Principal preparation programs have traditionally been designed to meet the needs of those who seek to lead schools or school districts. Departments of educational leadership sought to design and offer degree options that met students’ career and professional goals, as well as the needs of districts and departments of education. Post-pandemic, this challenge is increasingly more complex as education organizations continue to serve more diverse communities. This work highlights a university in the Southeastern United States that is engaging in a process of continuous improvement to redesign its principal preparation program in addressing current and future leadership challenges through action research. Leadership that views student success as essential to the mission and promotes a sense of belonging for all stakeholders is a major focus of the program with program faculty striving to further develop leaders who recognize the individualized needs of each student. With this mission in mind, the research highlighted in this session seeks to address the following questions: 1. How do university faculty members conceptualize the redesign and implementation of a leadership preparation program grounded in action research to meet the needs of school leaders? 2. How do school and district leaders describe the impact of an action research grounded dissertation process on their professional growth? The paper will begin with an overview of the current literature on leader preparation and the underpinnings of action research as a method through which educational organizations can strive toward improvement via collaborative processes. It continues by offering an overview of Transformative Learning Theory and how the components of critical reflection, communicative learning, and collective discourse have guided the continuous improvement process. It continues by describing the initial action research cycle whereby the process and components of the Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) program were created and implemented. Next, it offers the findings from the second action research cycle in which three cohorts of candidates matriculated through the program during the refinement process. It closes with an overview of the forthcoming action research cycle, focused on gathering data from program graduates and current students via an inclusive leadership self-assessment and focus groups aimed at responding to the first research question, and document analysis and individual program faculty interviews designed to gather responsive data to the second question.

Darling-Hammond, L., Meyerson, D., La Pointe, M. M., & Orr, M. T. (2010). Preparing principals for a changing world, San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass. Darling-Hammond, L., Wechsler, M. E., Levin, S., Leung-Gagné, M., & Tozer, S. (2022). Developing effective principals: What kind of learning matters? Learning Policy Institute. https://doi.org/10.54300/641.201. Updated September 14, 2023. Orr, M.T. (2023). Reflections on leadership preparation research and current directions. Frontiers in Education 8:1206880. Doi: 10.3389/feduc.2023.1206880.