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Career Description

Plan, direct or coordinate the academic, administrative or auxiliary activities of public or private elementary or secondary level schools.

What Job Titles Education Administrators, Kindergarten through Secondary School Might Have

• Assistant Principal
• Middle School Principal
• Principal
• Superintendent

What Education Administrators, Kindergarten through Secondary School Do

• Enforce discipline and attendance rules.
• Confer with parents and staff to discuss educational activities, policies, and student behavioral or learning problems.
• Observe teaching methods and examine learning materials to evaluate and standardize curricula and teaching techniques, and to determine areas where improvement is needed.
• Collaborate with teachers to develop and maintain curriculum standards, develop mission statements, and set performance goals and objectives.
• Recruit, hire, train, and evaluate primary and supplemental staff.
• Evaluate curricula, teaching methods, and programs to determine their effectiveness, efficiency, and use, and to ensure that school activities comply with federal, state, and local regulations.
• Counsel and provide guidance to students regarding personal, academic, vocational, or behavioral issues.
• Establish, coordinate, and oversee particular programs across school districts, such as programs to evaluate student academic achievement.
• Set educational standards and goals, and help establish policies and procedures to carry them out.
• Plan and lead professional development activities for teachers, administrators, and support staff.
• Determine allocations of funds for staff, supplies, materials, and equipment, and authorize purchases.
• Prepare and submit budget requests and recommendations, or grant proposals to solicit program funding.
• Determine the scope of educational program offerings, and prepare drafts of course schedules and descriptions to estimate staffing and facility requirements.
• Prepare, maintain, or oversee the preparation and maintenance of attendance, activity, planning, or personnel reports and records.
• Review and approve new programs, or recommend modifications to existing programs, submitting program proposals for school board approval as necessary.
• Recommend personnel actions related to programs and services.
• Direct and coordinate activities of teachers, administrators, and support staff at schools, public agencies, and institutions.
• Participate in special education-related activities, such as attending meetings and providing support to special educators throughout the district.
• Organize and direct committees of specialists, volunteers, and staff to provide technical and advisory assistance for programs.
• Direct and coordinate school maintenance services and the use of school facilities.
• Advocate for new schools to be built, or for existing facilities to be repaired or remodeled.
• Plan and develop instructional methods and content for educational, vocational, or student activity programs.
• Develop partnerships with businesses, communities, and other organizations to help meet identified educational needs and to provide school-to-work programs.
• Meet with federal, state, and local agencies to keep updated on policies and to discuss improvements for education programs.
• Plan, coordinate, and oversee school logistics programs, such as bus and food services.
• Review and interpret government codes, and develop programs to ensure adherence to codes and facility safety, security, and maintenance.
• Collect and analyze survey data, regulatory information, and data on demographic and employment trends to forecast enrollment patterns and curriculum change needs.
• Coordinate and direct extracurricular activities and programs, such as after-school events and athletic contests.
• Mentor and support administrative staff members, such as superintendents and principals.
• Teach classes or courses to students.
• Write articles, manuals, and other publications, and assist in the distribution of promotional literature about facilities and programs.

What Education Administrators, Kindergarten through Secondary School Should Be Good At

• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).

What Education Administrators, Kindergarten through Secondary School Need to Learn

• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Public Safety and Security - Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.
• Personnel and Human Resources - Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
• Psychology - Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
• Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
• Communications and Media - Knowledge of media production, communication, and dissemination techniques and methods. This includes alternative ways to inform and entertain via written, oral, and visual media.
• Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
• Clerical - Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.
• Sociology and Anthropology - Knowledge of group behavior and dynamics, societal trends and influences, human migrations, ethnicity, cultures and their history and origins.
• Therapy and Counseling - Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.