A study of the role of the principal in schools with differentiated staffing

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of the principal in schools with differentiated staffing (DS) as perceived by the principal, and as it was advocated by the literature. Four specific questions were researched: (1) What role was advocated for the DS principal by the literature? (2) What was the perceived role of the DS principal? (3) What was the perceived role of the non-DS principal?, and (4) What was the nature of the difference, if any, between the perceived role of the DS principal and the perceived role of the non-DS principal? The research was conducted in two phases. A summary review of the literature, focusing upon implications DS presented for the principal’s role, was undertaken as the initial phase of the study. A survey of principals’ perceived role constituted a second phase of the study. The Administrative Task Inventory (ATI) was developed and administered to DS principals within the USOE, School Personnel Utilization, DS projects and to a control group of randomly selected non-DS principals from within the same school districts. [...]