The Impact of District Conditions on Principals' Experientially Acquired Professional Learning

The evolving nature of school leadership places some responsibility on school boards to ensure that principals learn the new dimensions of the role. This study addresses the question: How is the learning of school leaders influenced by organizational conditions in their districts. Three research questions were posed: (1)~What processes do school leaders use for their professional learning? (2)~What school district conditions foster or inhibit school leaders' learning processes? (3)~How should school districts be designed to create the conditions which help school leaders learn effective leadership practices? The foundations of an understanding of learning among school principals is drawn from the literature on principalship preparation, learning from experience, adult learning and organizational learning. The latter provides a set of conditions, namely: culture, strategy, environment, vision, leadership, and policy and resources, which provide a framework for assessing system effects on principals' learning. Primary data sources for this qualitative study were interviews with twenty principals, (divided evenly by gender), chosen from three school systems in south-central Ontario. The systems are large, have access to research centres and professional development schools, and have demonstrated commitment to site-based management. Interview questions were focused on the processes by which principals learned to meet challenges or solve non-routine problems in their schools. Interview data were corroborated and supplemented by interviews with central office staff and data from school board documents. Interview texts were analysed for links principals made between district conditions and their learning. Chapter four describes principals' learning from board-situated and community-situated sources. Board-situated sources accounted for 55\% of all learning processes with the more frequently referenced being various forms of assistance and support from central office staff, followed closely by board-sponsored inservice education. Community-situated sources accounted for 14.9\% of all references, with `contact with parents' being the most likely source. Chapter five describes learning processes originating in the school, through professional associations and with the individual principal. At school principals learned most frequently from experiences where they engaged with their staffs in planning for improvements. The contribution of professional associations to their learning was mainly in the form of regular meetings and professional development conferences. The data reveal that principals attribute only a small portion of their learning to activities that are personally initiated. Principals also gave evidence of their learning being impeded by insensitive leaders, adversarial relationships, declining resources and practices that contradicted policy. More than two-thirds of principals' references to learning were linked to six district conditions: structure, policy/resources, processes, leadership, culture and strategy. Principals' learning was facilitated through principals' meetings and by collaborative mechanisms within hierarchical infrastructures. The support of professional staff and access to resources to acquire additional knowledge and skills ranked high with principals. Frequent links were made to cultural aspects of boards as in widely accepted norms of collaboration and a belief in the need to learn continuously. Three board strategies focusing on professional development, the improvement of instruction, and distributive leadership were noted by principals as contributing to their learning. A profile of the characteristics of school districts which enabled principals' learning provides guidelines for re-designing school districts away from centralized control to renewal through system-wide learning. To complement the extant research base on organizational learning in school systems, further research may be directed towards learning among central office staff.