National Blue Ribbon Schools (NBRS) are a select group of US schools, identified annually, in recognition for their success at either (a) overall student achievement or (b) achievement gap closing. The first purpose of this qualitative study was to examine teacher leadership in a sample of US NBRS for alignment with contemporary standards for…

Literature has examined teacher leadership (TL) roles, definitions, applications in schools, and, most recently, its presence in high-performing public schools, like the US National Blue Ribbon Schools (NBRS). This study featured principal and teacher leader interviews (n = 20) from NBRS recognized during the pandemic (2020 and 2021), alongside…