萝莉网

鈥淚t is 鈥�  what great leaders do best. Advocate!鈥� says Editor Ken Mitchell in the editorial for the spring issue of the 萝莉网Journal of Scholarship and Practice. He continues, 鈥淎dvocacy is an opportunity for today鈥檚 school leaders to influence for necessary change but also use their voices to preserve that which benefits our students and society.鈥�

The theme for this issue is based around leadership, culture and continuous improvement as the articles underscore the importance of grounding educational practices in research to ensure they are effective and sustainable. Specifically, the articles address such topics and themes as the synergy between community involvement, effective leadership practices, strategic decision-making, and change management.

By engaging the community and fostering culturally responsive leadership, schools can create supportive environments that enhance educational outcomes. Additionally, informed decision-making and structured change management approaches are essential for sustaining improvements and adapting to various influences and power dynamics within the school system.

Cardona, Miller, Corrales, and Peters present research that suggests, 鈥淪uperintendents need to be aware that principals who carry on culturally responsive leadership practices will create high teacher effectiveness, and sustainable school success. When principals develop their ability to guide a campus through a common goal, they can create high expectations monitored around goal attainment for the benefit of students and teachers. It is imperative that superintendents understand the magnitude of the relationship between school principal cultural proficiency and transformational leadership for the success of their school communities.鈥�

Researchers Axelbank and Howick write, 鈥淚t has become a bedrock principle in school administration that community engagement is desirable and even essential in improving our schools.  In the current era of conflict over school policies and the resulting contentious school board meetings, community engagement has become both more critical and more difficult to accomplish effectively.鈥� 

Flumerfelt and Ellis warn that 鈥淲hile the need to improve school outcomes is widely recognized and practiced for a variety of reasons (i.e, equity, the moral imperative of education, etc.), the journey into the creation and sustaining of change is something that schools and all organizations struggle with.鈥� 

Finally, Parker, Brown, and Frazer contend, 鈥淒ecision making at the school district level is subject to both external and internal influences and that the school district as an institution remains the main arena where decisions are made about a variety of features鈥攆rom local educational politics and governance to enrollment and leadership. Effectively run school districts can be sites of powerful instructional change.鈥�