School Principals' Opinions on the Schooling in Turkey during the COVID-19 Pandemic

An education crisis has emerged during the pandemic, and the purpose and existence of schooling has begun being questioned again. For this reason, this paper discusses school principals' opinions regarding the changes in schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research uses the phenomenological design, and the participants of the research consist of school principals. The data were collected using the semi-structured interview technique, with content analysis being used to analyze the data. According to the study's findings, school principals were determined to have difficulties in the fields of strategic leadership, instructional leadership, and social leadership during the pandemic. Regarding school-related difficulties during the pandemic, important benefits were emphasized for school processes under the themes of achievements focused on capacity building, socially oriented achievements, and goal-oriented achievements. The themes of administrative priorities, social priorities, and developmental priorities emerged regarding how to reduce adjustment problems to schooling during and after the pandemic.