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Full-Text Articles in Educational Leadership

Public School Superintendents In Virginia: Innovating In The Educational Context, Daniel Firing Keever Oct 2023

Public School Superintendents In Virginia: Innovating In The Educational Context, Daniel Firing Keever

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

This research study, using institutional theory as a framework, examines the role of superintendents in promoting and impacting innovation in Virginia's public schools. The study engaged fourteen current Virginia superintendents in semi-structured interviews, exploring their perspectives on fostering an innovative culture within their school districts. Three primary themes emerged from the research: defining innovation, the role of superintendents in leading innovation, and the challenges and barriers to innovation. Generally, the findings highlight that innovation fundamentally involves thinking differently, finding creative solutions, and bringing about meaningful organizational improvements. The study emphasizes that innovation is essential for adapting to the evolving needs …


Special Education Fiscal Effort And Juvenile Adjudication: A Financial Relationship Exploration, Sarah E. Finley Aug 2023

Special Education Fiscal Effort And Juvenile Adjudication: A Financial Relationship Exploration, Sarah E. Finley

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Educational leaders stretch pennies, often in futile attempts, to provide equitable educational opportunities for all students. An educated populous, or lack thereof, heavily impacts not only students, but also local, state, and national economies, job markets, and public safety. Knowing where to exert public school fiscal effort to reduce juvenile crime is an issue with implications that reach far beyond the field of education. By employing a quantitative approach and analyses examining slopes of fiscal effort for special education and juvenile adjudications, this study explores the relationship between the two factors. The research points out several connections between special education …


The Currency Of Teacher Trust In Working Conditions For Teacher Retention, Jeanette White May 2023

The Currency Of Teacher Trust In Working Conditions For Teacher Retention, Jeanette White

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Virginia Public schools continue to face teacher shortages, and policymakers and school leaders are desperately seeking ways to influence teachers' decisions to stay at school. This multi-site case study of seven elementary schools offers a conceptual framework to examine how teachers' trusting relationships with students and parents relate to working conditions and retention. Teacher interview excerpts, an overall measure of teacher working conditions using the Virginia Climate and Working Conditions Survey (Virginia Department of Education, 2021), and school-level descriptive statistics were analyzed to examine the relationship between teachers' perceptions of trust and other working conditions within their schools. In this …


The Role And Contribution Of Rural North Carolina Community Colleges In Social Capital Development, Tanya J. Mcghee May 2023

The Role And Contribution Of Rural North Carolina Community Colleges In Social Capital Development, Tanya J. Mcghee

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Community colleges are important settings for the development of social capital as well as institutions of higher learning. The democratic mission, geographic dispersion, and close relationship with multiple stakeholders throughout their service regions allow community colleges to be well-suited to act as liaisons and social architects facilitating social capital creation. This is particularly true in rural areas, where community colleges are often among the largest employers and are major cultural and civic engagement centers. In an era of persistent budget reductions and fiscal tension, there is a need to better understand the multitude of ways rural community colleges support communities …


A Mixed Methods Investigation Of Administrators’ And Teachers’ Perceptions Of Teacher Leadership, Jori S. Beck, Kaavonia Hinton, Peter D. Wiens, Brandon Butler Jan 2023

A Mixed Methods Investigation Of Administrators’ And Teachers’ Perceptions Of Teacher Leadership, Jori S. Beck, Kaavonia Hinton, Peter D. Wiens, Brandon Butler

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

Teacher leadership has received attention for empirical and practical reasons. However, despite the evolution of the concept over the last several decades, there is still dissonance regarding the concept of teacher leadership. This study was grounded in the theory of professional identity to understand how administrators and teachers conceptualize teacher leadership. We studied the perceptions of administrators and teachers about teacher leadership using a survey and interviews. While there was some overlap in how administrators and teachers perceived teacher leadership, administrators viewed teacher leadership as occurring outside of the classroom while teachers located it inside of the classroom. Teachers also …


Open To All: Administrators’ And Teachers’ Perceptions Of Issues Of Equity And Diversity In Teacher Leadership, Jori S. Beck, Kaavonia Hinton, Brandon M. Butler, Peter D. Wiens Jan 2023

Open To All: Administrators’ And Teachers’ Perceptions Of Issues Of Equity And Diversity In Teacher Leadership, Jori S. Beck, Kaavonia Hinton, Brandon M. Butler, Peter D. Wiens

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

This study is a response to calls for more research on diversity in teacher leadership (TL), particularly in urban schools. Critical race theory illuminated the role race and racism can play in determining who gets access to TL positions and how that access is characterized using liberal discourse and ideology. We used a component mixed methods design to explore whether administrators and teachers perceived that teacher leadership positions were open to everyone. Beliefs that TL opportunities are “open to all” allow the field to accept the status quo, making it difficult to see (or do anything about) racial inequities.


Administrators' Capacity For Supporting Reform-Oriented Science Instruction: An Urban School District Case Study, Venicia Ferrell, Joanna K. Garner Jan 2023

Administrators' Capacity For Supporting Reform-Oriented Science Instruction: An Urban School District Case Study, Venicia Ferrell, Joanna K. Garner

Center for Educational Partnerships Publications

Secondary school administrators play a vital role as instructional leaders, but little is known about their knowledge of science practices and perceptions of strategies for supporting reform-oriented science instruction. This multiphase, mixed-methods Q-Methodology study explored administrators' perceptions of instructional leadership and, in particular, high-quality science instruction. After a concourse of 40 items was developed through a review of literature and an expert panel, n = 22 administrators from one urban school district completed a Q-sort and a post-sort questionnaire in which they commented on a lesson excerpt. Principal components analysis with varimax rotation was used to assimilate the participants into …


"We Collect Tons Of Data... We Report What We Think Our Community Cares The Most About... We Learn So Much From It:" School Librarians' Evidence Collection And Sharing Practices, Jennifer Moore, Maria Cahill, Jeffrey Discala, Wanyi Wang Jan 2023

"We Collect Tons Of Data... We Report What We Think Our Community Cares The Most About... We Learn So Much From It:" School Librarians' Evidence Collection And Sharing Practices, Jennifer Moore, Maria Cahill, Jeffrey Discala, Wanyi Wang

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Evidence-based practice (EBP) offers school librarians a systematic process for developing, assessing, and revising their school library programs. Two of the seven steps in this process involve collecting and sharing meaningful evidence with appropriate stakeholders, often for advocacy purposes, strategically selecting communication channels and methods aligned with target audiences. Through a survey collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, 161 school librarians in Kentucky, Virginia, and Texas shared their experiences with evidence-based practice. The study reported here focuses on school librarians’ evidence collection and sharing practices. Findings indicate school librarians collect easily obtainable data and share evidence of practice widely; however, …


Perspectives On Teacher Leadership: Implications For Practice And Teacher Leadership Development, Jennifer Thomason, Karen L. Sanzo, Jay Paredes Scribner Jan 2023

Perspectives On Teacher Leadership: Implications For Practice And Teacher Leadership Development, Jennifer Thomason, Karen L. Sanzo, Jay Paredes Scribner

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

Teacher leaders are valuable members of the school community. However, there is little existing research that explores how teacher leaders shape and enact their roles. In this article we explore how teacher leaders come to understand their role, as well as how principals and other school colleagues interact with teacher leaders and the ways in which those interactions support teacher leader role development. These findings have significant implications in helping us understand how to help teacher leaders develop in their role and the ways in which leaders can foster teacher leadership growth.