Book excerpt: Unexplored Conditions of Charter School Principals: An Examination of the Issues and Challenges for Leaders, explores contemporary policy issues confronting charter school principals. The purpose of this book is to explore the issues and challenges confronted by charter school principals across an array of goals and expectations set forth by the policy and local context. By drawing on leadership and policy experts and researchers, we offer an in-depth examination of what current issues charter school principals face. Starting with autonomy, we work our way through teacher evaluation and succession and socialization and then conclude with an opportunity to reflect on what we know and how to look forward. By drawing on autonomy, sensemaking, teacher evaluations, and succession and socialization, this book traces the development of the charter principal within these policy contexts. Collectively, these topics form the beginnings of what we hope will be an informative and useful conversation of where the charter school principal has been and where they are headed.