Book excerpt: This book is designed to provide beginning administrators with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed during their first year, shortening the initial learning curve and helping them make smooth transitions from teaching to their first administrative positions. Too often, beginning administrators undermine their success by making critical novice mistakes. To help new administrators optimize their first-year success, a highly experienced school administrator shares a plethora of practical and useful strategies which can guide them through their all-important first year as administrators. He offers advice on what to do as well as what not to do from the moment a new administrator accepts the job offer through the end of the first year.