**2. The principal supervisor as support for principals in their professional development**

Prior to 2015, the lack of guidelines for monitoring the activities of principal supervisors made it impossible to measure their effectiveness [13]. That began to change when the United States Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSCO) issued a set of national standards for principal supervisors in December 2015. These standards, the 2015 Model Principal Supervisor Professional Standards (MPSPS), were created and refined by the Wallace Foundation along with many other educators

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

from across the nation [14]. They clearly defined expectations for what a principal supervisor should know and what leadership abilities they should have, shifting the emphasis to supporting principals in their schools. In addition, the guidelines clearly reflected the new definition of the role of principal as specified in the Professional Standards for Educational Leaders 2015, which was to foster collaboration between the district office and schools and increase the capabilities of district leaders [14].

CCSSO's new standards transposed the position of principal supervisor from being entangled in bureaucratic compliance to being a position of assisting principals in their efforts to boost teaching and student learning in their schools [15, 16]. According to Bambrick-Santoyo, however, creating a new function alone was insufficient to properly adapt a focus on teaching and student learning; rather, the whole network needed to engage [17]. The principal supervisor's main duty is to enhance instructional leadership [16, 18, 19]. A fresh approach for this position was presented by superintendent Barry Vitcov and educational consultant Gary Bloom in 2010. It was rooted in the belief that "supporting principals in developing their own leadership capacities will shape their schools' cultures in ways that improve student outcomes" ([20] p. 1). Their research supported the notion that the development of the school principal was the principal supervisor's most significant responsibility.

There are many references in the literature that highlight the importance of principal supervisors in the leadership development of principals [6, 21, 22]. Therefore, it is critical that principal supervisors possess a high level of expertise in pinpointing areas of need and creating customized training programs to help principals improve in those areas. The principal supervisor's role must change from being a supervisor overseeing principals to being a coach working alongside principals to improve their capacity as instruction leaders [18, 19, 23, 24]. As principal supervisors give all their attention to coaching principals, principals will become better able to improve the capacity of teachers in the school who, in turn, will directly impact student achievement in a positive way. Simultaneously, principal supervisors may work at creating effective communication channels between schools and the central office, and improve their abilities as district leaders, both of which will help them better assist principals.

This study fills a gap in the literature as there is no research that comprehensively covers principal supervision, particularly during the period in which the United Arab Emirates (UAE) began instituting a new educational framework through the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC). To determine the efficacy of the supervisory techniques set forth by ADEC in fostering professional learning among principals, thorough assessment and inquiry are required. This effort is crucial because exceptional schools require effective administrators, and effective administrators require strong support from those to whom they are accountable. As a result, it is necessary to look at how the new responsibilities defined by ADEC play out in principal supervisors' actual practice, including the difficulties they encounter on a daily basis and the ideal circumstances under which the supervisory process can have the most profound effect on principals' performance. To that end, the following three research questions were generated as guides for this study: What functions do principal supervisors currently perform? What obstacles do principal supervisors encounter in their regular supervision tasks? What are the prerequisites for creating long-lasting positive impacts on principal performance? In keeping these questions, the purpose of this research is to analyze principal supervisors as they supervise principals to clearly identify their roles, the difficulties they face, and the specific factors of the environment that contribute to a more ideal supervisory process for their assigned principals.
