Minnesota Principals Academy: Resources for Principals

• Annotated Bibliography: Teachers Changing Grade Levels. February 2026. (Annie Esme, Graduate Research Assistant, OLPD).
• What Principals Tell Us They Need: Minnesota Principals Survey reveals how principals feel about their job. MSBA Journal, Jul/Aug 2022. (Dr. Katie Pekel, MNPA Director, and Amy LaDue, Minnetonka Public Schools).
• Crisis Response Teams: A Necessity for Safe Schools. MSBA Journal, May/June 2023. (Dr. Katie Pekel, MNPA Director).

Literacy Learning for Leaders

Literacy Learning for Leaders is a video series accompanied by professional development modules meant to provide support for leaders in understanding effective reading instruction and the systems needed to support it. It was developed by the MN Principals Academy working in collaboration with HELP, the Higher Education Literacy Partnership of Minnesota.

Research Summaries

The following documents summarize research around specific topics that may be relevant to principals, teachers, and other school leaders. 

Leadership for Racial and Educational Equity

• The Impacts of Teachers of Color (Regina Seabrook; UMN Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development; May 2024)
• Non-Exclusionary Discipline (Regina Seabrook; UMN Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development; January 2024)
• Schooling and Education in St. Anthony-New Brighton (Dr. Renee Corneille, UMN alum and recipient of the MASA Richard Green Scholar Award, 2021).
• Educational Equity: Reframing and Reclaiming the Equity Narrative (Sebastian Witherspoon, Equity Alliance MN, 2021)
• Critical Race Theory includes FAQ, page 4 (Coy Carter Jr, University of Minnesota; Katie Pekel, EdD, University of Minnesota; Sebastian Witherspoon, Equity Alliance MN; Paula O’Loughlin, Equity Alliance MN; and Regina Seabrook, Equity Alliance MN)

Teaching and Learning

• Elementary School Start Times
• Retention (UMN Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement; June 2021)
• How to Redirect the Tempting Conversation of “Learning Loss” (Kim Gibbons and Katie Pekel, University of Minnesota; May 2021)
• Instructional Coaching (Karen Schmidt Klinzing; UMN Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development; January 2019)
• Looping (Karen Schmidt Klinzing; UMN Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development; January 2019)
• Homework (Karen Schmidt Klinzing; UMN Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development; January 2019)
• Platooning (Karen Schmidt Klinzing; UMN Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development; January 2019)
• Class Size (Jennie Zumbusch; UMN Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement, February 2019)
• Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System Considerations for Use as a Universal Screener (UMN Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement, January 2018)
• English Language Learners (UMN Research to Practice Brief Issue 1. UMN College Readiness Consortium, Educational Equity Resource Center, Michael Rodriguez; 2016)
• All-Day Kindergarten (UMN Research to Practice Brief Issue 2. UMN College Readiness Consortium, Educational Equity Resource Center, Michael Rodriguez; 2016)
• School Leadership (UMN Research to Practice Brief Issue 3. UMN College Readiness Consortium, Educational Equity Resource Center, Michael Rodriguez; 2016)
• Measuring and Reporting Student Achievement (UMN Research to Practice Brief Issue 4. UMN College Readiness Consortium, Educational Equity Resource Center, Michael Rodriguez; 2016)