Purpose: We describe urban school principals' time use, including their time allocation across work tasks and locations, and how time use varies by school context. Research Method: Trained observers recorded leaders' time use in five-minute increments over full school days in four urban school districts. The full sample included approximately 650…

This paper presents the use of the time-on-task analysis (TOTA) diagnostic model as an instrument to improve the efficient management of allocated academic time in schools and focuses on the descriptive analytics produced by the TOTA model. The model aims to analyse how time is spent during the school day to enable school leaders, managers, and…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine how school principals in urban settings distributed their time working on critical school functions. We also examined who principals worked with and how their time allocation patterns varied by school contextual characteristics. Research Method/Approach: The study was conducted in an urban school…

It is widely acknowledged that high-quality leadership is one of the main ingredients of successful schools and that leaders have a significant and positive impact on student outcomes. At the same time, little is known about how principals use their time, what they do on a day-to-day basis and how this may vary across schools. A review of the…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether female principals have a more participatory style compared to their male counterparts by examining principals' daily time allocation patterns. The study analyzed data from End of Day (EOD) survey logs from principals in an urban school district in the United States. Results from hierarchical linear…

The data in this brief come from the nationally representative 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) Public and Private School Principal Data Files and the Public and Private School Data Files. Principals who participated in SASS provided information about the percentage of time spent on various tasks by answering the question: "On…

With the advent of No Child Left behind in 2002, public education in the United States entered into a reform movement with mounting consequences and ramifications. This unprecedented federal in-road into public education became the umbrella regulator over programs, staff, budgets and students. The purpose of this quantitative study was to…

Practical strategies to help principals manage their time more effectively are offered in this guidebook. Because superintendents' expectations of principals' duties often contrast with the amount of time principals actually expend in performing various duties, this lack of understanding and time results in the "hurried principal syndrome."…

How much do noninstructional minutes in a school day cost? Principals can figure out how many "mission minutes" it takes to hold an assembly or other activity, what it costs, and whether it is worth it. For instance, using clerical labor for registration is cheaper than having students do it. (MLH)

The ways in which teachers and administrators manage their time is the focus of this four-part study, which includes: (1) an introductory overview of a 1984 study of K-12 teachers' use of time; (2) a study of special education teachers' use of time in two counties in Georgia; (3) a study of successful elementary principals' time budgeting; and (4)…

Investigating the effects of a 1984 West Virginia State Board of Education (WVBE) policy which specified the use of instructional time, a study examined the effects of this policy on reading instruction in the primary grades by surveying a random representative sample of primary teachers and principals in West Virginia. In September 1986, 410…

Identification of principals' instructional leadership behaviors and the time they spend involved in the process of school improvement is the purpose of this study. A second focus is on the ways in which principals build school cultures. The Principals Instructional Management Rating Scale (PIMRS) (Hallinger 1983), the National Task-Time Survey…

This paper presents one researcher's premise that the most important variable in determining classroom effectiveness is the congruence of the delivered curriculum with the desired outcomes or, that students be given the opportunity to learn what is expected of them. This theory presupposes that curriculum expectations be made clear to students,…