Examining Instructional Leadership: A Study of School Culture and Teacher Quality Characteristics Influencing Student Outcomes

First, to examine the influence of teacher input characteristics and teacher perceptions of school culture on student absences. Second, to examine the influence of teacher input characteristics and teacher perceptions of school culture on out-of-school suspensions. Data was obtained for the 2006-2007 school year from 23 urban public elementary schools in Florida. Using the school as the unit of analysis, data was collected examining student absences and suspensions during the 2006-2007 school year reported by the Florida Department of Education's School Indicators Report. Surveys were administered to examine collaborative leadership, teacher collaboration, unity of purpose, professional development, collegial support, and learning partnership, identified by Gruenert and Valentine (1998) as the six components of the collaborative culture of a school. Surveys also documented teacher input characteristics such as years teaching, percent out of field, and highest degree obtained. Correlation using multiple regression was used to analyze the data. As the Unity of Purpose factor increased, the model predicted that student absences would decrease by 22.56%. In addition, the model predicted that when either the average years of experience for teachers within a school increased or when the Collaborative Leadership factor increased, student suspensions would decrease by 0.413%. and 4.81% respectively.