Teacher Retention Paper

In this chapter, Fullan begins by maintaining that principals who are effective lead learners are necessarily also good managers, because they understand that having clear routines is essential for school improvement.” (57) He quotes from Viviane Robinson’s Student-Centered Leadership to both underscore the previous point and emphasize that successful principals take an active learning stance: “The principal who makes the biggest impact on learning is the one who attends to other matters as well, but, most important, ‘participates as a learner’ with teachers in helping move the school forward.” (58) Fullan also borrows from Helen Timperley’s work in responding to the question, Who is in a principal’s class? The principal’s class consists of “team leaders who in turn can leverage the learning of other teachers in their group”

According to former Indiana state superintendent of schools Dr. Suellen Reed, “We know from our research that there’s no turnaround school without a turnaround principal” (as cited in Gammil, 2007, para. 2), further supporting the fact that “school leaders have an essential role in cultivating a positive school culture in public schools” (Peterson and Deal, 2002, p.30). However, it is imperative to improve our understanding as to how principal leadership impacts the school culture in high poverty schools to ensure that all children receive a quality education, regardless of zip code, in an environment conducive to learning. The six measured factors are as follows:

Carlos L. Mckinney, Myron B. Labat Jr., and Cherie A. Labat (for the remainder of this paper referred to as “the researchers”) set out to determine if there were common specific personal and professional traits/strategies associated with successful building principals of identified Blue Ribbon Schools and teacher morale. This study enlisted a number of teachers, counselors, principals and assistant principals from identified Blue Ribbon Schools in a southern state to participate in the study. During this study, the researchers used specific survey questions designed to identify behavioral leadership traits and the resulting staff/teacher morale. These survey questions were asked to educational professionals employed in the identified Blue Ribbon schools to determine whether there was a correlation between the principal’s behavioral leadership and the overall school culture as related to the resulting teacher/staff morale.

Palmer Lake Elementary School refers to a public elementary school located in Brooklyn Park. The school has 678 students with majority being Whites and non-Hispanics. The teachers; population is between 40 and 50 teachers: 6 speech teacher, two reading teacher, 3 gym physical, two music teachers, 28 for regular classes, one media. Accordingly, the ratio of students to teachers is approximately 15:1. Each class has varying number of students ranging from 19 to 28 students. Approximately 54 percent of the students are male and 46 percent are female. The percentage of students eligible for subsidized lunch is 65. This essay examines the leadership skills and styles of Dr. Tim Brown after an interview in his office. Dr. Tim is the principal of Palmer Lake Elementary School and plays the following roles. First, he shapes the vision of academic success and instructional competence for all students and teachers respectively. Second, he plays the role of creating a climate and environment that is hospitable for learning. Third, he cultivates leadership in other teachers. Fourth, he is answerable to external stakeholders such as parents and state education authorities concerning the school’s performances and use of resources. Effective educational leadership is a continuous process that involves self-examination, learning from others, collaboration and sustainable use of resources to accomplish the goals and

Above all else, I view leadership within the school system as essential for its success. My cumulative experiences provide a strong background that will allow me to excel as a school leader. I possess an understanding of the challenges and intricacies of a wide variety of school systems, ranging from small rural programs to inner-city and sub-urban high schools to research universities. My experience teaching at the college level gives me a unique perspective that will allow me to guide a program aimed at cultivating high school students capable of excelling in their educational endeavors. In addition, I believe that to be a truly successful leader, one must have a clear understanding of the challenges faced by educators. My years as a high school teacher have provided me a keen perspective in this regard. University of Northern Colorado’s Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Program will be an invaluable avenue for me to learn from experienced educators as I hone my leadership abilities with the goal of using my life to lead improvements in the public education system. I look forward to the opportunity to develop as an educator,

The watching of the videos “The Principal Story” and “North Grand” in combination with reading the textbook “Leading in a Culture of Change” by Michael Fullan and our class discussions have provided me with many insights about my future as a high school principal. I have served as a mathematics teacher for almost twenty-three years and have served in many leadership roles throughout my career, however my participation in this course has verified that, although I have a strong foundation of knowledge, I still have much to learn about leading a school. I am coming to understand the position of principal is a monumental task and should be entered with into with much thought. Holding this role as principal requires that I use this position to

According to critics, the model places too much emphasis on the transformational qualities of the leader, thereby reinforcing the notion that the principal is the sole source of leadership at the school (Evers & Lakomski, 1996; Stewart, 2006). However, according to Leithwood and Jantzi (2006), their transformational leadership model does not assume that the principal will be the only source of leadership within the school and is consistent with the sharing of leadership with teachers and other stakeholders. Similarly to the views of the mentioned critics, Yukl (1999) has drawn attention to several conceptual weaknesses in transformational leadership theories, which include ambiguity in indentifying the processes for transformational leadership, which he suggested are used to explain the effects of the leader (principal) on school community. Given that scholars have had limited success in measuring the effects of a single leader on outcomes, the measurement of the effects of transformational leadership is even more challenging since it does not assume that leadership is concentrated on the principal alone (Hallinger, 2003). His most important finding concerned the fact that the transformational leadership behaviour of vision/inspiration was negatively associated with student learning culture. Barnett, McCormick and Conners (2001) suggested that visionary/inspirational principals may direct teachers’ efforts to wider school initiatives, thereby distracting them from their teaching and learning goals. If correct, this interpretation has negative implications for the transformational leadership model in relation to its presumed effects on student outcomes and turnaround

This study seeks to examine a principal leadership style and its effects on teacher job

There needs to be at least 50 participants chosen for this study. A sample of convenience was used which limited the scope of the study to high poverty and low poverty schools in the South Carolina Lowcountry. These participants were all South Carolina certified teachers in multiple secondary disciplines. Teachers who had only been employed for one year were not included in the study because it is possible they did not have enough personal experience with their current principal to accurately determine their leadership behaviors. This was done to protect the integrity of the study and to gain an accurate depiction of the principal’s leadership behaviors over time. This exclusion also ensures that answers to the school climate survey are referencing the perception of the school climate from a perspective of a person that has experienced it for a significant period of time.

Great principals build a strong school community. One principal spent two to three hours each day observing teachers. He found that effective teachers did not mind having him provide feedback for improvement while the ineffective teachers objected the idea of having multiple observations. Principals can also improve teacher effectiveness by offering professional development opportunities.

In my analysis of the elementary school principals’ role in reducing teacher attrition in the large urban district, I will use a qualitative method approach to gather and analyze data. This approach requires that the researcher "centers on the attempt to achieve a sense of the meaning that others give to their own situations" (Smith, 2005). According to Maxwell, qualitative research allows for the understanding of processes, as opposed to outcomes, and is focused on people and situations (Maxwell, 2005). Additionally, “qualitative research seeks to probe deeply in the research setting to obtain in-depth understandings about the way things are, why they are that way, and how the participants in the context perceive them”

The purpose of this study was to investigate how principals’ transformational leadership, teacher dispositions of efficacy, testing integrity, receptivity to change and job satisfaction predicted teacher placement in a higher or lower math achieving middle schools in suburban environments.

Doctors Joseph and Jo Blase, a husband and wife duo who both teach educational leadership at the University of Georgia, author Handbook of Instructional Leadership: How Really Good Principals Promote Teaching and Learning; thereby, adding to an already expansive collection of scholarly articles coauthored by them on the subject of educational leadership. In this book, the Blases accomplish two tasks: outlining how principals should apply instructional leadership skills while performing their job, and how principals should maintain positive relationships with their teachers while still effectively leading. To accomplish these tasks, the authors divide up the book into brief chapters that each deal with either an attribute of instructional leadership or a method for maintaining positive principal-teacher relations. As the authors themselves state, the book effectively examines “what successful instructional leaders do to enhance teaching and learning and the effects that their behaviors have on teacher’s performance and well-being” (xiii).

The leadership style of school’s principals in U.S. elementary schools plays an indirect role in the academic success of students when is implicit a transformational approach in the principal’s behavior. I mentioned indirect impact, because the truly direct impact is toward the teachers, which, as a transitivity effect, impact as well the academic achievement of their students. The purpose of this paper is analyze the impact of transformational principals in teacher’s commitment and job satisfaction, and in consequence, their effect in the student’s success.

The Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals (MASSP) assisted in communication and access to serving principals during the data collection phase of this research project, a benefit afforded with active membership in the organization. The membership of MASSP includes 98% of all principals serving in a public secondary school in the state. Participants were solicited in partnership with the MASSP through an initial email contact to its respective active membership list requesting volunteer telephone interview subjects for the study.