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School improvement plans (SIPs) are increasingly used to structure the process of setting and monitoring goals. As SIPs are designed to identify and address local problems of practice, there is the possibility that these tools help school leaders initiate and carry out ambitious school improvement. Yet, practical challenges abound in the development and initiation of a SIP. This teaching case describes the process by which one school leader developed the SIP in a turnaround school, how the plan was initially received, and the consequences when she unilaterally initiated change. The potential benefits of school improvement planning, such as goal-setting and progress monitoring, are contrasted with practical constraints associated with plan development.

Adolescents present a unique collection of characteristics and challenges which middle school interdisciplinary teams were designed to address. This article describes a research study which explored parental involvement strategies employed by interdisciplinary teaching teams from three very different middle schools: an affluent suburban school, a mid-level rural school, and a high-poverty urban school. A multiple-case study approach was used, and interdisciplinary teams at each middle school were interviewed, responded to journal questions, and were observed at parent nights and related events. Parents were also included as participants through focus groups, one-on-one interviews, and written questionnaires. The researcher identified themes within each setting, as well as four cross-case themes. All of the interdisciplinary teams in this research study utilized strategies grounded in a belief regarding the essential role parental involvement plays, maintained an open and approachable attitude toward parents, served as a resource to parents, and approached problem-solving opportunities as a team. The findings of this study serve as a bridge between what is known about adolescent development, best middle school interdisciplinary teaming models, and the essential nature of parental involvement in education.

This paper details a non-tenured faculty peer mentoring program piloted at Uuuuu University. The Thinking, Writing, Inquiring and Learning (T.W.I.L.) pilot was modeled after a similar peer mentoring program, Support Network for Assistant/Associate Professors (S.N.A.P.), at the University of Xyyyy. The faculty development program offered structured support for non-tenured junior faculty to become more comfortable and prolific in research and scholarly writing. This paper details the process, the product, and advice garnered from the T.W.I.L. pilot.

Aspiring school leaders do not emerge from their principal preparation programs fully ready for the challenges that await them as new administrators. They will need mentoring. A professor in an educational leadership course developed content which taught students the knowledge, skills and dispositions of protégéship. The Framework for Protégéship is included and described. The professor then required students to approach someone to formally mentor them. This article sheds light on the fears that the protégés experienced as they approached a mentor and includes excerpts from their reflective journals, where they report the benefits they received for having entered into mentoring relationships.

Viewing teachers as leaders requires a paradigm shift about the concept of leadership in a school system. The Teachers as Leaders program of the Mountain Brook, Alabama Schools represents that shift and is empowering teachers to utilize their leadership skills and contribute to the system as it fulfills its mission to offer education to its students that is effective, challenging, and engaging. The Mountain Brook Schools established the Teachers as Leaders program in order to develop a culture of continuity in leadership as many administrator retirements were predicted for the near future. The program, however, was not designed as a "Teachers as Future Administrators" program. Rather, it was an intentional plan to prepare teachers for continued leadership, whether that is demonstrated in their classrooms or in administrative roles. The school system partnered with private consultants, a restaurant business, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham to deliver the Teachers as Leaders program. This article, a report from the field, allows the reader a glimpse of the culture of excellence in the Mountain Brook Schools through the description of the Teachers as Leaders program and reflections of several participants.

This article reports findings from a study investigating the capacity of assistant principals to be instructional leaders. Analyses of survey responses yielded four interesting findings: (a) years of experience as a teacher and age had no significance on assistant principals' perceived readiness as an instructional leader; (b) those completing redesigned programs focused on instructional leadership reported feeling less prepared that those completing programs before the mandated redesign (c) although instructional leadership was a work responsibility, 63% did not know what portion of their performance evaluation assessed that performance; and (d) mentoring for instructional leadership most often occurred through informal meetings with their principal.

Purpose: The public expects school leaders to be moral exemplars, yet prior research indicates that teachers and, more recently, school principals may score lower than other career groups on a widely used measure of moral reasoning, the Defining Issues Test. Moreover, little empirical research has been conducted on educators during leadership preparation in graduate school. The purpose of this research was to create a baseline profile for moral reasoning in educational leadership/administration graduate students in one Southern state and to compare their scores with a composite national average for graduate students across disciplines to see if educational interventions are needed. Research Design: In the summer of 2012, the updated Defining Issues Test-2 was offered via e-mail as an online questionnaire to 539 master's, educational specialist, and doctoral students in the five advanced-track schools in the study state. The questionnaire also gathered data on the students' demographics and the virtual test-taking environment. Findings: Complete data for 113 respondents (a 21% response rate) show that the educational leadership/administration graduate students prefer a maintaining norms schema when solving moral problems. In fact, participants scored significantly lower (M = 30) on postconventional (advanced) moral thinking than the national norm for graduate students across disciplines (M = 41) and a historical average for graduate students (M = 53) on the Defining Issues Test. Conclusions: Researchers urge evidenced-based educational interventions for this group--specifically, Rest's four-component model, which addresses all four moral psychological processes: sensitivity, judgment, motivation, and character. They also recommend beginning ethics instruction with professional identity development. Classification: This is an empirical study.

For this quantitative study, we used a multiple logistic regression technique to investigate the relationship between the number of meetings with an academic advisor and retention of first-generation students, as represented by enrollment status and academic standing at a large, public research institution in the Southeast. Consistent with previous studies and student retention literature, the number of advisor meetings (independent variable) was a significant predictor of student retention. Findings from this study suggest that for every meeting with an academic advisor, the odds that a student will be retained increase by 13%.

This article describes an educational leadership course in which students perform action research. The assignment, along with its structure, restraints, directions, and outcomes is described. Student topics are presented in detail, along with the data source used for each project. The authors argue for the utility of action research on school sites, as well as its benefits in this university setting. The course, Field Project in Educational Leadership, is described in such depth that colleagues across the country are invited to create courses based on this model. Throughout this article, the action research assignment is evaluated, both its strengths and complications, in the context of literature on organizational change, as well as literature on general research and on action research specifically.

Aspiring school leaders rarely emerge from their principal preparation programs fully ready for the challenges that await them as new administrators, with much evidence revealing the need for continued mentoring and professional development. The author developed graduate course content that taught students the knowledge, skills and dispositions of protegeship in a principal preparation program, encouraging them to develop a mentoring mindset. A framework for protegeship, derived from several sources in the mentoring literature, is described. The author required students to approach individuals to formally mentor them. Student responses to this assignment indicated their acknowledgement of mentoring needs, awareness of the need for preparation and recognition of the benefits of seeking a mentor. This research contributes to the thin region of literature on protege preparation for mentoring. The protegeship framework and protege preparation activities can be adapted for mentoring programs in the United States or internationally. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper presents the findings of a mixed methods study regarding students' perceptions of mentoring in a cooperative education (co-op) program. Specifically, content analysis of student interviews suggested a lack of understanding of the mentoring process as characterized by unexamined assumptions and inadequate preparation for the co-op experience. It was noted that the STEM pipeline continues to shrink through decreasing student enrollment and increasing rates of retirement in industry. Cooperative education and internship programs can provide institutions and employers with a unique opportunity to recruit and retain students for a highly skilled and technically proficient workforce. This paper identifies key skill sets, knowledge and dispositions that undergraduate students in the STEM fields need to become successful proteges within a cooperative education or internship placement.

When mentors and mentees enter a mentoring relationship, they bring their assumptions with them. An assumption is a belief one possesses that is thought to be true and from which a conclusion can be drawn. It can also be a belief that someone should behave in a particular way. Often unspoken, these assumptions are powerful predictors of success or subtle forces contributing to failure in the mentoring process. Therefore, it is important to examine the role of assumptions in adult learning relationships. Assumptions held by a mentor and mentee are influenced by many factors. Prior life experiences, fears, cultural interpretations, myths, and core values are wrapped up in the personal packages adults bring into the mentoring relationship. In this article, the author explores each of these factors.

School superintendents meet situations that range from those that require quick thinking to those that need thoughtful reflection and long-range planning. But almost every challenge requires some degree of political thinking and behavior. The authors have witnessed many school leaders get into sticky predicaments as a result of trying to maneuver through the politics surrounding the business of education. In this article, the authors propose five strategies for dealing with the politics school administrators encounter. Their advice is to "A"nticipate, "F"orm Alliances, "L"isten, "A"ctivate Networks, and "C"ommunicate. If school administrators practice these behaviors, they can be proactive and better prepared to handle political issues. (Contains 1 figure.)

Women often perceive a disadvantage over similarly qualified males in professional advancement because they are not part of the "old boys' network." Based upon the assumption that women and minorities struggle to gain access into educational administration positions due to lack of professional networks and mentors, this phenomenological qualitative study sought to understand, from the protege perspective, how women develop the capacity to enter into mentoring relationships. Subjects in the study were 14 women participants in a mentoring conference sponsored by a statewide women's administrative organization. Conclusions from the study address ambivalence experienced by proteges in seeking out a mentor as well as implications for women's professional organizations seeking to develop strong mentoring cultures.

In this article, we outline the challenges faced by Second Chair Leaders (or vice-principals) of ethnoculturally diverse schools in New Brunswick, Canada, where immigration is skyrocketing. First, we define ethnoculturally diverse as community and school populations that encompass demographic representation of people from multiple cultures, languages, religions and racial backgrounds (Maston 2018). Second, those challenges were the complexities of the job role, meeting the academic needs of students, community and relationship building, and school system barriers. We also learned from our participants about the strategies they employed to address some of these challenges, which were: providing professional development and driving purpose with personal and professional passion. Lastly, we discovered that Second Chair Leaders are asking for mentoring for increasing their cultural knowledge, uncovering practical strategies for helping newcomer students/families and to receive moral support for the hard 'heart work' that leading an ethnoculturally diverse school entails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Female administrators in comprehensive research universities were surveyed to gain their perceptions on their mentoring experiences. The females affirmed they had informal mentors in roles of sponsor, counselor, coach, and teacher, and they are also mentoring others. The findings both confirmed and contradicted former studies on females in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Support is needed for new faculty members to achieve success in the early stages of the higher education career. Women, in particular, are often left to fend for themselves when entering the academy. This sonata-form case study glimpse into a mentoring relationship will focus on the experience of a new female faculty member as she was mentored and "mother-henned" by a senior member in her department. The mentor provided the framework for open sharing about tenure and promotion expectations, the inside politics of the department, research protocols at the university, and many other supports that led to her early success in academia. A point of interest is the fact that this was a cross-race mentoring relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]