For decades, Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) has blatantly disregarded and ostracized Black caregivers and community members who have attempted to address concerns about the educational experience of Black students. The only moderately successful strategy was political activism led by Dr. Barbara Sizemore in the 1970s to secure a board majority,…

This dissertation contributes to an understudied area in organizational change research, the study of a reorganization. The perception of communication by employees, midlevel managers, and senior leaders during the decision-making process for organizational change and throughout the change was the focus of this case study. Previous studies have…

Principals used distributed leadership, as suggested by researchers, to actively engage teacher leaders in instructional leadership responsibilities. It was not known how high school principals' distributed leadership practices enabled teacher leaders to assist principals with instructional leadership responsibilities. The purpose of this…

Purpose: This study sought to identify, understand, and describe the decision-making processes used by school districts to determine the middle school science course sequence as part of the adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards. Additionally, this study explored and described the expressed comments, feelings, and beliefs of…

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative multicase study was to explore the leadership journey of female secondary principals. Methods: A multicase study design and semistructured interviews were used to explore the overarching research question: How do female secondary principals describe their leadership journey? By interviewing participants,…

The world's first school-based one-to-one iPad initiative was implemented in a British school in 2010. Every year since, more iPad initiatives have been implemented in British schools, with school leaders citing various reasons for introducing them. However, results of iPad initiatives have not always matched expectations. British schools are also…

The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of a democratic school leader and understand how his conception of leadership is congruent or incongruent with notions of democracy and democratic leadership. This small, participant-observer case study follows a democratic school leader and his staff for a year and examines those challenges…

Teacher teams can be more effective when protocols are used in their entirety; and because of this, use of and understanding Ohio's five-step process is important (Gallimore, Ermeling, Saunders & Goldenberg, 2009, Saunders, Goldenberg & Gallimore, 2009, and Schwaenberger & Ahearn, 2013). This study explored the understanding of…

This research was conducted as a qualitative comparative case study of two Northern New England school districts that were in the process of responding to declining enrollments. The purpose of the study was to explore decision-making through the lens of declining enrollments. An award winning rural school in an affluent town with high performing…

Information technology has the potential to change community college administration procedures; merging technological knowledge and business skill; creating a need for further definition and understanding of current Chief Information Officer (CIO) position. However, the existing research on this topic focuses on the merging leadership roles and…

This exploratory and descriptive research intended to examine ways to engage a vulnerable young adult population in environmental and ecological education and in community planning and public participation processes. A goal was to understand how to be more inclusive in the decision-making process at the community level based on ethical principles…

The purpose of the research was to investigate the leadership skills of rural Minnesota superintendents alongside the academic achievement of the school district. Through the correlates of school leadership espoused by Waters and Marzano, this research analyzed the leadership characteristics of the superintendents in those districts and the level…

Scholarly community engagement in higher education historically focused on the 4-year university, as a result there is limited research on how community colleges engage with their communities. In 2006, The Carnegie Foundation established a new Elective Community Engagement classification for higher education institutions. Research on Carnegie…

This dissertation of practice utilized a multiple case-study approach to examine distributed leadership within five school districts that were attempting to gain acceptance of a large-scale 1:1 technology initiative. Using frame theory and distributed leadership theory as theoretical frameworks, this study interviewed each district's…

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects, a type of complex information technology project, are very challenging and expensive to implement. Past research recognizes that escalation, defined as the commitment to a failing course of action, is common in such projects. While the factors that contribute to escalation (e.g., project conditions,…