The female principal and male assistant principal of a small rural elementary school completed the Hall-Tonna Inventory of Values resulting in each individual's value clusters, leadership characteristics, and ethical profile. The two administrators' leadership characteristics, goal values, and means values were often in conflict. Both would…

Adequacy of a model of administrative leadership and differences in the model across groups of principals and assistant principals were studied for 150 principals and 150 assistant principals. The model, which hypothesizes three domains of school leadership, fit the data well. Principals and assistant principals have rather similar views of…

The issue for this case study involves current administrators' views regarding how well prepared they felt for their school leadership positions after graduating from an educational leadership program in Florida. The author examines whether the courses that perspective school administrators are required to take during their graduate program…

This article examines the emergence of assistant heads onto the landscape of primary school leadership. Through the use of job descriptions, questionnaires, interviews and a case study, the functions that assistant heads are performing in primary schools is examined and their opinions, attitudes and beliefs about their work are considered. The…

In spring 1994, the author was hired to be the assistant principal at McLoughlin Middle School in Medford, Oregon. Disciplinary referrals in the 804-student school were on the rise. Teachers were frustrated, students were anxious, and parents were concerned. Casting about for a solution, she heard about a two-day workshop on schoolwide discipline…

Increasingly school leaders are being challenged to take a more instructionally focused role in their schools. This paper tracks the leadership challenges through a change process involving an assistant principal and a group of teachers, supported by a consultant, through four phases of an action research project. During the project the…

In this article, the authors describe their experiences in working with superintendents, principals, assistant principals, and teacher-leaders in New York City, embedding NSRF work into all their professional development efforts, and how responsive facilitation and using NSRF's principles of reflective practice, collaboration, and shared…

School districts have primarily stressed the instructional management aspect of the principal's role, while research has focused on principal effectiveness as a factor for increased student achievement. A synthesis of effective school characteristics identified by the literature is the first objective of this paper. A second purpose is the…

In examining the dynamics of change processes in high schools, this study makes initial interpretations about school officials who serve as change facilitators. The researchers found that a trend exists for the source of change to come from outside the high school. Principals, assistant principals, and department heads as well as central office…

In an effort to support the contention that the levels of student achievement and discipline depend more on administrative style and school ethos than on inner city location and/or social class, race, or IQ of students, an investigation was conducted of a single midwestern urban high school. The procedure consisted of observation and interviews of…

To claim that ethics and morality lie at the foundation of effective administrative praxis is neither new nor revolutionary--numerous studies have demonstrated that moral issues are embedded in the weave and texture of schooling and influence administrative choices. This paper explores the challenges, tensions and dilemmas new administrators…

Topeka West High School has approximately 1,500 students divided into four houses of 375 students. An effort is made to randomly distribute the incoming sophomores equally among the four houses. Each house has an assistant principal, a counselor, and a staff of 8 to 10 teachers representing the instructional areas of English, social studies, and…

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)

Suggests changes necessary to get more women into vice principalships and principalships. Data on percentages of women graduating from principal's qualification courses in Ontario indicate that the pool of potential female principals far exceeds the number hired. Suggests ways school boards can achieve equality in employment and ways aspirants can…