EdWeek.org

One main responsibility for principals: supporting their teachers. But some special education teachers, who deal with heavy caseloads, mountains of paperwork, and individualized expectations, feel like their school leader doesn’t quite understand what’s happening in their classrooms. This was something that Jodee Prudente, a principal at Washoe County school district in Reno, Nev., had heard when she began teaching special education early in her career. Teachers were saying, “The people who supervise and evaluate me don’t know and understand what I’m supposed to be doing with the student population,” said Prudente. “From there, it was, well, do they? Let’s find out.” Prudente paired up with MaryAnn Demchak, a professor of special education at the University of Nevada, to study whether principals in rural Nevada understood how special education teachers led their classrooms, and learn how principals felt about the kind of support they provided to special education teachers.