The devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on schools world-wide required school leaders to provide effective, decisive leadership for their students, staff, and communities. The purpose of this interpretive qualitative study was to discover the systems and processes that framed leaders' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study focuses on the superintendent's role on student achievement, ensuring access to technology, the financial wellbeing of operations, as well as maintaining relationships and displaying a human connection to all stakeholders. An interpretive qualitative study approach was used to answer this question: How did school superintendents respond to the crisis presented by the COVID-19 pandemic? The framework for assessing leadership performance by Boin et al. (2013) serves as the conceptual framework for this study. With this paper, I explored the nature of a prolonged crisis, and then considered the response of leadership to successfully deal with and learn from it to prepare for other crises they inevitably will encounter. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]