by Ziv Golan ‘26

This year Sherwood is participating in the MCPS Principal Intern Program through the MCPS Leadership Development initiative. Through this program, Jennifer Herman will be the principal intern, following an extensive application process she began to learn the daily responsibilities of a principal.

Herman has been an assistant principal at Sherwood since the 2020-21 school year, working mainly as a grade-level administrator and scheduler of classes. As the principal intern for two months, Herman takes over as temporary principal and another principal will come to the school to act as an assistant principal and mentor. Britton will leave Sherwood during this time to take on that role at another school. 

“I will be a visiting principal at Poolesville High School. My job will be to help out the principal intern at Poolesville and also play the role as an assistant principal,” explained Principal Timothy Britton. “There will be a visiting principal coming to Sherwood High School. His name is Dr. Robert Dodd from Walt Whitman High School. There is an intern at Whitman as well. All three schools, Poolesville, Whitman, and Sherwood, have interns and the principals have to leave and rotate to one of the other three schools.” 

Herman will be acting as principal from December 1 through January 26 and Britton will return on January 29. Herman had to prepare greatly to take over as principal and has been working hard to make sure things go well.

“There is a great deal of preparation prior to doing my practicum. I created a 90-day entry plan; I had to design an instructional school-wide focus for the year. As an admin team we planned what roles we would all have, and I worked with our staff development teacher and ILT to ensure a smooth transition. We communicated with the community to let our students and families know as well,” said Herman.

This process was created to aid administrators who are looking to become high school principals. Herman has served as an administrator for over a decade and plans to apply to open principal positions after her internship.

Herman is more than prepared to take over as acting principal and according to Britton, she has slowly taken over more and more responsibilities since the beginning of the school year. This includes leading leadership, admin and staff meetings, and meeting with parents, school and student leaders.