Overview

The Utah State Board of Education (USBE) is committed to support Utah district and charter leaders’ efforts to prepare, develop, and support school leaders through evidence-based approaches to school leadership development.

Our commitment to school leadership development is reflected in the USBE Strategic Plan. 

We work collaboratively both within our agency and with our schools, districts, regional educational service agencies (RESAs), universities, and other educational and community partners to advance our collective commitment to school leadership development in Utah.

This website is designed to support Utah district and charter leaders’ efforts to prepare, develop, and support effective school leaders through evidence-based school leadership development practices.

School Leadership

It is well-established that effective school leadership contributes to better outcomes for students and schools. However, a 2021 research report, How Principals Affect Students and Schools A Systematic Synthesis of Two Decades of Research(Wallace Foundation), suggests that the difference effective principals make may be greater than previously thought.

The research team found that:

The impact of an effective principal has likely been understated, with impacts being both greater and broader than previously believed: greater in the impact on student achievement and broader in affecting other important outcomes, including teacher satisfaction and retention (especially among high-performing teachers), student attendance, and reductions in exclusionary discipline.

This new understanding of the size and scope of the impact of effective school leaders is a compelling argument for state, district, and charter leaders to prioritize the development of effective school leadership in all school leaders.