K–12 District-Level Leadership and Employee Satisfaction in a Time of Change

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Leadership for Better Schools, Equity, and Justice (Table 10)

Abstract

It is essential that K-12 district leaders engage in intentional and powerful capacity building to ensure student equity. Increasing disparities in income and achievement across student populations and growing outcry for educational equity requires district leaders take bold and intentional action in their leadership. This basic qualitative study sought to understand district office employee satisfaction and perceptions of district leaders within the context of organizational change. Past research has neglected district office staff, organizational capacity-building, and the interrelated role they both play in successfully implementing district-wide reform.
Results aligned with existing research on organizational change. Participants wanted leaders to encourage or enable employees to take leadership, foster a culture of learning, and utilize principles of adaptive leadership like collaborative decision-making.

Author

• Dana Minney, Austin Independent School District