Ensuring the effectiveness and quality of educational institutions is not just the responsibility of individual school stakeholders. Rather, the school as an educational organization is embedded in a complex system of interdependencies. If we want to understand how transformation processes (e.g. digitalization) are implemented in schools, we must also consider the role of regional school supervisory authorities, municipal school boards, institutions linked to the regional department of education, and other supporting structures., However, there is a lack of research on these supporting structures of schools and the associated educational administration (Berkmeyer, 2020). Attempts to close this gap usually focus on the interaction and task profiles of school leadership and school supervision (Dobbelstein et al., 2020).

In practice, the school boards of the municipality and the support institutions linked to the regional ministries of education present themselves as important contributors who create the necessary framework conditions and control resources, especially for the promotion of digitalization (Bockhorst & Kreutzmann, 2021). This is where the article becomes relevant. Using the example of the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the perspective of the school leaders and the teachers responsible for digitalization in schools - in this state, individual teachers are selected by the school leader and designated as ‘coordinators for education in the digital world’ (KoBiddW) - is included in addition to employees of the municipal school boards and employees of the regional school supervisory authorities. Since the survey examined on our poster was conducted in the context of the evaluation of a digital competence center in Rhineland-Palatinate and because the digitalization of schools can be internationally regarded as one of the central challenges for the development and success of education in general, the poster places a special focus on this topic.

The theoretical foundation for this examination is provided by Educational Governance research, focusing on the alignment, communication, and coordination within the multi-level system of the institutional environment of schools as a central research topic (Hafner, 2022). Based on the cross-cutting theme of digitalization, this contribution can provide implications and insights for analysis beyond the German borders, thus making a valuable contribution to the pan-European discourse on the challenges and opportunities of digitalization in the education sector and interinstitutional cooperation. This highlights the potential to develop common strategies and share best practices within Europe to strengthen and advance educational systems across the continent.

To approach this complex structure, the poster addresses the following questions:

• How do school leaders, teachers in the KoBiddW function, employees of the municipal school boards, and employees of the regional school supervisory authorities assess their cooperation and their mutual relationship?
• What conditions for success and obstacles can be identified for cooperation between the actors?

To answer these questions, an online survey was conducted with school leaders, teachers in the KoBiddW function, employees of the municipal school boards, and the employees of the regional school supervisory authorities between May and June 2023. The associated questionnaire was conducted as part of the accompanying scientific research for the establishment of a digital competence center. This digital competence center was officially opened in September 2022 and is institutionally linked to the Ministry of Education in Rhineland-Palatinate as an executive department of the Pädagogisches Landesinstitut (pedagogical state institute). This institute, in turn, is a support institution set up by the Ministry of Education, which offers further education and training, networking, advice as well as didactic and technical support for schools, among other things. Since September, the digital competence center has expanded this offer by bundling the areas of responsibility for the digital sector. A total of N=1179 people completed a full questionnaire (N=717 school leaders, N=346 teachers in the KoBiddW function, N=101 employees of the municipal school boards, and N=15 employees of the regional school supervisory authorities). Established scales were used for the research question, expanded to include the perspective of the municipal school boards, and adapted for use in Rhineland-Palatinate (Feldhoff et al. 2019). In the context of this poster contribution, three scales are introduced: The allocation of responsibility (4 items), cooperation between schools and the support systems in the state (5 items), and the question of whether advancing digitalization topics fall within the respondent's area of responsibility. For the analysis of the collected data, mainly descriptive measures such as mean value, standard deviation, and percentage frequencies are considered. In addition to the overall sample, the group of school leaders and teachers in the function of KoBiddW are also analyzed by school type, and for the entire sample, a division into urban and rural areas will be tested for significance.

Initial results of the survey show that the teachers in the function of KoBiddW in particular rate the cooperation negatively in contrast to the assessments of the employees of the municipal school boards and the employees of the regional school supervisory authorities. We see a connection here between the fewer resources and opportunities for communication and networking with the municipal school boards and the employees of the regional school supervisory authorities these teachers have and their more critical view on cooperation. However, there are hardly any differences between the assessment of teachers in the function of KoBiddW and the school leaders, both in the overall sample and when divided into rural and urban regions. Furthermore, transparency in terms of the allocation of responsibilities is assessed as neutral to negative, except for the employees of the regional school supervisory authorities, who responded with significantly more positive perceptions on average for all questions. For the employees of the municipal school boards, the allocation of responsibilities and the cooperation between schools and the support systems in the state are rated more positively in rural regions, while the perception of having responsibility for digitalization issues is more pronounced in urban regions.

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