Simulations for Current and Aspiring School Leaders

This simulation involves a new superintendent taking over a small school district that happens to be the primary employer in the community. When a budget shortfall is discovered, the superintendent must decide which resources to involve in the resolution while balancing transparency and strategy among key constituencies. Decide which conditions warrant more persistence versus flexibility while keeping the focus on students.

Key characters include a union rep, board coach, board member

Trade-offs to consider:

• Considering the needs of specific community members while deciding what is in the best interest of students
• To what degree can you balance transparency and confidentiality

This simulation involves a new school leader taking over a failing middle school with an entrenched staff and little community support. As you seek to get a handle on the school’s finances, finger-pointing abounds. You will have to determine the best path to building accountability, commitment, and trust in turning this school around.

Key characters include a non-assertive bookkeeper, 7th-year teacher who is ready for improvement, 27th year honors math teacher

Trade-offs to consider:

• Handling pressure to make immediate improvements, while taking the time to develop relationships
• Inviting participation in decision-making, while not overwhelming staff who feel blame for past errors
• Showing determination to establish correct procedures, not unduly burdening classroom teachers, while also requiring accountability and demonstrating transparency throughout the system

This simulation involves an early-career elementary school teacher. The simulation begins following the school leader’s observation of the teacher teaching a literacy lesson. The teacher teaches directly from the teachers’ manual and the lesson has no higher-level skills or thinking embedded within it. At the same time, there has just been a new teacher evaluation rubric implemented in the district that is based on four performance levels. The school leader must meet with the teacher and coach improvement to instructional practice while also helping the teacher understand that the new rubric, though no longer saying her performance is “satisfactory,” the new rubric does not mean she is “unsatisfactory.”

Key characters include a second-year 4th-grade teacher, experienced teacher willing to mentor

Trade-offs to consider:

• Investing time directly in improving a new teacher’s instructional skills, while losing the objectivity you need to have to evaluate expected growth
• Enlisting the aid of an experienced teacher to guide the new teacher, while not ensuring success due to limited time and resources for mentoring

This simulation is based around a veteran social studies teacher in a middle school. The teacher has set goals that are not aligned with the new school goals or the Common Core standards. As the school leader, you must decide what steps you will take to try and move this teacher toward alignment with the school goals, and outside his comfort zone.

Key character is a social studies teacher of 10 years whose engagement with professional development is waning
Trade-offs to consider:

• Investing the right amount of your attention to motivate a teacher, despite a perception of their reluctance and lack of integrity
• Persuading a teacher to see skills development as integral to students learning subject content, not as an “add-on”

This simulation involves a middle school principal responding to a request from the superintendent for a 15% budget cut in two weeks. The principal must determine the process for arriving at the cuts, who to involve in the process, and how to drive alignment around priorities. Of course, there are many conflicting perspectives to be managed, as well as a rumor mill working overtime. How will various stakeholder groups be managed to arrive at an optimal result?

Key characters include a school counselor, community activist, district technology director, parent liaison, math department head

Key trade-offs to consider:

• Communicating with your broad constituency with maximum transparency, while controlling the inevitable rumor mill
• Making time for listening to and considering each stakeholder, while adhering to a tight deadline

As the new principal of an elementary school, just before the school year begins, anxious parents of a kindergartner present you with a challenge: to meet the needs of their chronically ill child. In this simulation, you will seek to ensure student safety and security while promoting independence and appropriately utilizing school district resources. Your understanding of the issues and way of communicating with staff and parents will impact the success of your initiatives.

Key characters include the parents of a chronically ill student, school staff focused on individuals’ safety and security, special education director, new superintendent

Trade-offs to consider:

• Ensuring student safety and security while promoting independence
• Building capacity while maintaining effectiveness
• Pleasing parents within resource constraints

In this simulation, your role is an administrator in the first week on the job. You will be faced with the need to manage various stakeholder groups, working to gain the trust and confidence of community members and district employees. You’ll have to balance strategic direction with the shifting demands of daily issues. And you’ll need to determine when to delegate and when to take ownership, and anticipating the broader impact of your actions.

Key characters include an administrative assistant, teachers union leader, middle school principal, parent and community organizer, reporter for local weekly newspaper
Trade-offs to consider:

• Determining when to delegate and when to take ownership, while anticipating the broader impact of your actions
• Balancing strategic direction with the shifting demands of daily issues

A parent at the high school where you are the school leader goes to a school board meeting to complain about the way the girls’ basketball coach is treating the players on the team. You must decide how you address the parent’s concern and the alleged behavior of the winningest coach in school history.

Key characters include an alarmed parent of a basketball player, local newspaper reporter, diligent superintendent
Trade-offs to consider:

• Addressing a parent’s concern and risk losing the winningest coach in school history

• Admitting that you dropped the ball early on with the parent, and losing credibility with your superintendent

• Keeping confidentialities, while giving the impression that you are hiding or ignoring a problem

This simulation is based around a collaborative teaching team. There is one teacher on the team, newer to the school but a mid-career teacher, who is “not a team player.” The simulation begins with another teacher on the team coming to the school leader and expressing concern over the way the disruptive teacher is behaving. The school leader ultimately ends up at a team meeting and witnesses behavior that is inappropriate and over-the-top. The simulation goals relate to school culture and climate, conflict management, and responding to teacher concerns.

Key characters include a special education teacher, 6th-grade teacher, 6th-grade teacher, special education teacher

Trade-offs to consider:

• Addressing conflict and risking loss of experienced teachers
• Avoiding conflict and risking loss of experienced teachers
• Insisting on behavioral changes, possibly without getting to the root causes
• Exploring root causes of bad behavior, possibly without affecting change

Suicide is a tough reality among our teens and, as such, an inevitable tragedy for our schools. This simulation focuses on supporting the school leader as he/she navigates a loss due to suicide. From the first moment of notification, through the nuances of sharing the news with your students, staff, and community, and into the days and weeks after the tragedy, this simulation helps define what considerations to make when crafting decisions that will impact your community on every level.

Key characters include  unnamed positions of an SRO, multiple APs, guidance counselors, teachers
Trade-offs to consider:

• Being timely and efficient in your notifications, while also being accurate and sensitive
• Prioritizing communication and summoning staff resources, while also acknowledging strong feelings that may arise, even for your leaders
• Allowing time for a process of grieving, while also assuring that students and staff proceed with learning

In the face of a potential threat to students, you will work with others to respond decisively, while balancing conflicting considerations. How you measure the situation and choose to act will bear different consequences. In the process of this simulation, aspects of your leadership style may be revealed.

Key characters include a nervous 7th grader, assistant principal, SRO
Trade-offs to consider:

• Highlighting safety vs. routine
• Transparency vs. privacy
• Security vs. ease-of-access
• Keeping a focus on your building vs. on the wider community

In this simulation, you are a middle school principal responding to challenges associated with advancing technology. You must identify and successfully deal with challenges associated with cyberbullying and its impact on school learning environment, students, faculty/staff, parents, and the community in general. You will become acquainted with and comfortable applying the growing body of law and court cases addressing cyberbullying and first amendment rights.

Key characters include a 6th-grade teacher, leading user of technology, pleasant student targeted by on-line postings, very popular 8th grader who is a target of derisive postings, daughter of PTA President, no-nonsense football coach, parents of offenders
Trade-offs to consider:

• Guiding your school and community as students gain increasing access to technology, to maximize learning opportunities while addressing the serious downside potentials of life on-line
• Identifying and dealing with challenges associated with cyberbullying while knowing and applying the growing body of law and court cases addressing cyberbullying and first amendment rights

As the principal of Fairlawn High School, you must address the needs of a family whose 16-year-old student is transitioning gender. You will have the opportunity to become acquainted with current laws and accommodation requirements associated with transgender students. You will also be provided a tool to assist in identifying/prioritize risks and developing mitigation strategies to ensure all student needs are met.

Key characters include engaged parents of transitioning student, a resourceful and respectful school counselor, experienced and cautious administrator
Trade-offs include:

• Clarifying the issues for all stakeholders while ensuring security for all students
• Promoting understanding/acceptance of gender-fluidity while protecting privacy and acknowledging uneasiness some will express
• Addressing fears and misunderstandings of community members, in the absence of written policy guidelines
• Managing effects of gossip when privacy is breached

As a new assistant principal at Thornbush Middle School, you are tasked with improving the student’s experience by enabling a stronger, more meaningful relationship between them and the school counselors. Your understaffed counselors at Thornbush spend a majority of their time completing administrative tasks and are justifiably defensive. Further, you’re faced with apathy and resistance from seasoned teachers and staff. To successfully engage counselors in activities aimed at preventing rather than responding to problems, you’ll need to identify root causes, redistribute administrative tasks and lead change efforts despite growing resistance.

Key characters include a no-nonsense principal, counselor with experience in business leadership, recently promoted to Counseling chair
Trade-offs to consider:

• The clarity of role that your proposed process will produce vs. the speed of implementation
• Considering overall school climate, including faculty and staff morale, when building trust and moving toward the execution of your vision

Dealing with difficult parents can be one of the most challenging responsibilities for a school administrator, especially when it involves making difficult decisions. Teachers can complicate these difficult situations when the decisions he or she makes jeopardizes a student’s safety. Administrators must be diplomatic in the decision-making process, thinking every decision through without being rash, to find a solution that is in the best interest of the student.

Key characters include an upset parent, classroom teacher, overburdened AP
Trade-offs to consider:

• While being pressured by an angry parent, taking the time necessary to collect all the facts, while keeping focused on the student’s best interest
• Addressing a teacher whose choice to bend a policy jeopardizes a student’s safety, while also not allowing the angry parent to dictate your decision

In this simulation, you will play the role of superintendent in a traditionally well-regarded district that is experiencing significant population shifts with a host of changing needs. Your challenge is to work with a variety of stakeholders to develop and pass a budget that will provide funding in an equitable manner. This will call for a different process than that which has been used in the past – it is a significant change that must be managed.

Key characters include board members with individual agendas, cabinet team with different priorities, community leaders focused on disparate issues
Trade-offs to consider:

• Facilitating discussion and exchange of ideas in balance with directing toward what you believe to be the optimal path
• Taking action on your own vs. managing dialogue among stakeholders

As a principal supervisor, your goal is ensuring equitable learning opportunities for students of color, while also attending to your own and others’ biases while framing your message about equity. In essence: building policies and structures to serve equity, while acknowledging both material differences and political interests.

In this simulation, co-authored with the National Parent-Teacher Association, you will be addressing communication strategies as they relate to Community Partnerships, one of the seven gears within the Future Ready Framework. In the role of superintendent, you will work with your leadership team and community members to optimize the roll-out of technology to your district. In an era of connectivity and connectivity gaps, being strategic about how you meet families and the community where they become critical to the inclusive learning community you strive to create.

Key characters include a local business owner and parent, assistant superintendent who is new to the district, various district-level administrators, most promoted from within, who have financial, curriculum, IT, and professional development areas of responsibility

Trade-offs to consider:

• Balancing strategic considerations with tactical concerns, keeping an eye on the long-term while addressing immediate needs
• [In an era of connectivity and connectivity gaps, being strategic about how you meet families and the community where they are becomes critical to the inclusive learning community you strive to create.]

This simulation involves a school leader finding a phone with messages describing an underage drinking party going on. As events unfold, you will need to collaborate with school and community constituents, responding to a diversity of interests. You will be challenged to act with integrity and fairness while promoting the success of all students in an ethical manner.

Key characters include a popular well-rounded student, mother of two socially active students, girls basketball coach with two teenage sons, school alumnus who is well-connected in the community
Trade-offs to consider:

• Recognizing the bounds of your authority and the extent of your responsibility
• Acting assertively when you perceive a true threat to students’ safety and well-being, whether in school or in the community

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. This simulation gives you practice recognizing and responding in a variety of situations and also provides you with an application tool for assessing and mitigating risk.

Key characters include an outgoing and single teacher, a new teacher to the school who is newly divorced, P.E. teacher and coach, dance teacher who is married with 2 children, veteran 2nd-grade teacher and mentor
Trade-offs to consider:

• When accusations are made, you need to act promptly and appropriately, as well
• Trusting that the information given by staff is always in the best interest of students vs. being open to underlying psycho-social issues
• Practicing discernment, while not being afraid to act

This simulation places you, a month into your new position as principal of Waterside School, in a district experiencing significant shifts in demographics, which in turn leads to challenges balancing needs and perspectives of long-time residents with those of newcomers. The district has a stated commitment to “Create High-Quality Learning Experiences that Meet the Needs of Each Child.” Your job is to uncover specific needs, and resolve discrepancies in the treatment of students, wherever they may exist.

Key characters include a concerned parent of an honors student, active parent of an average student, well-established and popular teacher, results-oriented superintendent
Trade-offs to consider:

• Balancing needs and desires of long-time residents with those of newcomers
• Uncovering specific needs, and resolving discrepancies in treatment of students
• Addressing biases and counterproductive habits of entrenched faculty

• Actualizing your strategy in the face of shifting demands
• Navigating difficult decisions to meet pressing needs in your building, while also determining your level of engagement at the district and state level, advising on the same topic