Twenty-third International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, and Change in Organizations

Abstract

This investigation is designed to determine whether school leader demonstrate personal capacities and garner organizational resources to optimize the success of every student, as specified by the National Educational Leadership Program standards. This takes shape along three skill dimensions: a. Leaders can use data to evaluate, design, cultivate, and advocate for a supportive and inclusive school culture, b. They are able to evaluate, and advocate for equitable access to educational resources, technologies, and opportunities that support the educational success and well-being of each student, and, c. They are competent at monitoring, cultivating, and advocating for equitable, inclusive, and culturally responsive instruction and behavior support practices among teachers and staff. The prompts given to each respondent are: 1. To what degree do you acknowledge mastery over each of the three skill dimensions? 2. Select any two of these skills that you have mastered, and describe what specific things you have done to apply each skill. 3. Illustrate how successful you were in creating a supportive school culture for all students when you applied these skills. Our approach is to survey some 70 recent graduates of an educational leadership preparation program to determine the degree to which they mastered and applied these skills in order to foster a supportive, equitable, responsive, and inclusive school culture. In so doing we are rethinking how leadership preparation programs can rebuild organizational resilience in our schools, needed now more than ever given the challenges of COVID-19.