Many school districts struggle to recruit sufficient high-quality principals for their schools. A variety of conditions contribute to this challenge, including the retirement of the baby boom cohort and diminishing interest in administrative careers due to the expanded responsibilities of school principals. In response, districts enact a range of policies and programs explicitly aimed at identification and development of school leaders. Our study examined the actions taken by six districts drawing on the succession-planning perspective, which is common in the public and private sector management literature but less represented in education research. We found that intentional succession planning enabled districts to develop a pool of high-potential administrative candidates through integrated attention to candidate selection and development. While analyzing the effectiveness of “homegrown” leaders is beyond the scope of this inquiry, leaders in our six focal districts believed that they were able to increase the quality and effectiveness of their principals through intentional succession planning. We present a model for principal succession planning in education based on our empirical findings and on literature-based principles that can guide program design and future research.
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