Principals play a critical role in improving schools, but high rates of principal turnover threaten improvement gains. In this study we used a mixed-methods design to examine school, district, and community factors associated with greater principal turnover, and explore how these factors differ for rural schools. We found that rural districts tend…

This multi-case study analyzed the formal and informal development of adaptive capacity in fire service leaders within the context of increasingly complex situations driven by urbanization and climate change. Triangulating interviews, observations, and documentation review, this study included two urban fire service cases impacted by past complex…

Principals play an integral role in promoting the overall success of a school. Principal turnover is an increasing problem across the United States, which has created a principal shortage. Turnover of effective school principals can disrupt school progress and have an undesirable impact on rates of teacher retention and student achievement. The…

Roles such as principal and superintendent are politically positioned to affect policy and are seen as a steppingstone to the school district administration. In the United States of America, Black women are few in leadership positions. In the 2019-2020 school year there were approximately 1,662 public high school principals in the State of Texas…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to discover perceptions and factors contributing to retention of alternatively certified teachers with one to four year's teaching experience in one of Texas's largest school districts. Schools are facing low teacher retention rates which negatively impact student performance. Podolsky et al. (2019)…

There has been a documented shortage of nursing and allied healthcare professionals in the healthcare workforce. The clinical workforce is supplied by nursing and allied health programs, and the faculty for nursing and allied health come from experienced and qualified clinicians. Therefore, shortages in the clinical healthcare workforce and…

African-American women experience challenges in principal positions. This study explains how African-American women in leadership positions in Texas public schools overcome these challenges. This population of African-American woman principals has increased yet there are still challenges in the public schools for these leaders. This study explored…

Principal leadership is crucial to the success of rural schools (Canales et al., 2008; Horst & Martin, 2007; Texas Education Agency [TEA], 2017). Research has shown that principals have a great impact on student learning through multiple pathways (Sebastian & Allensworth, 2012). Principals today must be instructional leaders, share a…

Teacher turnover has been an unsolved problem for decades and the pipeline of new entrants into the teaching profession is lower than ever before. The Millennial generation is the major source of new talent today. Employers in other sectors have studied this generational cohort's workplace needs to discover how to retain the most mobile…

There are nearly 250 teachers hired each school year due to attrition in Smith Independent School District (SISD). Attrition is a repetitive obstacle to finding qualified teachers for open positions. From the 2015-2016 to 2018-2019 school years, there were1,000 teachers hired across SISD due to attrition, representing a 24% teacher attrition rate.…

This narrative inquiry captures the stories of three newly-hired professors struggling to assimilate into Metro Community College's social environment. My work first presents Samantha's metaphor: a sandbox campus wherein employees work in isolation, building individual sandcastles. This metaphor evokes an imaginative way to interpret and…

This doctoral project explores the relationship between Catholic school culture and teacher burnout within the context of Catholic secondary schools in the state of Texas. While the subject of teacher burnout has gotten considerable attention in educational research, there is very little research on the specific relationship between school culture…

Teacher morale declined over the course of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, highlighting the importance of the quality of the workplace conditions that teachers experience and how those conditions might influence well-being and retention. In response to widespread concerns about teacher shortages, many states are focusing on…

Teacher morale declined during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, and teachers reported worse wellbeing than other working adults. Interventions to restore teacher well-being could improve job performance, job satisfaction, engagement, and retention. Although it is known that working conditions are related to well-being among other teachers…

In comparison to men, the high school principal role in Texas is a position that few women obtain in their educational leadership journey. Even though women are statistically more prominently employed as teachers in K-12 public education in Texas, women are not equally represented in the superintendency. This disparity of representation starts at…