Emotionally traumatized students who display disorderly behavior have difficulty academically, emotionally, and socially in school. The purpose of this study was to explain principals' and assistant principals' perspectives on the impact emotional trauma has on students' academic success. The problem is teachers lack the knowledge and skills to aid emotionally traumatized students. This problem impacts emotionally traumatized students, the classmates of emotionally traumatized students, teachers, administrators, and staff. The theoretical framework used for this study was the Transformational Leadership Theory. This leadership theory influences administrators to build relationships. A qualitative method used semi-structured interviews with four assistant principals, three principals, and an analysis of the theoretical framework to gather and analyze data from principals and assistant principals that participated in the study work in schools in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Three research questions guided this study. Participants answered four demographic questions and 10 open-ended questions during the interview, which aligned with three research questions. Their identifications were kept anonymous. The data analysis used coding, peer review, thematic description, and triangulation of the research data. This study's results provide a voice for emotionally traumatized, special needs, general population students, teachers, assistant principals, and principals. Nine themes were recognized as insufficient, added to the trauma, disrupts, positive classroom culture, family support, funding, time, district, and burnout. The study's outcome revealed teachers and administrators are not trained in emotional trauma when seeking their teacher or administration certification. One recommendation is the development of an emotional trauma awareness college course for teachers and administrators. The second recommendation is funding schools for training in the areas of trauma. A third recommendation is a resource that is available for parents. Recommendations for future research include a qualitative study of school board members, and the superintendent's awareness of the impact emotional trauma has on students. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]