This paper examined the perceptions of school administrators in the state of Illinois concerning their roles in preventing school violence. Targeted school violence has increasingly been a concern in the United States. It is a type of violence that transcends everyday altercations in the school context, and rises to the level of deliberate,…

This quantitative, descriptive study sought to identify principal perceptions of the relative importance of the Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (PSEL) and its component elements in the State of Illinois. All current principals who were members of the Illinois Principals' Association were invited to complete a survey in the fall of…

The COVID-19 pandemic had massive implications and ramifications on the nation's public schools, students, and educators alike. Elementary principals transformed into crisis leaders overnight and were greatly challenged. The ability for principals to lead through crises was worth exploring to ascertain the necessary attributes for effective…

The field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) has an educator retention problem (NAEYC, 2021). While the field's administrator retention crisis is less publicized, it is arguably no less important. Administrators are the gatekeepers to program quality and the linchpin for an array of program functions that impact staff satisfaction and…

This study addresses the problem that senior academic administrators cannot perform the essential functions of their leadership positions in higher education. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore the perceptions of senior academic administrators at a private university in northern Illinois regarding the necessary…

PK-12 district-level administrators have been asked to navigate an increasingly complex policy landscape concerning gender-diversity reforms. We apply sensemaking theory to examine administrators' understanding of legal and policy protections for trans and gender diverse (TGD) students. Using 36 interviews with administrators and policy…

This study is a hermeneutic investigation into the phenomenon of organizational role conflict as experienced by five long-term department chairpersons, four long-term department heads, and two former long-term department chairpersons working at universities and colleges located in Indiana, Illinois, and Massachusetts. Organizational role conflict…

This study documents voices of the most experienced active Illinois community college chief academic officers (CAOs). Adaptive leadership theory is used to frame the effort of CAOs to infuse accountability into the core community college open access mission. The analysis of conversations with these CAOs reveals a focus on accountability that…

When COVID-19 changed schooling in Illinois from face-to-face teaching and learning to remote teaching and learning, the transformation was sudden and swift. While there may have been premonitions and feelings of urgency about the effects of the novel coronavirus, there was little time to plan for the change that would take place and little…

The recollections of sixteen African American administrators who were some of the first hired in de/segregated school districts in the North are analyzed in order to understand their work lives and experiences in district processes. Findings are analyzed through the lens of workforce diversity perspectives. Five themes emerged from the data…

The current study explores how principals (n = 568) experience a new teacher evaluation model under Race to the Top. Findings suggest that principals felt the least confident in their ability to identify teacher behaviors associated with student achievement gains and placed the least value on student achievement data. Evaluation experience…

Twenty-first century principals have multiple roles as leaders of public K-12 schools. Since school reform of the 1980s, principals are expected to be school managers and instructional leaders along with understanding and knowing policies, rules, and practices of the organization. Research has shown that effective leadership is necessary to lead…

Reports in the media on American public schools are pretty dismal. Accountability measures enacted with the passing of the No Child Left Behind Law of 2002 include federal and state sanctions for school districts not making adequate yearly progress on state assessments. Typically these results are published locally, which only increases the…

This qualitative inquiry investigated the perceptions of the roles of school board presidents and superintendents with regard to governance and administration in select Chicago, Illinois, Suburban School Districts. The selection criteria were school board presidents and school superintendents who hold these positions in several Chicago, Illinois,…

The purpose of this study was to examine female principals that once taught within the school that they now lead. This study explored the transition from colleague to superior and discussed Sergiovanni's "Sources of Authority" (1992) that are employed by female administrators to balance social relationships while maintaining high levels…