Trust is never more important than during a crisis. For years, researchers have been studying trust in organizations and schools, focusing on the principal and teacher relationship and its impact on school climate. The literature has been less focused, however, on the superintendent and principal relationship--and the role trust plays within that…

As schools continue to battle with calls for reform and restructuring, understanding important aspects of change leadership is needed in explaining factors that facilitate successful implementation of planned changes in schools. Certain personal and school district characteristics have been reported in the literature as having impact or influence…

This research study, using institutional theory as a framework, examines the role of superintendents in promoting and impacting innovation in Virginia's public schools. The study engaged fourteen current Virginia superintendents in semi-structured interviews, exploring their perspectives on fostering an innovative culture within their school…

Racism, social media, and free speech collide on a high school campus when a student creates an offensive poster that a classmate posts on social media. This case describes a school administrator's conversations and actions with students, teachers, and the community addressing bigotry, race, and free speech on campus. The scenario is presented…

For this comprehensive literature review, we begin by framing our study with a scholarship review of the theorizing of place-based leadership and rural administrators. We then synthesize research on the practice and experiences of district administrators, including superintendents, school boards, and other ancillary leaders. We identify multiple…

Traditional grading practices have been in place for well over a hundred years and grades received served to identify in which subjects a student is "smart" or in which ones they are not (Dewitt, 2017). The problem with traditional grading is that it does not provide qualitative information on the difference between an A, B, C, D, or F…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the understanding of possible reasons for a large gender gap in the number of men and women serving as PK-12 public school district superintendents in Iowa in 2022-2023. This study provided information on the career path experiences of female superintendents compared to male superintendents…

Principals in the United States are faced with challenging and complex roles as the leaders of our schools. Levels of district, state, and federal mandates and accountability measures coupled with the demands of supporting students, parents, and teachers on a multitude of levels create a job that is almost impossible to keep up with. In addition,…

To influence student achievement and improve learning outcomes, building leaders are expected to exercise key elements of instructional leadership. School leaders experience barriers to engaging in efforts to increase teacher effectiveness and guide instructional improvement, due to the demands on their time as they balance the operational,…

This mixed methods research study explores superintendents' beliefs about and engagement in state education policymaking processes. Through interviews with 58 superintendents and a national survey of superintendents, I find that many superintendents feel that their voices have value in state policymaking spaces; however, superintendents' actual…

The purpose of this study is to examine differences in the career pathways and experience of male and female superintendents employed in Illinois. In order to achieve this overall objective, the researcher examined gender differences in the career pathways of Illinois superintendents as well as gender differences in the perceptions of…

School districts face the problem of superintendents who have several demanding, fragmented, and competing roles and who lack the knowledge of learning theory and the skills for collaborative instructional leadership needed to guide instructional improvement. The purpose of this single case study was to address the instructional leadership role of…

This research studied the predictive relationship of educational top leadership tenure on school performance. Specifically, it examined whether the tenure of top educational leaders, superintendents, and school business officials predicts school performance as measured by the 2019 Illinois State Board of Education School Performance Indicator…

Female superintendents across the nation comprise approximately 27% of the population (Finnan et al., 2015), while female teachers account for approximately 75% of the population (Robinson et al., 2017). In Ohio, the gender gap between male and female superintendents is more pronounced with 16.8% of superintendents identifying as female at the…

This mixed-method study examines Michigan's Partnership policy for school turnaround, which positions the district and superintendents as key policy implementation actors. We first interviewed 21 of 35 Partnership superintendents/leaders across Michigan and surveyed teachers to understand the initial response to the turnaround policy and the…