Middle and high school assistant principals were asked by Education Week to describe their school environment in three words, ahead of the National Assistant Principal of the Year award finalists announcement.
“Fun” was a word used by Mark Summa, the assistant principal at Avon Middle School in Avon, Conn. For Summa, creating a welcoming atmosphere starts with building authentic relationships between students and staff.
He told Education Week that as a kid, he remembered feeling awestruck when he saw teachers outside of school. Now, as an assistant principal, he strives to build that teacher-student relationship through monthly meetings in which students and staff are grouped together to collaborate on school challenges and build connections.
“Having the interactions be natural, human, normal, and fun goes a long way to making sure kids feel comfortable when they do need to talk to an adult,” he said.
Summa is one of the three finalists for the 2026-27 National Middle School Assistant Principal of the Year award, organized by the National Association of Secondary School Principals. Three other principals are nominated for the same honor in the high school category.
The finalists were announced on Tuesday, and winners will be named on April 17. (Read more about the finalists in the principal category for middle and high school levels.)
Other school leaders described their schools using words such as “welcoming,” “inviting,” “inclusive,” “spirited,” and “supporting.” Research shows that creating a sense of belonging is important for students to improve their behavior and engagement.
The six finalists shared how they are working to strengthen student behavior, engagement, and school community in their schools.
Addressing student behavior and engagement in school
Student behavior remains a top concern for educators nationwide.
Thirty-five percent of respondents said their students’ behavior was “a lot worse” than during the previous year, while only 10% said it improved a lot, according to an EdWeek Research Center survey conducted August-November 2025 of 5,802 teachers.
Amanda Jamerson, the associate principal at Shorewood High School in Shorewood, Wis., responded by redesigning her school’s disciplinary process.
The goal was to identify clear steps for teachers and instructional aides to follow that supported students and educators, she said.
Now, Shorewood High has a tier process. Level 1 is “redirection and positive reinforcement,” level 4 is warning parents about previous incidents, and the final step, level 5, is a referral to the assistant principal. The system also includes suggested language teachers can use with students at each level.
“Our teachers are trying multiple steps to support students before calling the office or before putting [in] a referral,” said Jamerson.
Since implementing the system, the school has seen a 69% reduction in office referrals and out-of-school suspensions, which Jamerson attributes largely to the new approach.
The process allows teachers, parents, and students to understand the different steps that could lead to a referral or suspension, said Jamerson. “Teachers fully feel comfortable and supported in holding students accountable,” she said. “There’s a respect piece that’s there because students are seeing teachers talking to [them] versus sending [them] out of the classroom.”
Giving students opportunities to lead
Leah Marsh, the assistant principal at Niles Middle School in Niles, Ohio, has focused on boosting engagement through student leadership.
This year, the school introduced a new course for 8th graders: Learn, Engage, Act, and Deliver, or LEAD. This class allows students to brainstorm ideas and turn them into schoolwide initiatives. The curriculum for the class aligns with career and technical education standards to build leadership skills that carry over into the workforce, said Marsh.
So far, students have planned spirit rallies, formed a peer-tutoring club, and led anti-vaping presentations at assemblies.
Their efforts have contributed to increased engagement across the school and fewer minor discipline referrals, Marsh said.
It shows “how students leading culture-building can produce measurable results,” she said.
Creating a sense of belonging and community
Parental involvement often changes as students move from elementary to middle school, Summa noted. In elementary school, parents are naturally involved in activities like field trips, while parent participation falls off in later years.
To strengthen family connections, Summa sends emails to students—and copies their parents—when he observes a student doing something exceptional or overcoming an obstacle during his daily classroom observations.
“It is a small way to connect the parent to what’s happening at school and to give some positive reinforcement to the students,” he told Education Week.
The school hosts a “Popsicles with the principals” event each year. Families are invited to eat Popsicles with school staff.
The “low-stakes” event allows families to meet staff, to “put faces to names before the year gets underway, and get to know people on a more human level,” said Summa.
Measuring and strengthening student belonging
At Los Alamitos High School in Los Alamitos, Calif., the school partnered with Stanford University’s Challenge Success organization, a nonprofit that focuses on improving student well-being, belonging, and engagement. Assistant Principal Cara Vienna, served as the liaison for an assessment by Challenge Success and said the school’s belonging score was around 60%.
“We saw that there was a big gap, especially for a school that’s so involved and highly spirited,” said Vienna.
In response, the school opened a wellness center in 2023, providing a space where students can take a break from classwork or their busy schedules.
The school also increased opportunities for more conversations between staff and students, including working together on policies such as homework expectations. Students and staff also participate in activities throughout the school year, like shadow day, when students follow around a teacher to see what their day is like.
“It’s looking at all those components [that impact student belonging and engagement] and then intentionally doing that work with our students and making shifts to the school that support that work,” said Vienna.
Cultivating leadership in staff and students
At Woodland Middle School in Brentwood, Tenn., Assistant Principal William “Bill” Toungette has become a go-to resource for colleagues navigating student mental health concerns.
Toungette has worked in the school for nearly 32 years, teaching 7th grade social studies for the first two years and then as an assistant principal. Today, he mentors other assistant principals in the county who are in their first year in the job, helping them navigate student behavior and mental health problems.
“It’s not always about you bringing your problem to my office and dropping it off—we work in a partnership,” said Toungette.
Even when new challenges arise, he said, administrators rely on strong collaboration with district leadership.
“Every once in a while, I don’t have that [problem that other assistant principals are coming to me with] on my bingo card,” he said. But “we have a great supportive system with our central office that we can call them and say, ‘Hey, listen, give us a little guidance on this,’” Toungette said.
Creating inclusive school systems
At Tualatin High School in Tualatin, Ore., Assistant Principal Brooke Mayo has focused on creating systems to make the school more inclusive.
When she first arrived at the school in 2022, she worked with students to update several traditions and policies.
For example, prom “king” and “queen” changed to nonbinary labels, and the “Mr. and Mrs. Timberwolf pageant” switched to the Timberwolf pageant.
Mayo worked closely with students in the school’s Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA) club. During a professional development day, staff also heard from students—some anonymously—about their experiences and changes they wanted to see.
Another change created a centralized system for student requests related to identity, religion, or cultural practices.
Instead of explaining their needs to multiple teachers, students can now submit a request once, and the school helps communicate it to staff.
Students say this process “allows them to express their needs effectively to teachers, and they have felt supported through that process,” the assistant principal said.