Districts can be helpful sources of information about student learning and achievement, providing schools with information that is useful in addressing the unique needs of their students. Further, districts can help schools locate funding, personnel, training or other resources that support the school's improvement agenda. In all cases, district support should be guided by the needs of the individual schools. Community attention to teachers' needs . Frequent contests among these groups for power and control disheartens staff and fragments school improvement efforts.
School leadership is a complex and demanding job .
Evidently, however, there is a growing body of research that suggests schools improve more quickly when principals actually let go of some of their responsibility and structure ways for teachers to participate more fully in decision-making. This kind of power-sharing and collaboration seems to be at the very heart of meaningful, sustained school improvement.