Download Free The Principals Leadership Style And The Schools Culture In Selected St Paul Public Elementary Schools Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online The Principals Leadership Style And The Schools Culture In Selected St Paul Public Elementary Schools and write the review.

"This dissertation is a study of how two elementary principals work within their school, assess the culture, and implement change. It is situated within the body of current research on school culture and change, but makes a unique contribution because it gives first hand accounts of leaders at the elementary level as they implement change in particular settings. The experiences of the subjects in this dissertation will assist other administrators as they take on the challenge of school leadership. This study contributes to those seeking to create positive change in settings in which they are in charge by giving concrete examples of principal leaders working within the culture and setting of their respective schools. My research interest involves how principals understand and work within the school culture. An additional area of interest is the process an effective leader uses as he or she enters a situation, assesses the positive and negative qualities of the setting, and goes about making changes based on his or her leadership behaviors. An elementary school principal in a newly assigned school or an administrator in a long held position must assess the culture of the school, work within and understand the culture, and make appropriate changes related to his or her leadership attributes and vision for the school. Based on an extensive review of literature and the focus on school culture and change, there are several research questions that this study addresses. The central research questions are: How do principals assess the culture of their school? How do principals plan and implement change? What leadership thoughts and practices aid in leading change conducive to improving teaching and learning? And what forms of community currently exist and are evolving? The study informs school administrators that value the significance of culture in their school and strive to build a sense of community among their students and staff. Although the subjects and focus of the dissertation are practicing in elementary schools, the concepts of school culture, the change process, and community addressed in the research also apply to administrators at the secondary level. As the nature of school leadership is people centered, concepts in the findings of this study transcend prescribed grade levels and are applicable to many leadership situations."--Abstract from author supplied metadata.
Author's abstract: While it may seem that in today's society, the leaders of the school should primarily concentrate on curriculum, assessment, and accountability, there is one significant missing piece that is just as important: school culture. Recent educational reform efforts have focused on creating effective school cultures as a means of improving student achievement. Because the role of the principal is viewed as being essential to the successful implementation of these efforts, the demands on school leaders have continuously increased, which have created a multitude of challenges for school leaders across the nation. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the leadership style of principals and school culture as perceived by faculty. A total of 250 teachers from 50 elementary, middle, and high schools located in five school districts in the state of Georgia were selected to participate in this study. Data for this quantitative study were collected using the School Culture Survey, which assessed the following six factors of school culture: collaborative leadership, teacher collaboration, unity of purpose, professional development, collegial support, and learning partnership. In addition, the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire Form 5X was used to classify the leadership styles of principals as transformational, transactional, or laissez-faire. The means, standard deviations, and Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were used to examine the relationship between the variables. The results of this study indicated that there was a statistically significant relationship between most of the factors of the leadership styles of principals and the factors of school culture. More specifically, the findings indicated that a positive relationship existed between all of the factors of transformational leadership and all of the factors of school culture. In addition, one factor of transactional leadership, contingent reward, was positively correlated with school culture. On the contrary, a negative relationship existed between all of the factors of laissez-faire leadership and all of the factors of school culture.
This project examined an elementary public school principal with regard to their leadership style and how it influences classroom culture or climate. A 45-questionnaire was administered to one principal in a public school setting and a classroom survey instrument was administered to nine teachers in his building. Significant findings based on literature in this project indicated a transformational leader was more inclined to support teachers and utilize different instructional modalities than a principal whose leadership style is transactional. The teacher survey collected data from teachers' perception about their administrator across different instructional domains. The researcher utilized statistical means to determine whether there was a difference in the mean scores of teachers who perceived their principal's leadership style as transformational as compared to those teachers who perceived their principal leadership style as transactional.