Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine principal succession planning and management by analyzing current practices of handling school leader succession in four Georgia school systems. Design/methodology/approach: Looking through the lens of organizational leadership succession theory, the practices of school systems as they experienced…

Superintendents leading school districts, particularly in hard-to-staff areas, face immense challenges in recruiting and retaining high-quality, well-trained teachers, principals, and district leaders. Many large urban areas as well as their rural counterparts have high concentrations of intergenerational poverty and unemployment. Rural areas are…

This study sought to describe how an elementary school faculty made sense of the impending succession of its principal, and to extend Gephart's effort to develop a grounded theory of leader succession by examining an unforced succession in an organization whose members exerted little if any influence on the selection process. On the basis of…

Succession in administrative positions can affect leadership at a school and educational effectiveness. This book examines succession not as an event, but as a complex social process marked by interactions among a school's faculty and their new principal. The first three chapters comprise the first section and cover the foundations of leader…

The problem that this study investigated is whether a set of characteristics (gender, age, region, race/ethnicity, and path to licensure) predict the level of interest of principals in pursuing the superintendency. This quantitative, correlational study aimed to address this problem by investigating if demographic factors can predict K-12…

Hiring and sustaining qualified executive leaders at schools and programs for the Deaf continue to be challenging for board members and communities. More information is needed to understand issues contributing to the retention and recruitment of these executive leaders. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand factors that…

Materials contained in this activity package are designed to provide teachers with a method of approaching a complex environmental question. That question centers on the return to the "good life" of the country. The two activities in the package provide a different view of this question than the most commonly accepted one. The first activity…

Presented is a theory of how competence with written mathematical symbols develops, tracing a succession of cognitive processes that cumulate to yield competence. Arguments supporting the theory are drawn from the history, philosophy, and psychology of mathematics. (MNS)

This paper constructs an administrator succession model specifying major school process and outcome variables. The succession literature is reviewed using the model's components which include the selection process, organizational structure, school culture, educational programs, successor actions, community, and succession effects. Strategies for…

A model of "alternant leadership"--leading and succeeding one another by turn--is presented that proposes a democratic, collegial, multivoter, team approach to electing educational leaders. The rationale is based on contingency theories of administration and studies on leadership succession. Related articles are EA 519 583 and 584. (MLF)

Arranged alphabetically for quick and easy access, this book is a one-stop guide to the U.S. presidency from its beginnings at the Constitutional Convention through its evolution to the modern presidency. Included in the book is information on all the presidents and vice presidents of the United States as well as selected First Ladies, powers of…

Because public school districts have highly permeable organizational boundaries, analyses of their structures and processes should include consideration of external as well as internal factors. Such analyses have become feasible with the application of general systems theory, which views organizations as functioning units that have continuous…

This paper uses socialization theory to re-examine a unique, 10-year longitudinal study of headteachers so as to describe the stages of headship transition. It outlines prior models of leadership succession in both business and schools and produces a stage theory of headship that can be used not only as a research tool, but also as a way to assist…

Social semiotics suggests that social and cultural formations, including the language and practice of science and the ways in which new generations and communities advance them, develop as an integral part of the evolution of social ecosystems. Some recent models of complex dynamic systems in physics, chemistry, and biology focus more on the…

As studies of organizational development have focused increasingly in recent years on stages of decline and death, theories of revolutionary adaptation have gained currency. The theory of organizational retrenchment developed in this paper is divided into five chronological stages: (1) preresponse, (2) emerging awareness and buying time, (3) alarm…