The role of leadership capacity in sustaining the school improvement initiative of schoolwide positive behavior supports

The purpose for this study was to examine what occurred within schools successfully implementing and sustaining school change through the examination of characteristics of leadership capacity. Leadership capacity was identified as broad-based, skillful participation that promoted the advancement of the capabilities of many organizational members to lead. Quantitative analysis used to compare responses of teachers in schools identified as successfully sustaining school improvement with responses of teachers in schools identified as not yet successfully sustaining improvement resulted in the finding that there was a significant difference between the two school groups in all of the characteristics of leadership capacity. The effective size for each of the leadership capacity characteristics was positive and each characteristic was statistically significant for schools successfully sustaining school improvement. Principals of schools successful in sustaining school improvement demonstrated behaviors that promoted, supported, and encouraged the building of leadership capacity for lasting school improvement. Successful school leadership builds trust, develops focus for the school, and convenes dialogue about teaching and learning. Implications for successful school leadership for sustaining school improvement involve taking additional care to enable broad teacher involvement. This is accomplished in creating meaning and committing to the values that meaning represents for the school, in sharing knowledge through questioning and inquiry, by participating fully in decision-making based on evidence, and reflecting on how practice impacts student learning. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES viii Chapter