Healthy Schools : The Hidden Component of Teaching and Learning

Creating conditions for better teaching and learning to occur has become an important responsibility for today’s school leaders. Principals must attend to building and sustaining healthy school cultures. The authors take the reader on a journey through several different situations that occur at the elementary, middle and high school levels and focus on a different and challenging aspect of educational leadership every time. The reader can read and analyze different scenarios and decide whether or not the outcome was the best for all stakeholders involved. Not only do all of the vignettes offer beneficial advice to educational leaders of all levels and experience, but they also provide research that demonstrates how and why each educational leader does what he or she does in each situation and how those choices affect everyone involved.We believe that these vignettes support the most important quality of school leadership: “Promoting the success of every student by advocating, nurturing, and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning and staff professional growth” (ISLLC Standard 2.0, 2008).

Creating conditions for better teaching and learning to occur has become an important responsibility for today’s school leaders. Principals must attend to building and sustaining healthy school cultures. The authors take the reader on a journey through several different situations that occur at the elementary, middle and high school levels and focus on a different and challenging aspect of educational leadership every time. The reader can read and analyze different scenarios and decide whether or not the outcome was the best for all stakeholders involved. Not only do all of the vignettes offer beneficial advice to educational leaders of all levels and experience, but they also provide research that demonstrates how and why each educational leader does what he or she does in each situation and how those choices affect everyone involved. We believe that these vignettes support the most important quality of school leadership: “Promoting the success of every student by advocating, nurturing, and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning and staff professional growth” (ISLLC Standard 2.0, 2008).