The political strategies in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic varied between Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Hence, School Supervisory Authorities had to come up with adaptive crisis management strategies. Therewith, the question about the role of the school supervisory authorities has to be addressed. Based on Article 7 (1) of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, "The entire school system is under the supervision of the state," the role of school supervision is the state's implementation of the constitutional requirement, while school administration encompasses administrative activities per se. Often, the two terms are used interchangeably because of their proximity. According to the definition of Avenarius and Füssel, the tasks of school supervision include, "subject supervision of schools, supervision of teachers and other pedagogical staff, and legal supervision of school boards with regard to the tasks of external school administration." (Avenarius & Füssel, 2010, p. 183). Concretizing, the conventional tasks according to Strittmatter (1995, quoted from Burkard, 1998, p.27) lie in the implementation of regulatory control, personnel hiring, systemic quality evaluation, as well as the support of individual personal learning processes, whereby a reconceptualization away from pure control tasks towards support, promotion, and advisory activities is noticeable, as Huber (2020, p.124) states. At the same time, guidance and support, cooperation and the establishment of what is needed are also an important part of the range of tasks of school supervision (Rosenbusch & Huber, 2018, p. 751; Rolff, 1998, p.216). With regard to the latter, the term "system leadership" also becomes central, which is understood as the development of the entire school system as a prerequisite for enabling sustainable development of schools (Huber et al., 2008; Huber & Lohmann, 2009; Huber, 2017). Moreover, due to the federal system in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the strategies and function in school governing and quality management between the different states (or cantons respectively) differ whereas the role of school supervisory authorities cannot be defined in general. 

Conducting an interview study with 25 school supervisory authorities and school leaders and analyzing the data via qualitative content analysis after Mayring (2015) gave an insight into the role of school supervisory authorities in the management of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample structured their experience of the pandemic in three phases, which they describe as:

• Phase 1: February 2020 to July 2020: Shock and Disorientation

• Phase 2: Summer break 2020: Breather and time for planning

• Phase 3: September 2020 to April 2021: The pandemic as a continuous challenge.

Overall, it can be seen that the main tasks in the three countries were more or less the same, whereas the strategies differed. For instance, there was no further school closure after the first one in Switzerland compared to Germany and Austria, which simultaneously resulted in a different focus regarding the tasks of school supervisory authorities. Another point is that there is a conceptual challenge of compensating scissor effects, namely supporting pupils at risk, since there are no further plans or concepts in doing so. In addition, communication – proactive, transparent and personal - turned out to be crucial to communicate political decisions. Furthermore, the achievement of digitalization ought to be used for educational development. However, there is still need for improvement in terms of digitalization according to the interviewed school supervisors. Last but not least, the pandemic needs to be analyzed in order to achieve a role development of school supervisory authorities.

To answer the explorative research questions, semi-structured interviews with school leaders and school supervisory authorities in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland were conducted. Through qualitative content analysis after Mayring (2015) with deductive-inductive coding, core categories were able to be built. Therewith, the data could be abstracted and thematically structured. However, there was no purpose of completeness or representativity. The goal was to understand contextual experiences and emerging issues. Applying a qualitative content analysis enabled us to build theses and recommendations, resulting from both, concrete statements of the interviewed school supervisory authorities as well as derived theses based on our analysis. Thus, this paper explores recommendations for school supervisory authorities in current and future challenging times. Data sources include interview data among 25 interviews with school supervisory authorities and school leaders from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The sample differed not only in gender, but also in their job location and political situation. The interviews were conducted with both, school supervisory authorities in urban as well as in rural areas. This paper aims at also identifying main differences in experiences and management based on the contextual situations.

This paper aims at understanding the challenges school supervisory authorities experienced, as well as the possibilities, chances and recommendations they propose. Especially, the investigation of the role of school supervisory authorities in crisis management, strategy work, and knowledge management, i.e. achievements and resources are of interest. We see, that they mainly experienced the importance of communication, the use of digital communication channels, contemporary loss of education in favor of the crisis management, more trust and support instead of control, as well as a better interface management and cooperation. Main challenges included the balance between hierarchical leading and local adaption, missing superordinate strategy and controlling, as well as the management of pupils at risk. On the other hand, some achievements resulted from the pandemic and the school supervisory authorities work such as implementing school digitalization, experienced motivation for cooperative educational development as well as overcoming perfectionism, plus a better sense of community and trust. Overall, it can be seen that the main tasks in the three countries were more or less the same, whereas the strategies differed. By analyzing the data of the interview study conducted in the three different countries we were able to better understand the role of school supervisory authorities in challenging times. Simultaneously, we could summarize and derive recommendations for school supervisory authorities including communication, management, consulting and further qualification strategies, as well as concepts to provide support for pupils at risk. Therewith, in terms of practical implications, this paper discusses the theses and the derived recommendations for and from school supervisory authorities.

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