Analyzes 240 First Amendment cases involving school administrator dismissals, focusing on each administrator's (alleged) behavior or situation leading to the court's decision. These cases disclose a substantial volume of behavior that is inexcusable, outrageous, self-destructive, and embarrassing. Many accounts illustrate the stress, ambiguities,…

Report of a study of principals' and teachers' perceptions of implementing multicultural education. The results are presented for four areas: (1) a multicultural education plan; (2) limitations and constraints of implementing multicultural education; (3) expectations of administrators' support; and (4) administrators' plans of support. (Contains…

Because life is unpredictable and plans often go awry, improvisation can be an important skill for educational leaders. This article explains the importance of improvisation; describes what drives it; and provide five questions to ask for assessing how leader improvisation, or lack of it, can affect a school district. (WFA)

Finds a significant relationship between empowering behaviors of principals and teacher motivation (the higher the principal's score, the higher teachers' overall motivation score); but finds no relationship between principal empowering behaviors and either teacher job satisfaction or job stress, although teacher motivation was related to both job…

Examines management styles, dispositions, and skills that provide a positive work environment for child care staff. Categorizes suggestions as offering genuine respect and trust, working with a vision for the future, sharing the decision-making process, rejecting a scarcity mentality, tending to the physical environment, and "walking the…

A recent study surveyed the extent and sources of educators' relevant legal knowledge, their consultation patterns, and everyday legal problems confronting them. Areas of greatest concern were school safety, teacher liability, child protection, and custody and access issues. Training and professional- development implications are discussed.…

Compares a successful childcare director to an effective coach and adapts the following suggestions for administrators: (1) be a good scout; (2) warm up; (3) offer training camp; (4) get signals straight; (5) use visible scoreboard; (6) consult the team; (7) stay focused; (8) remember the seventh inning stretch; (9) be a model; and (10) create…

This article is an attempt to reflect on the doubting process as an emerging perspective in school change. After introducing the notion of doubt and its importance to school change, the author describes conditions influencing the doubting process. She reflects on these conditions in a case example of a secondary school principal who doubted the…

A presidential transition has a major impact on the life of an institution. Hundreds of presidential transitions take place annually, and when they are not amicable and carefully orchestrated, they can scar both the institution and the president. This book is designed to provide assistance to presidents, trustees, faculty, and other important…

This paper examines the effects that the adoption of school-based management (SBM) and subsequent efforts to generate curriculum and instructional reforms have on school staff members. Specifically, it explores the leadership behaviors exhibited by administrators, faculty, and staff in 17 elementary and secondary schools from eight locations.…

What leaders encourage others to do must be congruent with the values they espouse and demonstrate through action. The educational leadership platform has recently been used as a tool to assist aspiring leaders in clarifying their personal values. This paper presents findings of a study that explored the effect of the educational leadership…

In Ohio, Venture Capital grants are available to schools to support their school-improvement efforts. This paper presents findings of a study that examined building principals' openness to change in the 307 Ohio schools with Venture Capital Grants. The 307 principals received by mail the Inventory of Change in Organizational Culture (Dunham and…

Executive coaching is an emerging field with broad demand and subsequent growth in service providers. The International Coach Federation (ICF) reports a membership of over 5500 coaches, and there is likely a large but indeterminate number of practicing coaches that do not belong to that organization. Enterprises around the globe are utilizing the…

Published in collaboration with the National Institute for Leadership Development (NILD), this monograph reports on a study of leading-edge community college presidents. The authors cluster the 22 competencies identified through the study into four categories. Each category is presented as a chapter which identifies and provides examples of the…

This book is designed to help nonprofit organizations recruit and retain volunteers. Following an introductory section covering the recruitment and use of volunteers, it contains 14 chapters organized in 3 sections. The chapters in the first section discuss what volunteer recruiters need to do before actually asking anyone to volunteer. They…