Teacher retention is a continuing concern. One of the reasons teachers leave the profession is that they don't feel valued or working to their potential. Developing teacher leadership is a positive way to improve job satisfaction, career development, and retention (Wixom, 2016). In addition, teacher leadership and influence in decision-making are…

The 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic created a crisis that tested teacher leaders, building leaders, and school culture in ways that will take years to analyze. In this qualitative focus group study, teachers working in Kansas throughout the pandemic shared their perspectives on leadership development. The teachers reported taking on roles and…

Bringing together leadership educators from 11 programs in Kansas, the Leadership Studies Summit fostered new initiatives and strengthened collegial networks. The summit responded to local and national expressed needs for intensive dialogue focusing on collaboration and capacity building among leadership educators for advancing the common good.…

Since the first Kansas State University (KSU) master's academies in 2000, the academy focus has moved from preparing candidates for principal positions to the broader vision of teacher leadership, recognizing that today's leadership relies on a team, not an individual. As leadership in schools becomes ever more challenging, requiring multiple…

Sixty-six school districts and more than 150 schools in the state of Kansas are participating in the Kansans Can Redesign Project. In this article, we present a case study of using Design Thinking as a systemic process to structure continuous school improvement. The collage of real-life scenarios presented in our case shows the integration of…

Research has affirmed the importance of principals and mentors in supporting novice teachers; however, little is known about how teacher leaders contribute to this work. We employed a mixed methods design to examine teacher leaders' contributions to induction by surveying principals, teachers, and other staff (n = 246) and interviewing teacher…

This article investigates district-level administrators' perceptions regarding the value of the partnership academies. The article uses input from seven district administrators who provided feedback regarding the value of the district and university partnership, specific benefits to the district, the differences between participants who envision…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify (1) teacher-leaders' descriptions of their roles and activities, (2) perceptions of characteristics, knowledge, and skills of successful teacher leaders, (3) barriers to and support needed for teacher leadership, (4) the extent to which teacher leaders helped teachers understand and respond to…