From Observations to Assessment: How Principals Can Improve Student Learning 

Rabbi Elisha Paul

The traditional role of the principal is primarily an educational leadership role. This logically places the teacher-coaching and observation role at the top of the priority matrix for many principals who want to improve student learning and teacher instructional skills in their schools. In this view, the principal or head of school is the “educator-in-chief.”  

This may not be realistic in smaller private schools, where the position of “principal” has often morphed into a more holistic “head of school” role. The principal is expected to be a Jack or Jill of all trades, and HOSSEC committees or school board strategic plans may push curriculum development and teacher supervision into a lesser priority for school leaders, replaced by competing priorities such as recruitment, fundraising, discipline, physical plant, board governance, and community relations. Tasked with all this, principals may not have the bandwidth to prioritize staff supervision and curriculum development as their top school priority.  

Still trying to be the educator-in-chief, principals adopt briefer staff observation tools, such as five-minute walk-throughs or “walking around” strategies. These are popular, shorter ways to check the teacher supervision box. More in-depth teacher observations are often reserved for newer teachers or delegated to other administrators or lead teachers.  

Since the principal’s role is so broad, it often makes sense for a separate Judaic studies expert to focus on the Judaic studies staff and curriculum, and for a general studies expert to focus on the secular disciplines. Likewise, a foreign language program, including Ivrit or Yiddish, or even Spanish or Mandarin, may fall outside the purview of most administrators and is best left to discipline-specific experts. 

The principal is expected to be the educator-in-chief, but his board-prescribed priorities do not leave him with time to do a thorough job. Still, when parents or board members are dissatisfied with teaching and learning at the school, they hold the principal responsible.  

In our school, we recently underwent an accreditation review, and as a result of what we learned, we’ve changed how we supervise teaching and learning. We’ve found a way for a principal to be the educator-in-chief even if he can’t be in the classrooms for hours each day. In the process, we’ve shifted to a model that helps teachers continuously improve, gives parents greater insight into their children’s learning, and has raised the outcomes we’re seeing in our school.  

As we approached our accreditation review, we got to work on teacher observations, curricular updates, and new textbook adoptions. Like many schools, I’m sure, we increased the paper trail of staff observations, lesson planning, and overall curriculum adoption. But paper trails do not accurately reflect student learning.  

As a precondition for our school welcoming an accreditation team, our local accrediting agency asked me to serve as a team member on an accreditation visit to another Jewish school.  

I highly recommend that principals seek an opportunity to be part of an accreditation team, as my perspective shifted during my experience on the visiting accreditation team. I learned two things from this experience. First, the accreditation standards we examined did not focus on aspirational curricular goals. They focused more on student learning outcomes and on how those outcomes informed teachers’ adjustments to learning and instruction in the classroom. I also noticed that many schools, including the one I visited, had undergone a rigorous strategic planning process that led to the accreditation visit with a clear plan and articulated goals for all areas of the school.  

Upon returning to my school, we modified our multi-year preparation plan to include these areas for review. To ensure we would receive a high level of accreditation, we hired a staff trainer who was very familiar with our local independent school association’s expectations during the reaccreditation process. Our trainer stressed the importance of rewriting more accurate, measurable curriculum goals as opposed to aspirational ones. Measuring against these goals would allow us to see what students would really know and be able to do after experiencing a given course of study in a class in our school. Our board-commissioned strategic plan likewise encouraged us to focus on measuring and tracking educational data, and our local independent school association confirmed this priority as vital to improving student learning and informing teacher instruction. 

Our school’s transition happened in stages. First, we shifted from a curriculum-as-taught model with a focus on teacher observation to a more dynamic curriculum review process. This highlighted the need for a schoolwide scope-and-sequence curriculum, which in turn led to the need to collect data aligned with the curriculum. This data has, in turn, informed and improved instruction and given parents the opportunity to see their children’s strengths and areas for growth. 

An important part of our curriculum redesign work was the inclusion of Torah studies within a framework on par with our general studies curricular materials. This started with our very youngest students, with the adoption of a science-of-reading-based Hebrew curriculum (Even Kriah) as early as kindergarten, and assessment instruments (MaDYK) to measure fluency progress. In our primary and elementary grades, we adopted a scope-and-sequence Chumash curriculum combined with an online learning platform (L’havin U’lehaskil) and assessments (Lomdei). Future initiatives will include JSAT tests and the use of its data. 

We administer Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) student learning assessments three times a year and have changed our report card schedule from four to three times a year to align with these assessments. Data from our CBMassessments identified areas that required reteaching or relearning at the beginning of the new school year, indicating that learning should not end in June. Summer review and practice opportunities are now built into the broader learning cycle, helping students retain and strengthen key skills over the summer months, when many students’ learning retention often diminishes due to the length of time away from school. Optional summer reading was supplemented with summer math and summer parsha lessons. Some teachers noted that they needed to do less review starting the school year than they had to do at the beginning of previous school years. 

Using a schoolwide curricular improvement process based on more accurate assessments of student progress that yield real data to inform instruction and learning goals has slowly but surely improved student achievement across all grades. It has allowed reflective teaching modifications in class instruction, as well as clarifying whether something was a class-wide issue or an individual student challenge. Targeted enrichment as well as targeted support were driven by student data. Teachers also started to use CBM data in parent-teacher conferences to give parents an objective perspective on student progress. Schools can use more objective goal-setting methods and measure outcomes beyond a school’s own subjective view of student achievement, and instead compare one school to other schools nationwide.  

The final product of this comprehensive effort is a living curriculum guide that serves not only educators but also families and prospective students. Our school’s viewbook and recruitment materials communicate a commitment to learning that is intentional, measurable, and deeply rooted in both academic excellence and Jewish identity. 

This redesign represents a fundamental shift in a school’s approach to designing, constructing, and implementing curriculum, as well as observing and measuring learning. The principal or head of school may not always be able to observe each individual class lesson but can still ensure that data about learning informs teacher instruction and accurately measures student learning outcomes. In the end, one of a principal’s main responsibilities is improving student learning and achievement. There are few better outcomes. 

Rabbi Elisha Paul is head of school at Rudlin Torah Academy in Richmond, Virginia. Rabbi Paul has been a day school administrator in numerous communities for over 25 years.  

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