Principal Playbook / About
A playbook, not
a course.
Principal Playbook is a year-long leadership development program for new and aspiring school principals. It follows the school year rather than a syllabus, and it exists because the hardest part of the job is the part nobody wrote down.
Preparation programs teach the role. They do not teach the year.
A principal preparation program covers policy, school law, finance, supervision and instructional theory. All of it matters. None of it tells you what to do in the second week of October when attendance is slipping, two teachers are not speaking to each other, and the master schedule has a hole in it.
That gap is where new principals lose their footing, and it is where most of them are on their own. They inherit a building with a history they did not write, a staff that is watching to see who they are, and a calendar that does not pause while they work it out.
Principal Playbook was built to fill that gap with something practical: structured guidance released in step with the year, real tools rather than theory, and a coach who has done the job for seventeen years and will answer the question.
A new principal needs somewhere to ask a question without being embarrassed about not knowing the answer.
Season,
not
syllabus
The year is the structure.
Content arrives when it is useful, not when a module list says so. Opening a building is Pre-Season work. Difficult conversations belong in Quarter 3, once relationships exist to have them in. Testing and the spring calendar sit in Quarter 4. A principal reading the right material in the wrong month is reading theory.
Tools
over
theory
Every lesson ends in something you can use on Monday.
Templates, agendas, calendars, checklists, forms, communication examples and worked samples, filed by stage, quarter and lesson. Each lesson closes with a field application: a real task completed in your own school, not a quiz.
A manual
you keep
working in
The Field Manual is a working document.
Read online, download a section, print what you need, complete worksheets and keep notes against the material. Notes and completed worksheets save to your account, so by June the manual is a record of your first year rather than a file in a downloads folder.
Someone
answers
Coaching runs alongside the content, all year.
Group sessions in person, group sessions online, and individual coaching. Between them, a private channel to Dr. Bishop for the question you would not ask in front of your cohort. The history stays private to you. It is not a public forum.
Built to
change
The curriculum is not fixed in code.
Quarters, lessons, resources, activities and cohorts are all managed by the Principal Playbook team through the admin console. The program keeps developing as Dr. Bishop refines it, without waiting on a developer to change a lesson or add a template.
Enrollment to certificate, in one line.
Six stages, a working manual, a resource library, activities, coaching and progress tracking running underneath all of it from the first week to the last.
Enrollment
An individual principal enrols directly, or a district enrols a cohort and assigns its participants. Accounts are created and the season is scheduled.
Personal dashboard
The portal opens on where you are in the year: current stage, current focus, progress, the next lesson, the next coaching session and the single next action to take.
Pre-Season through Post-Game
Six stages worked in order, each with its own lessons, tools, activities and coaching connection.
- Pre-Season
- Quarter 1
- Quarter 2
- Quarter 3
- Quarter 4
- Post-Game
Certificate of completion
Issued at the end of the program with the completion date, the cohort and Dr. Bishop’s signature. The Field Manual and resource library stay with you afterwards.
Next
Colophon
Develop people. Build culture. Leave a legacy.
Principal Playbook runs as a full school year for individual principals and as a cohort for districts. To ask about the next intake, a district cohort, a keynote or a consulting engagement, start a conversation, or write directly to the address below.