Background: Servant leadership is a leadership approach based on universal values and involves an ethical, practical, and meaningful way to live and lead. Servant leadership has been adopted around the world as a follower-centered transformational leadership paradigm focusing on identifying and meeting the needs of others. Purpose: The purpose of…

This qualitative case study examined the distribution of leadership and the implementation of an instructional reform in a low-performing urban middle school. Leadership for the instructional reform was widely distributed and stretched across formal and informal teacher leaders. School personnel were highly invested in the instructional model and…

The Every Child Succeeds Act of 2015 signaled a shift toward the recognition of the importance of school leadership, reflecting a growing body of literature that demonstrates principals are second only to classroom instruction in supporting student success. This influence is the greatest when principals focus on teaching and learning, or…

Conventional definitions of "on-time graduation" and "college readiness" often place the needs of traditionally marginalized students (first-generation, low-income, immigrant and/or students of color) in a deficit light. This multi-case study explores how school leaders at two public high schools are redefining and reframing…

This qualitative case study examined school leaders' roles, perceptions, and challenges leading a one-to-one (1:1) laptop initiative in a coeducational, independent middle, and high school in the United States. The findings revealed how the school leaders led the school's 1:1 laptop initiative through collaborative, yet differentiated roles and…

Much can be learned from practicing school leaders, including how they describe their roles navigating between policy and practice with a focus on meeting students' needs. This article considers how alternative school administrators work with school personnel to create communities for supporting students once considered at risk in traditional…

This article explores contextual factors that influenced teacher leadership behavior during the evolution of a dual language education program for elementary English-language learners. Teachers' narratives provide evidence of the relative strength of school leadership streams, that is, relationships, moral purpose, and commitment to action.…

Research has affirmed the importance of principals and mentors in supporting novice teachers; however, little is known about how teacher leaders contribute to this work. We employed a mixed methods design to examine teacher leaders' contributions to induction by surveying principals, teachers, and other staff (n = 246) and interviewing teacher…

Facilitating change in schools requires the leadership, time, and skills of a number of educators in the school community. While the principal usually initiates change activities such as implementing a new program or initiative or reform, the planning and the daily monitoring of the implementation becomes the purview of teams of school personnel.…

This qualitative case study utilized distributed leadership theory and Capobianco and Feldman's (2006) conceptualization of conditions for collaborative action research (CAR) to describe the implementation of CAR as professional development (PD) and school improvement strategy in two educational contexts, one alternative school and one rural, in a…

This study examined the relationships between principals' leadership, school climate, and teachers' sense of self-efficacy. Drawing on existing scales, this study examined six aspects of principal leadership (professional interaction, participatory decision-making, individual support, intellectual stimulation and moral perspective) and four school…

Research suggests effective professional learning communities (PLCs) enhance teacher collaboration and student achievement. Within-school variation in PLC processes, however, is underexplored. This study highlights differences in teacher behavior and teams' perceptions of principal leadership in well-functioning teams versus less well-functioning…

This study investigates whether and how principals implementing Instructional Leadership Teams (ILTs) were able to share decision-making authority with team members and how team members perceived this authority. Having interviewed and observed ILT members in four, in-district charter schools in a large northeastern city I find that principals had…

The study presented here examines the efforts of one principal and the team she relied upon to create a more inclusive and high-performing school in a large urban school district. The goals, actions, and responsibilities of the team are described, as well as the daily challenges associated with school administration and special education. In doing…

The purpose of this study was to determine what stressors face practicing school principals, with an interest in determining whether they perceived that teacher leaders could relieve some of their stress. This descriptive study used quantitative and qualitative measures that revealed differences in the stressors identified by principals.…