Strong school leaders are crucial for student success. The Rhode Island Department of Education in 2025 launched the Rhode Island Registered Apprenticeship Principal Program (RIRAPP) with a goal to strengthen its current principal pipeline. RIRAPP is designed to build career skills through classroom instruction and paid, work-based learning under the supervision of a mentor. Rhode Island joins other states in an effort to strengthen school leader pipelines, including North Dakota, which in July 2023 started the nation’s first federally approved K-12 principal apprenticeship program.
Read the brief to explore how registered apprenticeships, cross-agency collaboration and residency-based preparation models can strengthen principal pipelines.
