Education is a construct in American culture that is ever changing. School leadership is a primary function of public education. School leaders in 21st century schools have been tasked with many new functions that differ from their predecessors. With the advent of these new functions, it is necessary to ensure that competent well-versed educators are prepped to take the helm of public-school organizations. In an effort to fill the school leadership pipeline it has become common practice for school districts to create their own principal preparation programs with the goal of growing their own district leadership and also retaining the talent that is trained in the programs. This new phenomenon is a strategy to recruit and retain school leaders. With it being a relatively new component of education, it is prudent to study the outcomes of this ideal in a variety of facets. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the self-efficacy of school leaders who have graduated from a principal preparation program that was created by a local school district. A secondary purpose of this study was to examine if schools that have district-trained principal leadership fare better in the realm of academics and social emotional learning gains versus their respective district norms. This study was descriptive in nature and used a thematic analysis to focus on main ideals that focused on self/personal development of the candidates or the training of candidates to develop their respective faculty and staff. The findings indicated a high level of self-efficacy in the job as a result of the district principal preparation program. A secondary finding was that the academic gains were not significant between traditionally trained principals and district level trained principals. The social emotional attributes had varying results based on certain categories. Recommendations are for this study to be expanded to include multiple school districts in different parts of the country. Another recommendation is to divide primary and secondary purposes into different research studies in the future to gain more insight on the academic comparison of traditionally trained school leadership versus district level trained school leadership. In conclusion the utilization of this type of school leadership training needs to continue to be studied and developed to ensure that it is a viable means to filling the school leadership pipeline. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]