Successful Turnaround Leadership: A Delphi Study

Leadership strategies for school turnaround and how to prioritize improvement efforts seem to lack a clear pattern for leaders of failing schools. The purpose of this study was to determine successful leadership strategies and methods for school turnaround and how best to prioritize the efforts by surveying a panel of experts through a Delphi study. The study began with 17 experts in the field of turnaround education. Participants self-attested to at least one of the four categories utilized to select the experts: experienced principal in a turnaround school, supported or consulted school turnaround leaders, researched turnaround extensively, and/or participants who had presented on the topic of school turnaround. Through three iterative rounds of questionnaires, the expert panel determined 11 leadership strategies/methods and 10 priorities for successful school turnaround. Leadership strategies determined as extremely important at a consensus level of at least 70% by the expert panel were frequent teacher observations and timely feedback, leadership clearly defining expectations for all system in the school, implement positive behavior interventions and support (PBIS), principal as instructional leader, building relationships with the staff and students, data driven decision-making, building systems for sustainable change, individuals in the school are committed to a collaborative culture, working as a team, create a new vision with the staff, focus on instructional delivery/instructional framework, and using information from formative and summative assessments to inform practice.

The 10 leadership priorities determined by the expert panel as extremely important at a consensus level of at least 70% by the expert panel were assess current systems to identify improvement areas, define expectations for quality and consistency of classroom instruction, developing the leadership team through training, data-driven instructional practices, provide consistent teacher feedback about their practices, consistency of quality instruction through PLC structures, focus on the adult and student learning, collaboration between the leadership team and the teachers, determine 2-3 priorities/focus per year, and using information from formative and summative assessments to inform practice. In this study, the findings are presented with implications for practitioners of turnaround. The results of the study may yield rapid school-wide improvement of systems to improve teaching and learning for student success.