Example Job Description
Continuation High School Principal
A leader who connects daily leadership of an assigned continuation high school, including instruction, student support, personnel, safety, and school operations with trustworthy evidence, equitable opportunity, and accountable action.
Interview Planning Resource
Possible Interview Q&A: Continuation High School Principal
How to use this resource: Select questions that measure competencies established through the district’s current job analysis. Ask candidates the same predetermined questions under comparable conditions and evaluate responses against the same job-related criteria.
The indicators below describe evidence a strong response may contain; they are not required scripts or the only acceptable answers.
- A new student arrives with unclear credits. What would you do?
Strong response indicators: Verifies records with prior schools, reviews applicable requirements and student goals, creates a provisional supported plan, and resolves discrepancies without unsupported credit awards.
- How would you judge credit recovery quality?
Strong response indicators: Examines student work, assessment conditions, teacher interaction, standards alignment, access, and subsequent learning rather than credit totals alone.
- Attendance improves briefly after outreach. How would you follow up?
Strong response indicators: Checks sustained attendance and learning, barriers, actual support delivery, student experience, and reentry needs; assigns accountable follow-through.
- A school comparison ignores student entry histories. What would you explain?
Strong response indicators: Presents entry credit deficits, enrollment duration, mobility, learning progress, cohort definitions, and verified destinations while retaining transparent outcome reporting.
- A student plans to return to a comprehensive school. What would you coordinate?
Strong response indicators: Confirms credits, schedule, supports, records, student preferences, receiving-school ownership, and follow-up to verify sustained participation.
- How would you supervise instruction in a flexible program?
Strong response indicators: Observes teaching, student work, engagement, accessibility, teacher contact, and assessment quality; provides feedback and checks whether instructional changes improve learning.
- The continuation school student progress dashboard disagrees with source records. How would you resolve this?
Strong response indicators: Checks populations, dates, definitions, refreshes, joins and corrections for individual credit progress, learning evidence, attendance and sustained transitions; reconciles with accountable owners, documents fixes and adds preventive checks.
- What evidence would you require before recommending this continuation school improvement plan?
Strong response indicators: Defines educational need, baseline, access and implementation measures, alternatives, cost and capacity; uses appropriate comparisons and uncertainty and specifies a review or exit decision.
- How would you protect sensitive records while helping teams act on individual credit progress, learning evidence, attendance and sustained transitions?
Strong response indicators: Defines purpose and authorized access, minimizes disclosure, protects small groups, uses approved systems and retention rules, and consults responsible privacy and legal owners.
- A vendor proposes AI to automate recommendations in this portfolio. How would you assess it?
Strong response indicators: Tests the proposed use against daily leadership of an assigned continuation high school, including instruction, student support, personnel, safety, and school operations; reviews accuracy, subgroup errors, privacy, security, accessibility and cost, and preserves authorized human decisions and challenge procedures.
- How would you build staff capability to use individual credit progress, learning evidence, attendance and sustained transitions well?
Strong response indicators: Uses authentic cases, verifies sources and denominators, explains missingness and uncertainty, coaches interpretation and checks whether evidence leads to useful changes in practice.
- What would your first 90 days as Continuation High School Principal include?
Strong response indicators: Listens to affected students, families, staff and partners; maps authority and obligations, validates individual credit progress, learning evidence, attendance and sustained transitions, identifies urgent gaps and proposes a focused plan with owners and review dates.
Position Description
The Continuation High School Principal provides daily leadership of an assigned continuation high school, including instruction, student support, personnel, safety, and school operations. The district or employing agency should define the final portfolio, delegated authority, and relationships with other program owners.
The position uses individual entry baselines, credit integrity, attendance, learning, and transition evidence to improve opportunity; leads rigorous instruction and supportive school practice for students with varied educational histories.
Reports To
Illustrative reporting relationship: Director of Alternative Education, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services, or other designated administrator. Confirm the locally approved structure and delegated authority.
Required Education and Credentials
Required
- Illustrative district qualification for review: master's degree in educational leadership, secondary education, alternative education, or a related field; confirm the local degree requirement and permitted equivalents.
- Hold a valid California Administrative Services Credential or other authorization appropriate to the actual assignment. District HR must verify current authorization and any additional credential requirements against the final duties.
- Complete district-required employment clearances and training in student privacy, nondiscrimination, accessibility, records, safety, and responsible use of technology.
Preferred
- Graduate coursework or sustained professional learning in applied statistics, program evaluation, improvement science, education data systems, or responsible AI for educational decision-making.
- Advanced preparation in educational leadership, secondary education, alternative education, or a related field, inclusive leadership, family partnership, and coaching adults to use evidence effectively.
Required / Desired Experience
Required Experience
- Illustrative minimum for local review: five years of successful secondary teaching and school administration, alternative education, student support, and instructional supervision; confirm experience thresholds and permitted equivalents.
- Experience supervising assigned staff, coordinating partners, managing resources, and implementing improvement across the assigned portfolio.
- Demonstrated use of individual credit progress, learning evidence, attendance and sustained transitions to investigate needs, verify records, evaluate action, and explain findings and limitations.
Desired Experience
- Experience with California district or regional program requirements, implementation monitoring, and improvement with diverse communities.
- Experience with a continuation school student progress dashboard, approved spreadsheets and tools such as Excel, Google Sheets, Power BI, Tableau, or equivalents; applied data-science literacy sufficient to collaborate with analysts.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
School and Instructional Leadership
- Lead rigorous, accessible instruction and a respectful school climate; observe teaching, provide actionable feedback, and support staff growth.
- Develop individual learning and credit plans with students, families, counselors, and authorized teams; coordinate required language and disability services.
- Manage daily personnel, schedules, facilities, safety, and school communication under district procedures and delegated authority.
Learning and Reengagement Evidence
- Verify transcripts, entry credit needs, attendance, enrollment history, and student goals before interpreting progress or assigning courses.
- Lead inquiry into actual learning, credit progress, engagement, service delivery, and sustained transitions using appropriate entry baselines and mobility context.
- Review credit-recovery instruction and assessment integrity through student work, teacher contact, and subsequent performance; protect the credibility of awarded credit.
Rights and Responsible Operations
- Implement current continuation placement, enrollment, attendance, instructional, graduation, safety, and due-process requirements with responsible district owners.
- Review referrals and exclusions for accurate records and student protections; preserve lawful individualized team authority and family participation.
- Use approved SIS, learning, and intervention systems; protect records and ensure human review of AI-generated content, alerts, or recommendations.
Staff and Continuous Improvement
- Supervise and evaluate assigned staff under district procedures and agreements using multiple relevant measures and school context.
- Align school resources, professional learning, outreach, and transition partnerships to documented student needs and service gaps.
- Report school learning, access, implementation and limitations and perform related duties within the classification.
Required Skills and Abilities
Knowledge of
- Continuation high school instruction, adolescent development, reengagement, credit planning, and school administration.
- Applicable continuation placement, instructional and attendance accounting, graduation, disability, discipline, safety, and personnel requirements.
- Transcript and credit integrity, entry baselines, mobility, learning evidence, and fair evaluation of alternative-school outcomes.
- SIS, transcript and learning platforms, secure intervention records, and responsible educational AI.
Ability to
- Translate priorities in daily leadership of an assigned continuation high school, including instruction, student support, personnel, safety, and school operations into feasible plans, clear responsibilities and measurable follow-through.
- Validate individual credit progress, learning evidence, attendance and sustained transitions using accurate sources, definitions, populations and denominators before making decisions.
- Evaluate implementation and outcomes, examine subgroup opportunity, and distinguish association from causation with qualified analytical support.
- Use approved modern systems and accessible visualizations; partner with data specialists on complex linkage, statistical methods or reproducible analysis.
- Protect confidential information, document consequential decisions, maintain professional judgment and escalate unresolved legal or policy questions.
- Lead staff and partnerships, communicate evidence and uncertainty clearly, and revise ineffective practices with affected communities.
Work Environment
- Work is performed in district offices, classrooms, school grounds, meeting rooms, and other professional settings, with remote participation as authorized.
- The position involves computer use, school visits, observation, facilitation, and detailed review of records, dashboards, assessments, reports, and communications.
- Work requires frequent coordination with school and district leaders, program specialists, students and families as appropriate, data and technology teams, fiscal and legal owners, and external partners.
- The employee encounters interruptions, competing priorities, sensitive student and personnel matters, and urgent concerns requiring calm, documented judgment.
- Workload may increase during planning and budget cycles, program transitions, monitoring and reporting reviews, public meetings, and urgent service concerns.
Other Requirements
- Successfully complete required criminal-record, fingerprint, and employment clearances.
- Complete a tuberculosis risk assessment and any examination required by applicable law or district policy.
- Maintain required credentials and complete district-assigned training in privacy, cybersecurity, accessibility, nondiscrimination, mandated reporting, and workplace safety.
- Protect confidential student and employee records; follow approved access, sharing, retention, incident-reporting, and records-request procedures.
- Travel between district offices, schools, professional-learning locations, and community meetings as assigned.
- Possess a valid California driver's license and maintain insurability when driving is an essential function; confirm the district's actual travel requirements.
- Occasionally work evenings, weekends, or extended hours for school events, public meetings, reporting deadlines, or urgent student and operational matters.
- Perform office and school-based activities involving sitting, standing, walking, communication, and computer use; confirm any role-specific lifting or other physical requirements through local job analysis.
- Perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation.