A school principal’s job is like herding cats.

A principal is not just responsible for managing personnel — is that teacher following the curriculum? No, a principal must know how to manage the myriad relationships among the grownups so they can successfully work together in the service of student achievement. Internal friction or even a benign lack of common vision among a staff is a serious drag on school success.

So how on earth does anyone train to handle such a complicated set of relationships?

Normally, would-be principals take classes at a college, acquire enough credits to get a certification, and then convince a district they can step into the role.

But in the Principal Residency Network (PRN), student principals learn their craft the old-fashioned way, through apprenticeships. They either watch a master work her craft, or do work themselves in the context and under the guidance of that master. This experience gives the principals trained in the program unusually strong staying power. Not one of them has left administration. Even with its small annual enrollment, PRN is responsible for training almost 10 percent of the principals in the state.

In its outline, the program is simple. Each Aspiring Principal, as they’re called, works at a mentor’s school for a full 12 months — greeting the fresh faces in the fall, finishing school-improvement plans over the summer. The closest things to classes in the program are an annual retreat and “critical friends” meetings with the program’s director, Donna Vigneau-Carlson, where veterans and their mentees share experiences and issues.

Beyond that, novice principals also create a portfolio of their work for potential employers. They write a reflective journal and conduct an action-research project, which is to say, they research ways of improving something at the school. Novice Mary Lou Almonte, for example, is studying how the common planning time of grade-level teams might be more effective at Westerly Tower Street Elementary School, where her mentor, Audrey Faubert, is principal.

In any case, it’s a lot of work. So the five novices seemed a little tired as they and their mentors gathered one late afternoon for one of their meetings with Vigneau-Carlson.

The veteran principals, on the other hand, seemed positively exhilarated by the experience — relieved, presumably, of the loneliness at the top. A veteran from the Urban Accelerated Collaborative Project, Donna Braun, grins and says, “When I was in my office I was by myself, so the kids just barged in. Now they’re reticent. One kid knocked and asked if he was interrupting our coup.” The group laughed.

Vigneau-Carlson got them to the business of the day. She’s a huge believer in getting school communities to begin the year by hammering out mutually acceptable rules for working together, called in the biz “group norms.” Without these agreements, faculties can quickly devolve into disaffected individuals pulling apart rather than pulling as one.

Herding cats, as I said.

Vigneau-Carlson says, “Group norms set a school’s culture. With any group, I always spend the time, upfront, establishing agreements for how we are going to behave with each other. Sometimes it’s simple, like we agree to turn off the cell phones or not to have side conversations in meetings. Sometimes it’s harder, like agreeing not to blame. If the group agrees not to blame parents, kids, other teachers, or administration, the conversation will probably be more productive. But whatever you decide, if you really stick to your norms, your work is a lot smoother.”

The principals reported on their experiences with recent norm-setting exercises at their respective schools. The Urban Accelerated Collaborative Project already had agreements from the previous year, so with sticky notes and considerable discussion, their small faculty made some changes. The experience showed that even groups that have agreements will always need to revisit them to avoid friction caused by new or newly surfacing issues.

In a different scenario, veteran Lois Short, at Burrillville Middle School, talked about the conversation her mentee, Melissa Pereira, had been witnessing. “We have four faculty meetings a year, which is a contractual issue. During my first year, we did an exercise to get at what we believe. It made everyone more sensitive to our differences, so they stopped shouting out their belief as if everyone else believed the same thing. We realized then that we had no common vision. So this year we worked on having a common vision, on hearing each individual so we address all beliefs, including the extremes. They and I could hear that no one is on the same page. So we’re not there yet, but we’re working on it.”

Imagine the value of a novice looking on as these agreements, or attempts to agree, unfold, especially under the guidance of an experienced leader.

The Rhode Island Department of Education has given the Principal Residency Network a 5-year approval status, which is the highest status it gives.

The network was the brainchild of the Business Education Partnership, whose private-sector leaders identified the dearth of plentiful, high-quality leadership as a key problem in the schools.

It is definitely the way to train administrative leadership.

Julia Steiny is a former member of the Providence School Board; she now consults and writes for a number of education, government and private enterprises. She welcomes your questions and comments on education. She can be reached by e-mail at juliasteiny@cox.net or c/o EdWatch, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902.