Educational administration

The role of principal supervisors has changed significantly, moving away from a focus on compliance and towards a greater emphasis on nurturing principals' instructional leadership skills. As a result of this evolution, there is now an increased presence of supervisors in schools, but there are no clear guidelines for their activities. This study aims to fill this gap by developing a theory that explains how principal supervisors can effectively support principals in their roles. The insights gained from this study will have significant implications for the future training and professional development of principal supervisors, which aims to improve the effectiveness of principal leadership and, in turn, enhance student outcomes.
The study seeks to answer the key research question: "How do principal supervisors and their principals perceive how principal supervisors provide effective support?" Using a qualitative approach and grounded theory design, the study collected data through 15 semi-structured interviews involving three principal supervisors and 12 principals who had worked together for at least three years. The resulting grounded theory outlines a comprehensive framework that explains how principal supervisors can offer impactful support to principals.

In today’s educational climate highly focused on accountability, often measured through high stakes testing and graduation rates, it is critical that school leaders return to a focus on the initial aim of public education and ensure all students are afforded a quality education until graduation. Unfortunately, over 25,000 school-aged children in Florida are arrested for a felony offense annually, which is just one of many paths leading to an interruption in their learning and often entrance to the school-to-prison pipeline. Additionally, these students are often not allowed to return or have their return to traditional school settings postponed by being placed at alternative school settings.
The purpose of this qualitative phenomenology study was to describe the K-12 educational experience as perceived by males ages 15-21 who had an interruption in their education while attending a public school in Florida. The perceptions of the K-12 educational experiences were generally defined as what each participant reported as his personal experience while attending a K-12 public educational setting.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to identify common practices of school-of-the-arts administrators and to determine if these commonalities differ from the practices of effective school leaders in general. A sample of administrators (n=92) completed a 3-part Likert survey based on the 21 attributes identified in the balanced leadership model. Five research questions guided this study which looked for both common and unique leadership challenges facing principals in schools of the arts. Prinicpals ranked the practices in order of importance. Although the statistical analyses revealed no significant differences among the variables of instructional levels (elementary, middle, and secondary), gender, or school grade designations, descriptive statistics as well as qualitative data found a number of emergent themes including principal outreach, principal advocacy, focus, flexibility, curriculum, funding challenges, and the commitment to being there(i.e., at the school). Based on the findings, a plus one model was developed illustrating the tensions across organizational management, instructional leadership, and artistic leadership, all of which must function simultaneously in order to lead a successful school of the arts. While only one study, the findings suggest that regular school principals might want to consider incorporating successful school-of-the-arts practices in their own schools.