Purpose: A growing number of school districts have recently added a position to the superintendent's cabinet, often titled chief equity officer. While the chief equity officer position is still in its early stages, we have an opportunity to examine insights from this work in the higher education context—both to support the adoption and implementation of the position, and the change work the chief equity officer will lead throughout the organization. The following conceptual question guides our analytical review: How can the role of chief equity officer be meaningfully and thoughtfully adapted for K-12 schools and districts in a critical anti-racist manner? Moverover, how might insights from higher education and scholarly knowledge on the nature of educational institutions, change within organizations, leadership practice, and learning inform the development of this role? Proposed Conceptual Argument: While the chief equity officer position was initially developed in response to historic and systemic inequities, over time, as this position becomes standardized through a process scholars call mimetic isomorphism, it runs the risk of becoming symbolic, only serving to signal an organization's commitment to equity-oriented work without meaningfully attending to its structures for learning, policies, or practices. Implications: Chief equity officers have a formal role within the district; however, their work requires an organizational commitment, from educators and educational leaders, for anti-racist systemic change. Structural, financial, and personnel-oriented supports are critical. Training programs for educators and leaders should thoughtfully prepare future chief equity officers, and continue to extend existing efforts to prepare anti-racist, equity-oriented principals, superintendents, teachers, and other educational leaders.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the nature of socially distributed leadership in Denmark and the USA, specifically teacher and staff leadership practices distributed in schools.Design/methodology/approach: This study used a confirmatory factor analysis and a second-order factor analysis to examine elementary USA and 0–9 Danish school educators’ responses to the Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning.Findings: Findings from this analysis of leadership practice demonstrate (1) different approaches to teacher and staff leadership in Denmark and the USA; (2) the importance of a collaborative approach to developing and maintaining professional learning communities in schools in both contexts; and (3) different patterns of leadership practice that broadly reflect the local structure and approach to school leadership while responding to external policy demands.Originality/value: Drawing on the globalization scholarship, which acknowledges the connection between global policy development and local spaces of implementation, this comparative international study allowed us to examine how policy ideas are parlayed into practice through the use of a shared assessment of leadership practice. The results of this study suggest that while the work of teacher and staff leadership is important and something that educators in Denmark and the USA are engaging in to advance the overall instructional mission of their schools, the approaches taken in each context are different and reflect a local-level negotiation between contextual cultural norms and policy expectations.

In this study, we apply a distributed leadership framework to better understand the nature of leadership practices distributed in schools by grade configuration. In this analysis we examine the following research question: What are the differences between school-level grade configuration (elementary school or secondary school) and the extent and distribution of leadership practices in the school? This study uses multilevel confirmatory factor analysis to examine leadership practice in schools using the Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning.

In the field of educational leadership, there is some work around the preferred theories of scholars, but little to no research on how the chosen theories are subsequently applied. Better understanding the purpose, role, and depth of how theory is used in educational leadership can help inform the teaching and mentorship of aspiring leaders and scholars. To examine the nature of theory use in educational leadership, we applied Dressman’s typology of theory use in literacy (2007), to 47 policy and practice-oriented articles in Educational Administration Quarterly. We found similar patterns to Dressman’s typology, but also important differences. Implications are discussed.

Dr. Wilson, Central Ridge High School principal, navigates an unfolding lockdown situation that is later revealed to be a hoax threat. While the school had extensive plans for coordinated responses to emergencies, they were varyingly adhered to when a threat was called in. Following the security sweep of the building, Dr. Wilson must determine how to proceed with the remainder of the school day. Students and educators are physically safe, yet emotionally shaken. Furthermore, Dr. Wilson must make immediate decisions about communication approaches with staff, families, and counseling services to best support the school community. This case highlights the nature of leadership practice in crisis situations and the breakdown of response and communication. Through this case, educational leaders can design coordinated plans for crisis management.