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…

Educational outcomes for Black & brown students are the result of well-functioning school systems overwrought with top-down bureaucracy that stifle school-based leaders from generating school-based solutions. The dominant explanation is the growing power and influence of politically-driven school board members cut off from local, national, and…

This study investigates what equity-focused school superintendents know and believe about culturally relevant pedagogy and how their leadership practices align with the tenets of culturally responsive leadership. We interviewed a diverse sample of 23 New Jersey district leaders who self-identified or were identified by others as equity oriented.…

Among the top reasons public school superintendents leave their positions is the poor relationships and conflicts with board members, and union representatives (Grissom & Mitani, 2016). The national average of superintendent tenure is less than four years resulting in K-12 leadership instability, at all levels of the school and district office…

This qualitative study sought to explore the perceptions of women school superintendents in K-12 public schools in Texas about the challenges they face as leaders and how they endure these impactful challenges, particularly during critical times such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Polidore's Resilience Theory (2004) as the theoretical framework,…

This study explores educational technology infusion in the U.S. school district context. We used a complex systems perspective to understand the interactions between the classroom (micro), building (meso), and organization (macro) system levels of a school district, offering insight into "how" and "why" certain permutations of…

The devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on schools world-wide required school leaders to provide effective, decisive leadership for their students, staff, and communities. The purpose of this interpretive qualitative study was to discover the systems and processes that framed leaders' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study focuses…

Since its inception, agricultural education has been instrumental in equipping secondary graduates with the necessary skills to be successful in their future career endeavors. While this has remained a priority over time, many employers claim that secondary graduates do not possess the necessary skills to be successful in the workforce. This study…

Background: Schools are important contexts for preventing sexual violence (SV) among adolescents. Evaluating whether programming is effective requires surveying youth about SV experiences. However, school communities often have concerns about asking students, particularly those in middle school, about these experiences. This study sought to…

New York State is attempting to push efforts to make K12 schools more equitable. Using a lens of sense making and equity-focused leadership, we addressed the following research questions. 1) How are school districts in CNY using school policy and district plans to move DEI forward? 2) What steps have district leaders taken to carry out their…

Through a basic qualitative approach this study examined the leadership styles of superintendents to determine if the styles of leadership have a positive, negative or no impact on student achievement. The perceptions and practices of the leadership styles of traditional pathway and alternative (non-traditional) pathway of superintendents is also…

The purpose of this inquiry was to understand how a building-level leader utilized context-responsive leadership practices to facilitate the transition from a building to district-level school leadership position. I used qualitative research methods to study the context-responsive leadership of a first-year assistant superintendent who…

In this article, we draw on the literature on trust to examine how elementary school principals make sense of superintendent trustworthiness. We examine trust in the context of the principal-superintendent relationship because it is the "social glue" needed for effective professional relationships where student learning and success is at…

Evaluating the superintendent is the paramount duty of the school board. Current evaluation practices are inconsistent and meaningless for providing effective feedback. The researcher was interested in understanding this issue from the school board's perspective. Research questions addressed were: '(1) What current evaluation practices…

As new school leaders take over the district's top jobs this fall, they and their communities face transitions. Joshua P. Starr explains that too many leaders focus on entry and fail to engage in a thoughtful and comprehensive transition process. Transition isn't just about change; it's also about loss. Organizational transition is about how…