Hans W. Klar

Successful Leadership in High-Needs Schools: An Examination of Core Leadership Practices Enacted in Challenging Contexts

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the ways principals in three high-needs middle schools enacted core leadership practices in concert with their immediate contexts to institutionalize comprehensive school reforms and support student learning. Research Methods: The schools were selected from a geographically stratified sample of public middle schools in a state in the southeastern United States. Multiple linear regression was used to identify schools performing better than expected considering their levels of poverty and other school-related factors. The final three schools, one from each geographic region, showed steady increases in academic achievement and school climate following the arrival of their principals. Data were primarily collected from interviews with principals, teaching and nonteaching staff, and parents using protocols adapted from the International Successful School Principalship Project. Findings: The findings explicate the large degree to which the leadership practices and beliefs that influenced student achievement in these schools were adapted to and commensurate with each school’s immediate context. Furthermore, they illustrate how principals used these practices to institutionalize school-wide reform efforts as vehicles for leading change within their schools. Implications: The findings substantiate research on successful school leadership in high-needs middle schools. They also extend this research by examining the way core transformational and instructional leadership practices can be adapted to suit various school contexts and institutionalize school-wide reform efforts to enhance student learning. Further research is required to understand how principals decide to adapt their leadership practices, and how aspiring leaders can best learn to do so.

Fostering the capacity for distributed leadership: a post-heroic approach to leading school improvement

Principals are being encouraged to distribute leadership to increase schools’ organizational capacities, and enhance student growth and learning. Extant research on distributed leadership practices provides an emerging basis for adopting such approaches. Yet, relatively less attention has been paid to examining the principal’s role in fostering the leadership capacities of others to create the capacity for distributed leadership. In this article, we examine the specific practices of six high school principals who fostered the leadership capacities of 18 other leaders in their respective schools. Our findings illustrate the key steps these principals undertook in identifying potential leaders, creating leadership opportunities for them, facilitating their role transitions and providing them with continuous support.

Successful leadership in a rural, high-poverty school: The case of county line middle school

Purpose – In this paper, the authors present a case study of successful school leadership at County Line Middle School. The purpose of the paper is to identify how particular leadership practices and beliefs were adapted to increase student achievement in this rural, high-poverty school in the southeastern USA. Design/methodology/approach – After purposefully selecting this school, the authors adapted interview protocols, questionnaires, and analysis frameworks from the International Successful School Principalship Project to develop a multi-perspective case study of principal leadership practices at the school. Findings – The findings illustrate the practices which led to students at this school, previously the lowest-performing in the district, achieving significantly higher on state standardized tests, getting along “like a family,” and regularly participating in service learning activities and charity events. A particularly interesting finding was how the principal confronted the schools negative sel...

A logic model for coaching experienced rural leaders: lessons from year one of a pilot program

Rural schools dominate the United States, yet scant research exists on rural school leaders’ development. Urban districts can transfer leaders to different locations, but rural districts, with few school sites, need leaders who stay and adapt to changing conditions. Mid-career rural leaders require a refreshed set of skills to carry school improvement and educational policies into the next decade or more. This article reports on a logic model focused on developing rural school-building leaders through cross-district coaching from experienced district-level leaders. The first-year results of a pilot program were applied to refine the logic model.

Supporting Leadership Development An Examination of High School Principals’ Efforts to Develop Leaders’ Personal Capacities

In this article, we report findings from an exploratory, qualitative study in which we used a constructivist lens to examine how two high school principals endeavored to develop the personal capacities of teachers and other leaders in their schools. We collected data from semistructured interviews with the principals and three other leaders from each of their respective schools. Through our findings, we illustrate the varying degree to which each principal viewed the leaders’ existing capacities, structured their leadership learning opportunities, guided their reflections, and assessed their learning in the context of leadership practice. An important finding was that the way the principals viewed leadership development and saw other leaders as learners themselves appeared to influence the way they developed other leaders’ personal capacities.