School superintendents make many decisions throughout their careers in an attempt to educate students. Many people, both inside and outside of education try to influence the decisions made by superintendents. Many of these influences are political in nature. This study looks at the history and levels of political influence in education, identifies…

Using a Critical Race framework, researchers conducted semi-structured interviews to explore how educational leaders across Texas have made meaning of the impact of George Floyd on their practices. Findings from this study add to the literature by examining administrators' reflections on race, racism, and their impact on their approaches to…

This qualitative study explored the decision-making processes of 13 diverse Chancellors, President/Superintendents, and Presidents from California community colleges during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on how they navigated campus closures, the return to in-person work, and what or who influenced their decisions. Through interviews, three main…

Over the last few decades, the saliency of district strategic planning has increased with state mandates and federal implications, coupled with school districts and individual schools autonomously electing to engage in the planning process. Since the perspectives of community members and parents have often been marginalized in strategic planning…

This study was designed to investigate the decision-making processes involved with deciding the funding and framing of music programs in three suburban school districts in the New York metropolitan area. School leaders were interviewed to understand the factors associated with the decision-making process. The findings helped to understand…

This qualitative study investigates the skills, practices and dispositions that 18 experienced superintendents perceive as impactful to their longevity and success. In addition, superintendents were asked about what decisions, if any, they had made regarding the academic performance of students of color in their district. Superintendents described…

In 2018, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) enacted a new law called Act 44, which provided new form of funding for school safety in school districts across the State of Pennsylvania. The study focused on how school superintendents and high school principals prioritized each category in Pennsylvania Act 44 from highest to the lowest…

In this study, the authors sought to explore superintendents' understandings of the various influences on how their districts implemented a 100% virtual learning experience for students for the 2020-2021 academic year. Understanding these influences allowed the authors to develop a framework for leading redesigns of learning systems in long-term…

Public School educational leaders from around the United States are confronted with choices in how to invest resources that can create the greatest impact for students. An often-overlooked area of investment is early childhood education. As defined by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), this is the period of…

The role of the superintendent is crucial in providing the form of leadership necessary to meet the needs of all stakeholders within a school district, it takes clarity and consistency for a leader to deliver on this promise of public education (Fullan & Quinn, 2016). By demonstrating the qualities of a spiritual leader, the superintendent can…

The health, social, political, and economic crises that had national and global impacts in 2020 and 2021 brought renewed attention to systemic inequalities in public education and challenged school superintendents to reconsider how they involve others in addressing those disparities. This narrative study explored how the convergent crises and…

The study sought to qualitatively capture and examine the leadership experiences of six superintendents who led their school districts during the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of the Boin et al., (2017) Five Critical Tasks of Strategic Crisis Leadership framework centered on sensemaking, decision-making and coordinating, meaning making,…

This descriptive, multiple case study was designed to convey a clear portrayal of the DIDM practice of six superintendents and to provide a description of what these superintendents employ during their decision making process. The ability of local education leaders to strategically influence the use of data for decision making has a large effect…

The purpose of this study was to qualitatively capture and examine the leadership experiences of six superintendents who have navigated, and continue to lead their school districts during the COVID-19 pandemic as aligned to the lens of the Boin et al. (2017) Five Critical Tasks of Strategic Crisis Leadership framework. This phenomenological case…

Academic outcomes and health outcomes are interconnected and reciprocal and school climate has emerged as a way to capture some of this relationship. An increasing trend in education policy is using multiple measures of school success, including school climate, such as California's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). As school climate evolves as…