Thesis advisor: Martin Scanlan / This qualitative case study explored the role central office leaders played in recruiting, developing and retaining principal human capital in Lawrence Public Schools. One of the key strategies of central office transformation is the creation of assistance relationships with principals, which serves as the conceptual framework for this study. Data was gathered from interviews with central office leaders and principals as well as a document review. The results of the study found that central office leaders targeted principals with certain characteristics and recruited candidates from within and outside of the district. Central office leaders provided in-district professional development and engaged external organizations in the process. Work environment and a focus on cultivating local talent contributed to principal retention. Findings further indicated that the assistance relationships developed between central office leaders and principals contributed to principal development and retention through their impact on the work environment. Recommendations include continual examination of work environment and development of assistance relationships for their contribution to principal human capital. Future researchers may continue to contribute to the growing body of literature by examining these findings and offering a longitudinal view of this practice. This strand’s findings may provide insights into practices to recruit, develop and retain principals in low-performing districts. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Hillsborough County Public Schools embarked on an ambitious goal to improve the highest-need schools by restructuring how the district supports schools and their leaders in July 2018. As part of this effort, the superintendent reduced the span of control and assigned principal coaches to support principals in a more intentional way. The purpose of this study was to explore how a principal coach engages a principal in examining inequities in disciplinary practices and how the principal coach provides the supports to prompt and sustain the principal’s efforts to reduce the disproportionate number of students of color being suspended from school. Zero tolerance policies were enacted to protect students from violence and ensure schools remain safe. Unfortunately, those same policies resulted in a disparate impact that affected students of color more than any other subgroup. The unintended consequences of such actions have led to students of color being suspended at an alarming rate for minor violations of rules, affecting their regular access to a high-quality education and resulting in low proficiency rates in reading and math, high drop-out rates and low graduation rates. While extensive research exists on how this culture can be improved, there is no evidence of a school improving in the absence of talented leadership. Until a leader understands and believes that something should change in their school, no research can support them. This study used an autoethnographic approach, telling the story of the lived experiences of a principal coach during his first ‘rookie’ semester. Data for the study were coaching logs, call logs and a reflective journal. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings of the study concluded that the principal coach’s use of an inquiry cycle significantly assisted the principal in examining inequities by providing an avenue to thoroughly examine data, determine a clear priority and develop a theory of action to guide the work of the principal for the upcoming school year. To prompt and sustain the principal’s effort, the principal coach supports centered on various types of coaching visits from on-going data chats, to learning walks, to one-on-one coaching and occasional, random phone call coaching sessions. This study has implications for school districts exploring how to support principals and, more specifically, how to support principals who are tackling inequities in their schools. For school districts, it confirms the importance of a reduced span of control for district administrators assigned to coach and support a portfolio of schools. This study emphasizes the importance of job-embedded professional development for principals.

Although many school districts provide inservice professional development to build the capacities of novice principals, some of these supports are proving inadequate in recruiting or retaining qualified leaders. Research on capacity development for novice principals is scarce, yields mixed results, and employs methodology which has invited participant response bias. Reflecting the school level, gender, and Title I experience of novice principals within a large school district in the mid-Western United States, a sample of 24 novice principals respond to semi-structured interview questions. Iterations of transcription coding, member-checking, and analysis yield findings that help school districts better understand the capacity development process of novice principals studied. Novice principals in this study identify facing managerial problems more than instructional or student-related demands. While addressing various demands they face, novice principals draw less on their knowledge or skillsets, but rely much more on their dispositional capacities. In citing sources that developed their capacities to meet these various professional demands, principals ascribe professional sources only slightly more than personal sources in having built their capacities. Further inspection reveals that the sources of capacity development are not as influential as the types of capacity-building through which administrators learn: regardless if the capacity source came from their personal lives or professional careers, principals ascribe their capacities being built primarily from experiential learning, and the constructed learning from passively observing competent models. This preference of certain types of capacity development greatly influence how new principals learn, and has greater effect over capacity development than the source of that capacity, or where the capacity gained that capacity. This held true even when considering all types of demands to which administrators apply these capacities. A principals job requires skillsets beyond instructional leadership alone. This is especially true as districts embrace an emerging conceptualization of school leadership that posits a principals influence on student learning is greatest when applied through intentional, learning-driven organizational management. In focusing solely on principal skillset and knowledge development during trainings, districts neglect the capacity domain that principals utilize most often in addressing demands, which is also the capacity domain through which their knowledge and skills are operationalized: their dispositions. Knowing that principals ascribe certain types of capacity building as the key factor in their development rather than the sources of their capacities, school districts can better embrace, systematize, and leverage these types of capacity development. Such adjustments will more directly and effectively target the capacity development of novice principals, enabling them to address the professional demands they face.