Etraffic Solutions’ In-Basket Assessment tool made selection into the Houston A+ Challenge’s Aspiring Principals’ Academy straightforward and swift.

Oviedo, FL – July 20, 2009 -- Just like a reality show where contestants vie for an exclusive job, 60 top candidates recently went through an assessment process at the Houston A+ Challenge’s Aspiring Principals’ Academy, which held its final round of selection in April (see http://www.houstonaplus.org/news/2009/60-top-candidates). The assessment tool of choice? The Accelerated School Administrator Program’s In-Basket.

The teachers, assistant principals, and other education and business professionals in the running already had risen to the top of a pool of more than 250 individuals who applied this spring to the Regional Principal Leadership Academy. During the spring cohort sessions, each one participated in using the online In-Basket assessment to provide objective feedback on decision-making and prioritization skills.

In helping them reduce the group size to the final 20 accepted by the program, Houston A+ Program Coordinator, Angela Prince, says she was “thrilled” with the information provided by the In-Basket assessment tool, “because of the immediacy of feedback to the participants.”

As a curriculum specialist, Angela espouses the belief that change is not easy and people have to trust their leader before they will trust the process. Houston A+ Challenge is an independent nonprofit that has been supporting school reforms through leadership development and other activities since 1997.

In using the In-Basket as the online assessment tool of choice, Prince says they received, “specific feedback in different areas. The In-Basket made the whole experience so much easier because the scores were so readily available. We found it a very useful tool.”

Will they use it again? “Absolutely,” says Prince emphatically. “We had a very positive experience and we will definitely use it again.”