Portraits of the high school principal: Perspectives on instructional leadership.

摘要

Education reform has increased accountability measures for principals to ensure all students are achieving. Although student achievement should be the primary focus of a principal, the various responsibilities of the principalship can overshadow instruction. Due to the large number of students, multitude of course offerings, extra-curricular activities, discipline, and operational issues, many high school principals are inundated with responsibilities and challenges that may cause less time to be allocated to curriculum and instruction. These multiple responsibilities can also lead to principal burnout and high turnover rates. To understand how high school principals managed their time to ensure curriculum and instruction was a priority, a qualitative study was conducted. The researcher collected and analyzed data from semi-structured interviews, observations, and documents. The portraiture methodology was then employed to create portraits that would provide a realistic perspective of the high school principal's experience. The instructional principals in this study each had a co-principal to manage the principalship. This structure should have guaranteed curriculum and instruction would be a priority. However, there were still challenges that would disrupt the focus from instruction. Even with the division of responsibilities, principals felt ownership for anything that transpired on the campus. In spite of the demanding time requirements of the high school principalship, the leaders in this study were very dedicated to the role and student achievement.