad task. There’s no single tool or approach that covers everything. The responsibilities of school leaders are varied and the decisions they make affect different constituencies with sometimes competing interests. As a result, it’s impossible to train new and aspiring leaders how to respond to every specific challenge they may face in the course of their careers.