Example Job Description
High School Principal
A school leader who advances credit attainment, graduation, equitable pathways, and postsecondary readiness through strong instruction, trusted information, and timely support for every student.
Interview Planning Resource
Possible Interview Q&A: 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.
- Graduation rates rise while access to college-preparatory courses remains uneven. How would you investigate and act?
Strong response indicators: Distinguishes cohort graduation from college eligibility and readiness; checks transcript and cohort accuracy, subgroup course access and completion, scheduling constraints, and student goals before proposing changes.
- A transcript error could prevent several seniors from graduating. What would you do immediately and after the records are corrected?
Strong response indicators: Protects students from avoidable harm, verifies source records and approved requirements with authorized staff, documents corrections and notifications, and establishes preventive reconciliation and ownership.
- How would you assess whether credit recovery, dual enrollment, or a career pathway is improving opportunity rather than simply enrollment counts?
Strong response indicators: Measures access, completion, learning quality, persistence and subsequent outcomes; examines selection bias and barriers; includes student feedback, costs and comparison limitations.
- How would you establish a recurring staff inquiry cycle that changes instruction rather than merely reviewing dashboards?
Strong response indicators: Connects a specific student need to teacher learning, examines classroom evidence and subgroup patterns, assigns actions and owners, protects inquiry time, and revisits implementation and outcomes.
- Attendance totals in the student information system disagree with a school dashboard. How would you resolve the discrepancy?
Strong response indicators: Checks date ranges, attendance definitions, enrollment changes, refresh status, roster joins, and corrections; involves attendance and district data owners, reconciles to source records, and prevents recurrence.
- A vendor offers an AI tool that predicts student risk and automatically recommends placements. How would you assess the proposal?
Strong response indicators: Clarifies purpose, authority, validation and subgroup error patterns; seeks district privacy, security, accessibility and procurement review; rejects automatic consequential decisions and preserves human review and contestability.
- A teacher team asks for student-level information that includes sensitive disability or family details. How would you respond?
Strong response indicators: Clarifies the educational purpose and authorized access, limits information to what is needed, uses approved systems, consults designated owners, and supports useful planning without unnecessary disclosure.
- What would you do if performance pressure encouraged staff to exclude difficult cases or change records to improve an indicator?
Strong response indicators: Protects accurate records and students, preserves evidence, verifies definitions and concerns, uses appropriate supervisory and reporting channels, documents corrections, and addresses incentives and control weaknesses.
- How would you use observation and student-learning evidence fairly when coaching or evaluating teachers?
Strong response indicators: Uses multiple relevant measures and context, follows district evaluation procedures and agreements, separates improvement support from unsupported causal claims, and gives actionable feedback without ranking staff by raw scores.
- How would you explain a sensitive subgroup result to families and the school community?
Strong response indicators: Uses understandable definitions and accessible language, explains limitations and opportunity factors, protects small groups, invites family interpretation, and identifies concrete actions and follow-up measures.
- How would you determine whether a new instructional program or intervention caused better results?
Strong response indicators: Examines implementation, baseline and comparison conditions, changes in student composition, alternative explanations and costs; collaborates with evaluation specialists and avoids claiming causation from a simple before-and-after trend.
- What would your first 90 days look like as High School Principal?
Strong response indicators: Listens to students, families and staff, reviews instruction and safety, inventories critical records and supports, validates priority measures, builds shared inquiry routines, and proposes a limited improvement plan with owners and review dates.
Position Description
Under the direction of the appropriate district administrator, the High School Principal leads instruction, personnel, school operations, safety, family engagement, and student support across the high school grades. The principal establishes high expectations and a welcoming, inclusive school culture.
The position makes evidence use a routine leadership practice: connecting transcripts, credit attainment, attendance, course access, graduation cohorts, and college/career pathway participation to instructional and operational decisions while protecting privacy, documenting compliance, and strengthening staff data literacy. Analytics and technology support professional judgment and student opportunity; they do not replace individualized review or required decision processes.
Reports To
Illustrative reporting relationship: Director of Secondary Education, principal supervisor, assistant superintendent, or other designated district administrator. Insert the district-approved reporting relationship.
Required Education and Credentials
Required
- Illustrative district qualification for review: master's degree in educational leadership, education, or a related field; the district should confirm its 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.
- Training in inclusive leadership, multilingual learner services, special education, family engagement, and coaching adults to use evidence effectively.
Required / Desired Experience
Required Experience
- Illustrative minimum for district review: five years of successful K–12 education experience, including substantial classroom teaching and progressively responsible school leadership; confirm local experience thresholds and permitted equivalents.
- Experience coaching and supervising adults, leading instructional improvement, coordinating student supports, and partnering with families and diverse communities.
- Demonstrated experience using transcripts, credit attainment, attendance, course access, graduation cohorts, and college/career pathway participation to identify needs, test improvements, and explain results without overstating what the evidence supports.
Desired Experience
- School leadership experience at the relevant grade span, including inclusive instruction, multilingual learner support, special education collaboration, and equitable resource allocation.
- Experience with approved student information, assessment, learning-management, and intervention platforms; spreadsheet analysis and dashboards using tools such as Excel, Google Sheets, Power BI, Tableau, or equivalents.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Instructional Leadership and Equitable Opportunity
- Lead rigorous, inclusive high-school instruction, coherent graduation planning, and equitable access to college-preparatory coursework, career pathways, arts, and other learning opportunities.
- Supervise teaching and counseling practices; organize collaborative inquiry and professional learning grounded in student work, course outcomes, and postsecondary aspirations.
- Coordinate master scheduling, course demand, credit recovery, dual enrollment, and pathway access with counselors and program leaders; verify approved requirements before advising students.
Data Inquiry and Student Progress
- Monitor credit attainment, transcript accuracy, attendance, course completion, and graduation-cohort records; reconcile conflicting records with counselors, registrars, and district data owners.
- Analyze access, persistence, and outcomes in college-preparatory courses, advanced coursework, dual enrollment, and career pathways, including who is eligible, enrolled, excluded, or missing from the data.
- Evaluate credit recovery and alternative supports for learning quality and sustained outcomes; distinguish graduation, college eligibility, and broader readiness rather than treating them as interchangeable measures.
School Operations, Compliance and Information Stewardship
- Supervise and evaluate staff, administer assigned budgets, coordinate school safety and student discipline, and maintain required documentation in accordance with district procedures and delegated authority.
- Establish school-level checks for attendance, enrollment, program participation, grading, and other assigned records; resolve discrepancies with responsible district offices before submission or public reporting.
- Enforce approved access and sharing, secure communications, accessibility, and retention practices; review proposed apps and AI uses through district approval channels and never place confidential records in unapproved tools.
People, Partnerships and Continuous Improvement
- Develop a school improvement plan with staff, students as appropriate, families, and district partners; connect actions and resources to measurable needs, implementation evidence, and equitable outcomes.
- Build staff capability to interpret distributions, denominators, uncertainty, subgroup patterns, and change over time; provide protected inquiry time and nonpunitive feedback on data quality.
- Explain findings in accessible language, protect small groups from identification, coordinate entry from middle school, reentry, graduation, and transitions to college, careers, or adult services, and report progress, limitations, unresolved risks, and related duties within the classification.
Required Skills and Abilities
Knowledge of
- Grade-span curriculum, inclusive instruction, assessment literacy, student development, school leadership, personnel supervision, safety, and family engagement.
- School improvement and practical data analysis, including growth, cohort versus snapshot measures, missingness, subgroup analysis, and the distinction between association and causation.
- Assigned attendance, accountability, student-record, special-program, nondiscrimination, accessibility, privacy, and school-operation requirements, including FERPA and district approval procedures.
- Modern student information, assessment, intervention and reporting systems; spreadsheet and dashboard tools; and limitations, bias, and privacy risks in predictive analytics and generative AI.
Ability to
- Connect instructional leadership and student relationships to evidence-informed action without reducing students or educators to a single measure.
- Ask clear analytical questions; verify sources, definitions, assessment conditions, and denominators before interpreting results.
- Lead collaborative inquiry, identify unequal opportunities, select feasible supports, and monitor whether implementation and outcomes improve.
- Coach staff in accessible reports and approved tools, and collaborate with analysts on statistical or technical questions beyond school-level expertise.
- Exercise sound judgment in sensitive matters, protect records, document decisions, and escalate legal, privacy, or policy questions through authorized channels.
- Communicate uncertainty and next steps clearly to staff, students, families, and district leaders, with language access and accessibility as needed.
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 students, families, teachers, counselors, support staff, district specialists, data teams, and community partners.
- The employee encounters interruptions, competing priorities, sensitive student and personnel matters, and urgent concerns requiring calm, documented judgment.
- Workload may increase during school opening and closing, assessment windows, reporting cycles, student transitions, public events, and urgent safety or support needs.
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.