This case explores the challenges faced by educational leaders at Maple Middle School, a rural school in a diverse community, involving a physical altercation between two students, subsequent student protests, and an investigation by Child Protective Services. Amid growing community unrest, a divided school board must address student discipline…

Do you have the desire to build relationships with the special education teachers in your school or district but constantly feel weighed down by compliance issues? Special education teachers are leaving the field at alarming rates, and positive change through transformational leadership practices can help administrators build confidence and…

This report presents a multi-case qualitative research study on how to support teacher professional learning and development of their digital competence, through a self-reflection process using SELFIEforTEACHERS (SfT). The study investigated how SfT can be used in different settings and what factors, enablers and barriers affect its effective…

Inspired by real-life events, this case describes the start of a seemingly solid working relationship between two elementary campus administrators and its demise as the result of inadequate communication and distrust. Initially, these two leaders benefit from differing supervision styles, but these differences eventually lead to increased tension…

Principal Vanessa Sanchez assumed leadership of a high-need, high-poverty urban school with a mandate from the district superintendent to change the school culture and to build an instructional team aligned to the principal's theory of change. The central dilemma of the case is how to lead organizational change while managing interpersonal…

Part of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) research series titled "Teachers' Time: Collaborating for Learning, Teaching, and Leading," this case study looks at Pagosa Springs Elementary School, which is located in the Town of Pagosa Springs, Colorado. The school serves students in kindergarten through fourth…

This study explores the differences among California's counties and regions in their needs for new school-site administrators in the coming decade, as driven by a combination of projected administrator retirements and projected student enrollment changes. The projected need for new school-site administrators, based solely on these combined…

How do student teachers gain confidence in their teaching abilities as part of their school-based practicum experience while increasing their self-efficacy from the successes of their practicum? To understand this question better, we explored preservice teachers' post-practicum accounts of experiences of success in relation to efficacy (Bandura,…

This book provides an overview of the internship as a central ingredient of effective preservice programs. Intended for those who are involved in the preparation of school administrators, the text emphasizes that preservice programs must ensure that interns will learn the skills that will make them effective leaders. The book is designed to…

Personalizing education means going beyond structural changes and changing how educators see their students. It means knowing students' stories. The personal stories of students are powerful; educators must devise ways to gather and share those stories to benefit student learning. Principals and assistant principals can help ensure that there are…

This document is a practical guide for designing principal-development programs. The target audience includes individuals involved in the design and implementation of principal-preparation and development programs, particularly at the school-district level. Chapter 1, "The Call for New School Leaders and Leadership Development," expresses the need…