*4.1.1 Ongoing visits as opposed to sporadic visits from principal supervisors*

All principal supervisors agreed that in order to expand possibilities "for learning and advancement," their primary responsibility was to supervise, guide, counsel, and encourage their principals at each school level. Principal supervisors must visit the school frequently and communicate with the principal on a regular basis in order to accomplish this goal. With sincere dedication, the principal supervisor has an enormous opportunity to promote learning, speed growth, and develop the most successful version of each principal. In so doing, they guarantee that principal experiences have a beneficial impact on their schools.

Principal supervisor Bruno set three goals as part of his action plan for approaching the supervisory process: (1) "to mentor and coach principals to be better instructional leaders," (2) "to provide differentiated professional development to build capacity and leadership," and (3) "to support the school in increasing student achievement." He included principals in the agenda-setting process as participating members, which enabled them to thoughtfully plan for meaningful, well-structured supervision sessions, and deliberately increase the motivation of principals as they engaged in a combined process of supervision planning. Bruno outlined his rationale:

*Things I do with one principal are different from things that I do with another. It is totally based on their needs and interests. It is differentiated... We decide what we do, what we did previously, and what implications we found in the past. We decide what is going to happen next. It is collaborative... They are actually driving the conversation, not me. So, I have been able to take that step into what I know, to review, and prepare for the next visit with a focus.*

*The Roles, Challenges, and Needs of Principal Supervisors: A Case Study DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108834*

Khalid, another principal supervisor, described his obligations as a supervisor in the following way:

*The goal is to target struggling principals and improve them rather than weeding them out. This need [requires] the supervision to be dynamic, flowing in a cyclical process, with feedback collected during the formative and summative process. It is not a one-time event, but instead an ongoing process where improvement continues even after the final meeting.*

Every supervisory visit was organized and tied to the one after it, which made subject streams more cohesive, engaging, and easy to follow. This allowed for consistent follow-up procedures to fill in the gaps between sessions and offer a progression that was constantly centered on learning. Principal supervisor Julia believed she could influence principal learning through her "regular visits to the school," "direct interactions with the principals and school personnel," and "continuous observations." Principal supervisors must use their arsenal of skills and information from cumulative evaluations and consistent supervisory visits to develop focused, continuous, and individualized activities of professional development. Furthermore, such activities must be pertinent to the experiences of principals and their school circumstances in order to maximize learning in the school. Moreover, repeated visits are essential as supervisory frameworks are set up. To accomplish the supervisory objectives outlined at their initial meeting, principal supervisors must meet with their principals on a routine basis.

These results confirmed findings in the literature that supervisors who did not routinely set aside enough time to check on, observe, and evaluate the performance of their assigned principals ran the risk of undermining the efficacy of a procedure designed to give those principals the support they need to develop as leaders [6, 7, 21]. Regular meetings between principal supervisors and principals help the latter create a blueprint to define specific goals and objectives for their schools. With the right kind of consistent direction and support, principals can grow in their leadership abilities and as a result, advance school development.
