Each year, as more school principals retire, other leaders take their place--many of them becoming principals for the first time. While this change in leadership can be disconcerting to the students, parents, teachers, and other staff members, it is most taxing for the new principal, who is immediately inundated with the various demands on his or her time. In order for the new principal to navigate these challenges effectively, it is important that he or she is ready and equipped for this transition and prepared to participate successfully in the day-to-day interactions with others. Using ethnographic qualitative methodology, this study sought to examine the first-year principal's interactions with parents and staff members. Telling the stories of two first-year principals, the study explored the issues and challenges faced by these principals as they interacted with the various institutional stakeholders. In its treatment of interpersonal interactions, the study assembled a broad archive, including oral accounts, interviews, personal journals, calendars, and emails. The data were then examined through Bolman and Deal's (2008) "frame" theory, which was offered as a comprehensive approach for looking at organizations from more than one theoretical perspective. Viewing the data through the structural, human, political, and symbolic frames provides a more in-depth examination of the principals' various interactions with parents and staff members during their first year as principal. Dissecting a first-year principal's interactions in the setting of a school, this research extends Bolman and Deal's four-frame theory (2008) by analyzing three types of principal/stakeholder interactions through each of the four frames. A problem-solving interactions protocol and a set of guiding questions are offered to assist new leaders as they prepare for various interactions of each type. / text

Thesis advisor: Martin Scanlan / Problem and Purpose: Without time for preparation, COVID-19 caused a wave of operational and structural changes that encumbered much of the time and energy educational leaders previously spent on moving the district forward. The ripple effect of the pandemic exposed new challenges in teaching and learning, requiring superintendents and principals to establish efficient and effective responsive systems to support the needs of students. Even so, amid crisis principals were given new managerial tasks. This led to tension as principals’ identities as instructional leaders were threatened by increased workloads and changed responsibilities. To better understand this tension, the purpose of this study is to examine how a superintendent strives to increase the organizational commitment of their principals regarding instructional leadership. Methods: This bounded single-site design examined the interactions between superintendent and principals in one urban district of medium size in Massachusetts where at least 50% of students are high needs. Learning capabilities were used as a conceptual framework to analyze how the superintendent and principals interacted within a Community of Practice. Implications: This study found that strengthening principals’ organizational commitment during this time of crisis was the result of superintendent interactions in three areas: supervisor support, perceived autonomy, and alignment of personal and district goals. Principals’ investment increased in a culture where connection, candor, and capacity-building existed. Additionally, organizational commitment increased when there was greater alignment between principals’ personal and district goals and the district allowed for more autonomy to achieve goals. Under these conditions principals felt empowered to take on complex challenges and develop innovative solutions. These findings can assist superintendents in cultivating principal investment that will be integral during post-pandemic recovery and reconstruction. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

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