Trust is essential to success at both the school and district levels. While its presence provides no guarantee of organizational success, its absence reliably predicts failure. Trust in institutions including the government, the church, and the media has declined in recent years. This is certainly true of public schools as well. The purpose of…

The goals for this quantitative study were to examine superintendents' perceptions regarding their own supervision and evaluation of principals in a rural state. Five research questions guided the qualitative inquiry: (1) What are the perceptions of superintendents' regarding their supervision of principals?; (2) What are the perceptions of…

Although women have dominated the public education workforce, limited access to senior leadership remains evident. In Kansas, over 78 percent of teachers are women, but less than 15 percent of women serve as school district superintendents. There is a disproportionately smaller representation of women achieving the superintendency in the state of…

History has created many societal structures, expectations, and barriers that keep women in a particular place where their voices are expected to remain silent and passive (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger & Tarule, 1997; Blount, 1998; Gilligan, 1982). According to Gilligan (1982), women have difficulty listening to their inner voices and often…

County offices of education (COEs) are expected to provide ongoing support to districts and other local education agencies to drive continuous improvement within California's education system. Fulfilling this role has required COEs to carry out their historical role as compliance monitors while simultaneously developing the necessary mindsets,…

In the past five decades, white men have predominately held the superintendent position (Grogan & Nash, 2021; Tallerico & Blount, 2004). Women have gradually gained access to this position, but women of color still have to navigate access to this crucial seat in public education (Grogan & Nash, 2021). Relatedly, public schools have…

The 10th biennial Community College League of California's (League) "CEO Tenure and Retention Study" for California Community Colleges (CCC) includes data from the League's updated companion "CEO Tenure and Retention Dashboard" available on the League Website. This 10th edition of the League's CEO Tenure and Retention Study…

The purpose of this replication study was to examine the leadership practices, instructional practices, and high expectation beliefs employed by school district superintendents in Texas with the aim of eliminating the performance gap between Hispanic and White students in the state. The research employed a qualitative approach, consisting of…

Underrepresentation of women in the position of school superintendent has been identified as an equity issue in the field of education. National demographics show that approximately 73% of school superintendents are male as compared to only 27% female. Of these female superintendents, Latina and nonwhite female superintendents make up a small…

This study involving superintendents from four states sought to identify the nature and quality of help provided by outgoing superintendents to their successors, and to capture data regarding differences in the helpfulness of that support, depending on whether the superintendent moved to a new superintendency, retired from the position, or was…

Purpose: "Abbeville v. South Carolina" was a nearly three-decade long school funding lawsuit initiated by the education leaders of South Carolina's most rural and impoverished school districts that primarily educated students of color. Recently, the State Supreme Court dismissed the entire case. Guided by a multiperspective framework of…

Increased attention has been paid to school superintendents and their role in school reforms. Still, there are few studies on dialogue meetings between actors at different levels in the school hierarchy. The current paper investigates how a superintendent balances between trust and control while supporting school development through dialogue…

Although there have been significant increases in the number of female school leaders over the last several decades, women are still drastically underrepresented in the ranks of school and district leadership positions within K-12 school systems. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine and understand female school administrators'…

Public Act 100-0465 or the Evidence-Based Funding for Student Success Act was signed by Illinois Governor, Bruce Rauner, on August 31, 2017. According to the Illinois State Board of Education's Evidence-Based Funding webpage, "This law enacts evidence-based funding (EBF) and comprehensively changes the way that school districts receive the…

The purpose of this study was to qualitatively capture and examine the leadership experiences of six superintendents who have navigated, and continue to lead their school districts during the COVID-19 pandemic as aligned to the lens of the Boin et al. (2017) Five Critical Tasks of Strategic Crisis Leadership framework. This phenomenological case…