An Investigation of Secondary School Principal Rotation and Succession in Times of Standards-based Reform and Rapid Demographics Ontario Principals' Council Funding Body: Ontario Principals' Council ($14,000) Dates: 2001- 2003 Principal Investigator: Andy Hargreaves RO/GA: Shawn Moore, Theresa Lewis, Robert White Description: Description: Drawing on relevant literature and extended interviews with present and former principals in four Ontario secondary schools, this project identifies the patterns and problems of leadership succession in secondary schools and examined the effectiveness of current policies of principal rotation. The research found that leadership successions are generally poorly planned, that principals and districts over emphasize the incoming knowledge of how to change a school to the cost of the outbound knowedge needed to keep imporovement going once the principal has left, that principals who show signs of success are lifted out of their schools to soon before they have made their imporvements sustainable, that principals are turning over faster and faster in an accelerating carrousel of principal succesion where principals go round and round between schools while the schools just go up and down. The report, Succeeding Leaders, can be viewed here and also downloaded from the Ontario Principal's Council. Return to Research Projects