New Principals in "Insufficient" Schools: Being a Leader Within a Pandemic Context

• In Event: Leadership During Challenging Times

Abstract

The study examined how eight principals who had recently taken up their position at schools classed as “insufficient” by the Chilean educational system organized their leadership efforts in a context marked by the current pandemic. Special attention was paid to the concepts of readiness and resistance to change to explore the responses of educational communities to the strategies that the principals implemented during their first year.
The study revealed an association between pedagogically-focused strategies and better readiness for change in part of the school community. In contrast, principals who prioritized their school's response to the pandemic encountered less readiness for change and more resistance to it, which in some cases resulted from organizational problems “inherited” by the new principal.

Authors

• Luis Felipe de la Vega, Universidad de Chile

• Luis Ahumada, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso