This paper describes a process for determining professional development needs of principals as a basis for designing inservice programs. The study took place in Independent School District 196, one of the largest districts in Minnesota. A questionnaire and the Nominal Group Technique (NFT), a structured group meeting that follows a prescribed…

In April and May of 1975, the Research and Evaluation Department of the Minneapolis Public Schools conducted a needs assessment at the request of the Leadership Development Committee (LDC) to determine what kind of help MPS administrators need to do their jobs better. Two methods were used to collect data. First, a one-page questionnaire was sent…

Based on a systems approach to management and organization, the Instructional Leadership Model identifies leadership tasks in clusters under school planning, staff and program development, and evaluation. A summary of analysis of research on effective schooling characteristics and leadership tasks supports the model and provides parameters for…

Presents a study that verified the effects of the peer-assisted leadership program (PAL) on communication networks and professional isolation of 41 Quebec educational managers, using a one-group pretest posttest design. Results showed that PAL significantly reduced professional isolation without widening participants' communication networks. (34…

Using a survey of 442 school administrators in eight districts in Arizona, Kansas, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas, researchers developed a psychometric scale, entitled "A.C.T. Administrators-For-Change-Training Instrument," to assess administrators' desires for administrative training. An original 76-item A.C.T. scale was drafted…

A 1982 questionnaire survey of 4,800 Pennsylvania public school administrators sought to determine what topics the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) should present in its "Executive Academy" programs. The Executive Academy was created to help the state's school districts and intermediate units improve their administrative and…

The writer of this paper was invited to act as a consultant to Minnesota's Independent School District 196 to generate a plan and program for the inservice education of school principals within the district. The paper presents an analysis of the problem; a discussion of the organizational context and the client system; a description of the methods…

Pertinent research literature and existing practices in the area of leadership for school climate improvement are reviewed in this document. The report first turns to the literature to establish working concepts of "leadership" and "school climate," enumerating the major characteristics by which each concept is recognized. The…

This document describes a doctoral program in educational administration, offered by Nova University in Fort Lauderdale (Florida), in which the administrator-student remains at his/her job. The description first covers the history of master's and doctor's degrees in U.S. educational administration and explains why Nova's program is oriented toward…

Thirty-nine principals, classified according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, filled out quesionnaires based on Vroom's leadership behavior model and Mintzberg's 10 manageral subroles. Because the findings correlate effectiveness with time allotted to disturbance handling and entrepreneurial roles, three recent decision-science techniques are…

The views of Georgia school superintendents on leadership preparation and the role of principals are examined to determine future directions and standards for preparing public educational leaders in the state. Data were collected from 182 (97 percent) of the state's total of 187 superintendents. In the first part of the paper, Georgia…

This presentation describes a curriculum revitalization project begun in Spring, 1983 in Baxter Springs, Kansas. The cooperative "effective schools" effort used a broad base of support to establish a director of curriculum, create new school-university ties, focus a reading K-12 curriculum improvement effort, and hold instructional…

This document reports on a study on educational leadership training opportunities and needs in Alberta, Canada. After an overview of study objectives and methodology, a detailed review of the literature on leadership is presented, including various leadership and educational leadership definitions and information on preservice preparation and…

This study examines local, ongoing inservice practices and programs for school board members in Pennsylvania in order to devise a program that local districts can adapt or adopt in response to their own needs. Following a brief introduction, a summary describes how data for the study were gathered by means of a series of interviews and…

Presented in this resource notebook are some of the basic ingredients of how to improve communications from school to home, including current research and the best thinking on staff development and inservice training, examples of techniques to foster better home-school relations through better communication, and ways to train school personnel in…