Professional Development for Principals: Ultimate Guide

Continuous professional development (PD) is a must for K-12 educational professionals, including school principals. PD is needed for renewing state educator licenses as well as for improving your personal leadership and management skills and providing better services to your school, teachers, and students.

This article defines the concept of professional development for principals and goes over the requirements. It explains why PD is so crucial for school leaders and lists the best free and paid sources to complete this requirement.

Looking for the most comprehensive option for professional development for educators by fellow educators? Check out SimplyPD, an online marketplace that connects educational professionals that provide and look for PD opportunities.

What Is Professional Development for Principals

Professional development for principals refers to the ongoing process of obtaining new knowledge, acquiring new skills, and learning new strategies that help principals lead their school better and more efficiently. Professional development goes above the initial education and training that is required to qualify as a principal and get your first license. It continues throughout the career of principals in order to help them adapt to the ever-evolving educational system and school environment and provide up-to-date educational services via their institution.

From a legal point of view, PD is a must for principals to be eligible to renew their state-issued educator license, which needs to happen every 3-10 years, depending on the laws governing education in your particular state. The formal requirements for professional development for principals vary by state, including the number of credit or clock hours that need to be completed, the topics that qualify, the entities that are credentialed to offer PD, and the time period over which PD needs to be concluded.

In addition to being legally required, PD also offers principals an important opportunity to continue growing their expertise and expanding their knowledge to advance their career and to lead their school in a more efficient way.

Why Principals Need Professional Development

Professional development is an important aspect of the duties and responsibilities of principals to be adequately prepared to serve their academic institution.

The many important benefits that professional development for principals offers include:

• Fulfilling the requirements for state licensure renewal: First and foremost, principals need to undergo a certain amount of PD every 3-10 years in order to be allowed to renew their state license. The exact requirements vary by state and need to be confirmed based on location. However, the importance of PD goes beyond this regulatory requirement.
• Being better prepared to address the new needs of the educational system: The education sector is very dynamic, with continuous changes in the curriculum, standards, processes, best practices, and available tech tools. Principals have to continue learning about all these aspects to be able to introduce them to their institution and keep their school up to date.
• Improving leadership and management skills: PD activities focus on providing principals with the leadership and management skills they require to guide their school and staff through various challenging situations, such as teacher shortages and underfunding.
• Becoming better equipped to support teachers and other staff: During PD, principals also obtain the theoretical knowledge and the practical skills they need to provide hands-on support to educators and admins at the school.
• Leading school improvement and advancement: Some professional development topics focus on how to boost the instructional quality, enhance academic outcomes, and create a positive culture at school. All this leads to being able to build a better school environment for the benefit of all parties, including teachers, administrators, students, and parents.
• Establishing a stronger environment for students: The ultimate goal of principal professional development is the same as the overall goal of the educational system - to produce strong academic outcomes for students while also preparing them for the future, whether in higher education or a career. Principals who continuously work on improving their skills are more capable of driving these positive results.
• Staying up to date on recent educational technology: Similar to teachers, principals have to use a multitude of tech-based tools to make their work more efficient. Technology can help principals perform administrative tasks faster, communicate with teachers and parents better, and stay on top of their tasks and responsibilities more easily. PD is an excellent opportunity to learn about emerging technologies and how to apply them in the workplace.
• Building a network of principal peers to continuously support each other: PD activities give principals an opportunity to meet peers from across the district, state, and nation and forge long-term relationships that help them tackle common problems together. Principals, similar to other educators, need a strong support network to overcome the many challenges that the profession brings.
• Reducing principal turnover and increasing retention: Research by the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) and the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) shows that high-quality professional development could help address the problem of national principal shortages. Inadequate preparation and insufficient PD is the number one reason why school principals leave their job, so changing this reality can reverse the negative trend.

All these advantages that professional development brings show the importance of this practice, making it an indispensable part of the career of school leaders.

How Principals Receive Professional Development

The ways in which K-12 principals obtain professional development hours are very similar to the activities that fall under eligible professional development for teachers. This includes both in-person and online opportunities to meet the needs of different schools and the preferences of all professionals.

The range of activities that can qualify for principal PD include:

• College and university courses: Principals can enroll in formal courses provided by state-accredited colleges and universities. Indeed, some states demand from school leaders to get a certain number of college credit hours to renew their license.
• Certification and micro-credentialing programs: There are many different online and in-person programs that offer different types of certifications including micro-credentialing. Some particularly relevant topics comprise cultural competence, trauma-informed school leadership, blended learning, and others.
• Targeted online courses: Many PD providers offer free and affordable online courses that can target a wide selection of topics relevant to principals including curriculum design and assessment, school management and budgeting, strategic planning, data-based decision-making, effective communication, emergency preparedness, and others.
• Specialized in-person workshops and seminars: Principals can attend workshops and seminars on relevant topics or invite distinguished industry speakers to their school for the benefit of the entire faculty and administration body.
• Webinars focused on leadership in education: Principals can participate in or organize online webinars to work on specific skills related to leadership in education. Webinars can be a good school-wide or district-wide PD event.
• Attendance of educational conferences and events for school leaders: Attending some state, regional, and national conferences can count towards professional development hours for principals.
• Presentations at conferences and other industry events: Presenting at conferences or leading workshop discussions can qualify as PD in addition to being a great way to share your knowledge and expertise with peers and network with other educational leaders.
• In-person and online training on relevant topics: One-time and continuous training sessions in various areas can provide principals with much-needed knowledge and skills that can be directly applied to real-life situations at school.
• In-service education and training (INSET): Schools and districts give teachers, leaders, and administrators dedicated days throughout the school year to hold different professional development events. These in-house activities present an excellent opportunity for group PD for the benefit of the wider school community.
• PD-focused staff meetings: While regular faculty and leadership meetings don’t count as professional development, you can organize special meetings where you focus on a topic of relevance to the school or the district and make it qualify as PD. This is a good opportunity to invite a speaker to learn new skills from a professional.
• Collaboration with district principals and leaders: Principals can work together with principals from other schools around the district to enhance their leadership and management capabilities. This can be a much more fun way to get your PD hours than doing the work on your own.
• Mentorship initiatives: Young principals can pair with more experienced peers for mentoring and on-the-job learning. There is a lot that new school leaders can learn from those who have been on the job for a few decades, arguably more than that can be learnt from attending formal courses or training.
• Structured professional learning communities (PLCs): Principals can join or create in-person or virtual groups of colleagues to meet on a regular basis to discuss best practices, go over common challenges, share ideas, and learn from one another.
• Online professional learning networks (PLNs): Similar to PLCs, PLNs are communities of peers, but they are significantly larger in size. They get together via virtual meetings to share their new learnings and look for solutions to common problems in the profession.
• Education podcasts for teachers and admins: Listening to some education podcasts, such as the Fullmind Learning Can’t Wait podcast, counts towards professional development hours for principals and other educators.
• Individual and collaborative research on education: Principals can conduct research on their own or with other educational leaders on a wide range of topics related to education, leadership, and school management and make this qualify as PD credit.
• Publishing education content: Finally, principals can write education-related content and publish it in a paper, an industry journal, or a book as part of their professional development efforts.

With such a wide range of potential professional development formats for principals, it is easy to find the method that works best for your needs, schedule, and preferences. However, before starting any PD activity, it’s important to confirm that it qualifies towards your state certificate renewal requirements to hit two birds with the same stone - Skills development and license renewal.

Best Sources for Professional Development for Principals

With so many options available to principals, choosing the right sources can be overwhelming, especially for those who are new to educational leadership. In our selection of the best opportunities for professional development for principals, we focused on free and affordable activities that offer truly valuable knowledge as well as networking and that count for license renewal.

The best sources for PD available to principals across the country include:

1. SimplyPD

SimplyPD is a unique source for PD for principals, other school leaders, and all educators in general. The platform functions as an online marketplace that brings together educational professionals and experts from around the country to a single place where they can offer PD to peers and receive PD from colleagues, at affordable rates. Peer-delivered professional training has proven to be highly effective as those within the industry know the exact challenges that their colleagues face on the job and can offer the best solutions to them.

So, whether you’d like to share your knowledge with a community of fellow school principals and educators or would like to learn from those with more expertise in a certain area, you can check out SimplyPD.

2. Learning Can’t Wait - The Fullmind Podcast

Learning Can’t Wait, the Fullmind Podcast, offers one of the best free opportunities to get professional development credit from the comfort of your home or school. The podcast tackles various topics and gives principals and other educators practical tips on how to innovate the educational process at their institution and engage students. Each episode features a different expert from the education sector for a lively discussion on a hot topic in the field.

Principals can earn PD hours by listening to an episode of Learning Can’t Wait and filling in the straightforward Podcast Reflection Form online.

3. UNITED: The National Conference on School Leadership

The National Conference on School Leadership (UNITED) is powered by the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) and the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP). In 2025, this annual event will be held on July 9-13 in Seattle, WA. This is the single most important nationwide event for school principals and one of the main professional learning opportunities for educational leaders.

In many states, attending UNITED counts towards PD hours, but interested principals should check the specific guidelines of their state.

4. edWeb

edWeb provides a wide range of online courses on various topics that meet the requirements for professional development for principals as well as other K-12 educational professionals. Principals can access live webinars and session recordings to watch at a time convenient for them. Attendance comes with a Certificate of Completion (CO), which is important to document for legal PD requirements. Furthermore, edWeb gives school leaders and admins the opportunity to join different online professional communities to cooperate with colleagues and continue learning from each other.

5. The Heritage Institute

The Heritage Institute is a leading provider of virtual education professional development courses with hundreds of options to choose from. Activities provide PD hours and credit to cover state requirements. Unlike most other course websites, The Heritage Institute gives access to real-time interaction with course instructors and individualized feedback on the work of attending principals. The cost of courses varies between $125 and $495, depending on the topic, the duration, and the number of credit hours.

What Principals Can Learn in Professional Development

During professional development activities, principals can learn about recent educational developments and obtain practical skills that can help them better manage and lead their team and school.

Some of the most effective topics for professional development for principals include:

• Instructional leadership: You can learn how to help instructors produce effective curriculum that meets student needs and how to introduce formative assessment that focuses on assessment for learning rather than assessment of learning.
• Coaching for teachers: School leaders can polish their skills in guiding teachers in better managing their classroom and boosting student engagement.
• Culturally responsive leadership: This topic covers specific strategies to create an inclusive teaching and learning environment where differences are recognized, appreciated, respected, and integrated in all processes for personalized experiences that lead to enhanced academic outcomes.
• Educational technology integration: Principals enhance their understanding of recent EdTech developments, how to implement them at their institution, and how to facilitate the use of technology for teachers and other educators.
• Effective communication: You can benefit from proven strategies to improve communication with teachers, students, and parents to establish a positive environment of open dialogue.
• Education laws: Principals need to stay on top of evolving federal, state, and local education laws, apply them to their school, and educate all faculty on them.
• Budgeting and resource allocation: A major responsibility of school principals is to manage the limited school financial and human resources in the most effective way possible to cover the needs of all parties involved while providing the best value for students.
• Emergency preparedness: Principals can obtain specific knowledge on how to develop protocols for school safety, respond to emergencies, and recover after a crisis.
• Emotional intelligence and self-care: It’s important to get the soft skills necessary to take care of your emotional, psychological, and even physical well-being to avoid exhaustion and burnout. Some professional development activities can offer you easy routines to add to your schedule to improve your mental and physical state.

In all cases, the best professional development topics for principals are those that align with their personal needs and the requirements of their school and district.

Bottom Line on Professional Development for Principals

The strong impact that professional development for principals can have on their leadership and management skills, the school in general, and the student body makes it an integral part of the career path of all educational leaders. Not to mention that it is a must for educator license renewal in most US states. With so many online and in-person options out there, it’s important for principals to select the most relevant topics and the most effective format in line with the needs of their school, district, faculty, and students.

Looking for an easy, interactive, and affordable way to enhance your knowledge and skills while completing the state-demanded professional development hours? Check out SimplyPD. You can connect with peers to offer and get PD in a wide range of topics.