The Elementary Assistant Principal: Exploring Mentorship as a Development Pathway for the Principal Job Role

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenographical article was to explore the different ways that elementary assistant principals experienced mentoring from their elementary principals as a way to provide the requisite leadership development that would lead them to become a principal. This research study was conducted using in-depth semi-structured interviews as the primary data source. Ancillary data sources such as demographic surveys, reviewing district leadership secondary source documents, and researcher journal notes aided in the data triangulation and analysis. This study was guided by one main research question: What are the different ways elementary assistant principals experience mentoring from their elementary principals? The research question posed allowed participants to illuminate their lived experiences about how elementary assistant principals experienced mentorship directly from their elementary principals. The prominent themes that emerged from the data were: a) assistant principal leadership development, b) principal leadership development, and c) mentorship perceptions.