A new program in North Dakota aims to create a pathway for educators to become principals through an apprenticeship program.
North Dakota is the first state in the country to obtain approval for a federally supported apprenticeship program for school administrators, according to State School Superintendent Kirsten Baesler.
The apprenticeship program comes just months after the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction announced a new teacher apprenticeship initiative.
The principal apprenticeship program is funded through DPI’s Title II federal aid allocation. One of Title II’s purposes is to improve the quality and effectiveness of teachers and principals, according to DPI spokesman Dale Wetzel.
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The program will offer incentives, including training and financial support, for educators to get the academic credentials they need to work as school principals, Baesler said.
North Dakota hopes to get additional federal grants that will benefit those aspiring principals when the Labor Department opens applications in the future, according to Wetzel.
DPI in a request for applications said that looming principal shortages are of concern in North Dakota and across the United States, citing a 2021 study by the National Association of Secondary School Principals. It found that 38% of principals are expected to leave the profession in the next three years. DPI data found a shortage of roughly 48 principals in all school levels for the 2022-23 school year — a shortage of 9.7%.
A master’s degree in educational leadership is necessary to be credentialed as a North Dakota principal. An assistant principal in the apprenticeship program would work under an established, veteran principal while taking online university classes.
“This apprenticeship makes it possible to hold down a paying job as an assistant principal while taking the classes needed to be credentialed as an elementary, secondary or K-12 principal. The federal grants are used to pay the tuition for those classes,” Wetzel said.
Details of how the North Dakota program will work are being established, including the number of participating colleges and the subsidies available for educators, according to DPI Assistant Superintendent Laurie Matzke. The goal is to start the program this school year.
The apprenticeship will require a minimum of one year of on-the-job training of 2,000 hours, 30 credits of instructional time and an on-the-job-learning checklist to be signed off on by a mentor, according to the application DPI submitted to the Labor Department. Candidates will work full time as an assistant principal in a school while in the apprenticeship, and instructional time would be outside of normal work hours.
Candidates will graduate the program with a master’s degree in education/school leadership and a Level I Professional Principal Credential.
“We have been working with our university system and school districts to iron out the details of our state apprenticeship program, and to make them aware of the opportunities that it will offer,” Matzke said.
An Aspiring Principal Pipeline Grant program being launched alongside the apprenticeship program will award $150,000 to North Dakota State University to offer educational leader training programs. The programs will be offered in person and online.
The funds will subsidize the tuition costs of educators who enroll in these courses, according to Wetzel.
More information is at https://bit.ly/3OfxYyB.