Background/purpose: Policy alienation is considered to be significant for successful policy implementation and is linked to public professionals' attitudes towards change. The current study was conducted to investigate the influence of educational employees', namely teachers' and school administrators', policy alienation on their change cynicism in the context of Turkish public schools. Materials/methods: The sample of this quantitative, causal-comparative study comprises of 504 teachers, principals, and vice-principals enrolled in educational master's programs of the Social Sciences Institute in a university during the summer semester of 2020-2021 academic year and the fall semester of the 2021-2022 academic year. Data were collected using two Likert-type scales, the Policy Alienation Scale and the Cynicism about Organizational Change Scale, and then analyzed using descriptive statistics, "t"-test, ANOVA, and regression testing. Results: The study revealed that the educational employees had a fairly high level of policy alienation and a low level of change cynicism, although teachers had higher levels of change cynicism over school administrators. Perceived strategic powerlessness of educational employees was the highest ([x-bar] = 3.37), and their tactical and operational powerlessness predicted their change cynicism the most, and explained the 26% and 28% of the total variance in change cynicism, respectively. Conclusion: The findings indicate that educational employees should be involved in policy processes, and that change benefits should be justified with a powerful rationale so as to reduce policy alienation, as this helps to gain their behavioral support for changes and reduces failures. This is also significant as a history of failed change efforts triggers change cynicism.