Dr. Julie A Gray

In this paper, the authors describe one leadership preparation program's approach to enhancing ethics and ethical decision-making by embedding high-impact practices and experiential learning opportunities for leadership candidates. The conceptual framework for this research was based on Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) and Kuh's High-Impact Practices (HIPs) to connect theory and practice through practical feedback and leadership coaching. Using experiential virtual simulation experiences provided opportunities for Educational Leadership candidates to apply instructional and ethical leadership practices to authentic, problem-based situations in an innovative online educational leadership program. This approach allowed faculty to offer specific growth areas to strengthen and improve aspiring school leaders' ethical decision-making practices. Furthermore, the paper discusses how virtual simulation enhanced candidates' transformation learning process and bridge theory to practice in a virtual reality environment.

The Central Gulf Coast Children's Defense Fund summer program has provided a solution to the issues related to learning loss and poverty over the last three years. Elementary students were strategically selected from low-income, at-risk, and minority communities to participate in the Freedom Schools program. This study describes the benefits to the students, their families, and the community, as well as the Servant Leader Interns who provided the culturally relevant curriculum. The history, structure, and essential components of Freedom Schools are described for the national model and Central Gulf Coast's approach. The benefits of the program are also shared, as well as the practical implications for the participants in this study.

Schools are facing many issues as a result of the recent pandemic, as well as societal pressures for all students to achieve. There have been unprecedented changes in the educational landscape with a growing concern for students' success and learning loss. Instructional leaders are expected to make innovative changes to meet the instructional needs of all students in K-12 public schools, whether brick-and-mortar or virtual platform. Principals are called to lead their schools and organize the initiatives needed to improve the constantly shifting and complex school environment. The authors will describe the effective efforts of two school leaders who supported innovative changes that resulted in two turnaround schools and addressed student learning loss. As instructional leaders and practitioners in the field, it is essential to support and sustain initiatives that promote student achievement and lessen learning loss.

The Student Learning and Satisfaction in Online Learning Environments (SLS-OLE) is an easy to administer 19-item, self-report measure of student learning and satisfaction in online learning environments. Past studies have reported a measure of four domains of perceived learning and satisfaction associated with their experiences with online learning in higher education. The purpose of this paper was to examine the factor structure of the SLS-OLE with a large sample of graduate students at one university located in the southeastern United States. To assess the fit of the data to the four-factor structure, a confirmatory factor analysis was employed on data collected from 337 participants pursuing an online graduate degree in educational leadership. Results indicate the model adequately fits the data and findings signify that instructor presence is the best predictor of both student satisfaction and perceived learning.

This article details the efforts of one program's collaborative efforts toward continuous improvement and strengthening partnerships with local school districts using Leadership-Focused Coaching, a research-based model for principal preparation programs. Practical experiences and lessons learned from the ongoing online program improvement and redesign initiative are shared. In advance of two accreditation visits, data and feedback were gathered from partner districts, recent graduates, current students, and employers, which helped to identify ways in which the program could better prepare instructional leaders. This article describes the efforts, successes, setbacks, and future plans of a group of professors working to improve a program while preparing for accreditation visits and strengthening district partnerships.

Organizational properties of schools can explain why some schools are successful and others are not. We explored the role of enabling school structures and academic optimism, comprised of teacher trust in clients, collective efficacy, and academic emphasis, in the development of professional learning communities (PLCs). Both of our hypotheses were confirmed via correlational analysis and structure equation modeling about the relationships of enabling school structures and academic optimism in the development of PLCs, our outcome variable. These
empirical findings validate the importance of enabling school structures as an antecedent to the development of PLCs and contribute to organizational theory about school structure and health. School districts should consider the role of academic optimism and enabling school structures in relationship to developing PLCs.

This conceptual article proposes a research-based model for leadership preparation programs to more effectively prepare, support, and sustain new school leaders in the field and profession. This study offers a new construct, which combines the concepts of early field experiences, experiential learning, leadership-focused coaching, and mentoring support, with university faculty and school district leaders and mentors working collaboratively to support novice leaders. University faculty would provide leadership-focused coaching while prospective leaders are completing coursework and later once they are placed in school leadership positions. Further, school districts would provide mentoring support by experienced instructional leaders.

Educational leadership professors prepare aspiring leaders by providing uplifting opportunities to connect theory and practice. This paper proposes a research-based model called leadership-focused coaching, an approach to support graduate students in developing and honing
instructional leadership skills and responsibilities (Gray, 2016). This paper addresses the shift in principal preparation programs from theory-to-practice to a knowledge-to-practice approach over the last 20 years (Browne-Ferrigno, 2007; Browne-Ferrigno & Muth, 2004; Cunningham, 2007; Cunningham & Sherman, 2008; Daresh, 2004). While there are numerous models for coaching teachers, we offer this model for aspiring and new instructional leaders of schools.

This study investigated the role of enabling school structures (ESS), collegial trust (CT), academic emphasis (AE), and collective efficacy (CE) in the development of professional learning communities (PLCs) in 67 schools in large southeastern school district. ESS represented the formal aspects of the school while the informal were characterized by CT, AE, and CE based upon the perceptions of teachers. As hypothesized, all of the variables shared a significant correlation with each other and collectively explained approximately 79% of the variance in PLCs development. Only ESS had a significant effect on PLCs development, which partially supported the second hypothesis.

This study tested the role of enabling school structures, collegial trust and academic emphasis in the development of professional learning communities (PLCs) in a low-income school district. The empirical study was based upon the perceptions of teachers and principals as provided by survey responses (N = 67 schools). While enabling school structures, collegial trust and academic emphasis simultaneously contributed to the explanation of PLCs, only structure and trust had a unique effect on PLCs with structure having the larger contribution.