From Classroom Learner to School Leader: A Tennessee Principal’s Story

Photo: Principal Holly Eslick (right) speaks with Instructional Coach Jacqualine Jolley at North Middle School in Franklin County Schools, Tennessee

On her first day as principal of North Middle School, Holly Eslick didn’t need a campus tour — she was coming home to supervise the very halls she used to learn in as a child. Years of schooling, teaching, and professional growth had led her back to lead in her community, and her history as a student makes every day in North Middle more special.

Her introduction to the role wasn’t without challenges, though. If anyone knows how to rebuild a school system from the ground up, it’s Eslick.

Bright-eyed and ready to go, the Franklin County (TN) local barely had time to sort all her belongings on her desk and hang up her family photos in her new principal’s office before the pandemic had school routines shuttering to a halt across the country. On top of it all, she was watching her school crumble - literally - as demolition started on an old building in preparation for constructing a new one.

All at once, the foundation of North Middle School was Eslick’s to establish.

“I don't know how we survived,” Eslick said with a relieved smile. “We just took care of our kids. We did our best. It wasn’t until year three in the building that I started finally getting to do things that I needed to do in the building, which was fantastic.”

Ever since attending North Middle in Franklin County Schools as a student herself, Eslick knew she wanted to be a leader in education. She adored her hometown community, so it wasn’t a hard decision to keep her hands and her heart in it. There were two middle schools in Eslick’s hometown. After receiving her degree in interdisciplinary studies, she began to teach at the one she didn’t attend when she was a child. From there she taught English for a year before pursuing her administrator's license and Master’s in administration and supervision.

Eslick taught for several more years before the principal position at her school opened up and she applied. While she didn’t get that role, she was recommended for Assistant Principal and stayed in that position for six years - until North Middle, her alma mater, called her name.

Administrator as an Academic Resource

As Eslick and her school staff found their footing during the wake of the pandemic, she helped direct her administrative team and teachers through years of reconstructing and realigning while constantly keeping her focus on her vision of the school. There was never a year or a moment that Eslick saw her principal journey as anything more than an opportunity to provide the best outcomes for her students.

A major facet of setting students up for success is supporting teachers, and Eslick knows it well. She is intentional about providing support from her teachers daily, from listening to their input on decisions, facilitating collaborative meetings, modeling instructional practices to apply in the classroom and even standing in for her teachers when they need a break in North Middle’s unique “Wellness Room.”

“If a teacher, for example, has a rough fourth period where things have happened that they can't control, they can tap out and let us know and we'll cover their class while they go to the Wellness Room. It has massage chairs and a treadmill. It's got some de-stress kind of things where they can color,” Eslick said. “We set a timer for 10 to 15 minutes and go check in. ‘Hey, you ready? Or do you need some more time?’ We just treat them as professionals but as humans, as well.”

From an instructional practice standpoint, Eslick and her staff are looking forward to strengthening their Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), which center around data-based decision-making and NIET’s Five Steps for Effective Learning.

“Last year, our focus was purposeful planning and student engagement based on our academic data. Those two pieces were the pieces that have led us to focus more on our professional development time this year,” Eslick said. “We are not just checking boxes for compliance but rather getting in there and guiding that weekly collaborative planning with specific pieces in mind. It has been phenomenal.”

North Middle’s professional learning communities go hand-in-hand with other strategies the school has implemented in its partnership with NIET, including expanding routine learning walks beyond its work as a participant in the Literacy Implementation Network (LIN).

NIET’s role in supporting the Tennessee LINs is to facilitate the networks as collaborative structures and to provide districts with support for implementing high-quality ELA instructional materials. A high-quality curriculum has the potential to positively impact students by aligning texts and tasks to grade-level standards, connecting teachers in their unit planning, and helping students become more active in their learning process. Districts look to NIET to help develop training and coaching for teachers to be successful using a high-quality curriculum.

Eslick and her staff have taken the work a step further by implementing effective strategies they use through their LIN partnership and applying them to other subjects and grade levels, building a common language across her staff to propel success and unite teachers in goals.

“When we have our specialist from NIET in our building, we also do [learning walks] specifically with our science and social studies teachers and our students with disabilities teachers, because we want to open it to all of the learners, not just that ELA or that math focus. It’s one of the best things we've done, just combine that professional vocabulary across all our teachers.”

Mindfulness and Modeling

One of the most critical lessons Eslick said she learned during her time as principal is allowing herself the space to learn and embrace challenges. NIET specialist Scott Duncan, who works with North Middle, said it best, she remembered.

“He told me, ‘Holly, you have to go slow to go fast,’” Eslick said. “Once I released some of those unrealistic high expectations I had set for myself, I was able to recognize my capacity and knowing that, focus on the biggest impact I could have on student learning.”

By recognizing the capacity and potential of herself and her teachers, Eslick created an environment of support that allows staff to grow and develop professionally while always keeping an eye on the intended outcomes. It also helps that her staff sees her in the halls, and she encouraged other principals to be mindful of their visibility and model a go-first mentality.

“I think it's important that leaders do things first. Anything that needs to be done for our building, our faculty and staff, or our students, I will totally do. I will dig through the garbage to find a retainer,” Eslick said with a laugh. “I will mop up a spill in the hallway if our custodians might be busy doing something else. Just modeling that team mentality of ‘it takes a village’ and I'm willing to do anything in that village.”

Modeling the support and initiative both personally and professionally across her school has been the ultimate key for Eslick in sustaining and improving a positive culture in North Middle School, she said. By continuing to invest in her teachers and their positive environment, Eslick knows she’s giving North Middle School students the same opportunities to thrive that she had when she once attended the school herself.

“So much comes out of going first and paying attention to how we can continue to make this a happy place where they want to be. Because if they don't want to be here, all the students will know that. And that's going to kill that culture and the climate. So we must make sure that they're taken care of, and they're happy so that channels down into our kiddos. Modeling makes all the difference.”