What I write about
The TExES 268
How the Principal as Instructional Leader exam is built, how it is scored, and what actually moves a score on it. Written from the blueprint.
11 postsSchool Leadership
Instructional leadership, campus culture, and growing the people you lead. The thinking the exam rewards is the thinking the job requires.
9 postsTexas Law & Policy
The Texas Education Code, TEA rules, and the Educators Code of Ethics, framed around the decisions the 268 asks you to make.
4 posts
More posts
- 02
Chapter 37 and the Vocabulary of Student Discipline
Removal, DAEP placement, and expulsion under Texas Education Code Chapter 37, and the due process vocabulary the 268 expects a principal to already know.
- 03
Mandatory Reporting Duties for Texas Principals
What Texas Family Code Chapter 261 requires of a principal who suspects a student is abused or neglected, and how Domain VI turns that duty into an item.
- 04
Growing Your Own Leaders Before You Need Them
Teacher leaders and a strong ILT are not a nice extra. They are the bench a principal needs the day a seat opens with no warning.
- 05
How Principals Decide Under Pressure
Most principal decisions arrive with half the facts. A working process for deciding under pressure, and how the TExES 268 scores it in Domain IV.
- 06
Delegation for Principals: What to Keep, What to Hand Off
Not every decision belongs on a principal's desk. A working test for what to hand off, what to keep, and how the 268 frames the difference.
- 07
Data Meetings That Are Not Theater
Most data meetings produce a slide deck and no change in instruction. What a data conversation looks like when it actually moves a teacher's practice.
- 08
Leading a Team That Was Your Peer Group
The AP-to-principal jump is not a promotion in title only. It changes what your former teammates can say to you, and what you owe them back.
- 09
Building a Campus Culture People Stay In
Retention is a leadership output, not an HR problem. What actually keeps good teachers on a campus, and how Domain I and Domain III test it.
- 10
The Conversation After the Walkthrough
A walkthrough produces information. The conversation right after it is where a teacher's practice actually changes, or does not.
- 11
The First 90 Days as a New Principal
What a first-year principal should actually do, and in what order, so the first semester builds trust instead of burning it.
- 12
Reading a TExES 268 Stem Correctly
Most missed items on the TExES 268 fail before the options are ever read. Here is how to read a stem for who you are, what happened, and what to protect.
- 13
Domain I on the TExES 268, What It Actually Rewards
School Environment is 22 percent of the TExES 268. Here is what culture, vision, trust, and safety look like as exam items, and the pattern behind them.
- 14
Pacing the TExES 268: Where the Clock Goes
Seventy selected-response items, four constructed responses, five hours. A pacing plan built from the real structure of the exam, not a guess.
- 15
268 vs. the Job: Why the Textbook Answer Wins
Experienced principals lose points on the 268 by answering like the job, not the framework. Here is why the textbook answer wins, and how to catch it.
- 16
What to Do After You Fail the TExES 268
A failing score is not a verdict. Here is how to read your domain report and build a retake plan from the exam's real weights, not a guess.
- 17
Domain II on the TExES 268, Studied on Its Own
Leading Learning is 42 percent of the TExES 268 selected-response section. Here is what it actually covers and the order I would study it in.
- 18
The 268 Pass Rate Nobody Quotes You
Texas programs advertise the pass rate that counts unlimited retakes. TEA publishes both numbers, and the honest one is 61 percent.
- 19
Best Answer, Not Right Answer, on the TExES 268
On the TExES 268, every option looks like something a real principal might do. Here is what actually separates the best answer from the rest.
- 20
How Many Hours to Study for the TExES 268
There is no round number that fits every candidate. Here is how to build your own study hours from the exam's actual weights, not a guess.
- 21
How the TExES 268 Constructed Response Is Scored
The four written responses on the TExES 268, what the rubric actually rewards, and why strong instructional leaders still lose points on them.
- 22
What the TExES 268 Actually Tests
The six domains of the Principal as Instructional Leader exam, what TEA weights each one, and why an even study plan quietly costs you points.
- 23
Instructional Leadership Is Not Observation
Walkthrough counts are an input, not instructional leadership. What the work actually is on a campus, and how Domain II frames it on the TExES 268.
- 24
The Texas Educators Code of Ethics on the 268
What 19 TAC Chapter 247 actually says, how Domain VI builds questions from it, and the difference between a judgment call and a rule.
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