West, Russell and Nathan Harrison. "School Leadership: What We Know and What We Don't." CEASD 2025. Conference of Educational Administrators of Schools and Programs for the Deaf. Pittsburgh, PA. 10 Apr. 2025. Conference Presentation. £
We all know that the leadership of a Deaf school defines the success or struggles of the school. Although that is known collectively, what does research tell us? The earliest known unpublished dissertation on Deaf school leaders, “Leadership Practices Of Superintendents at Residential Schools for the Deaf,” by Balk surfaced only in 1997. The earliest article on the subject, “Preparing future teacher and doctoral level leaders in deaf education: Meeting the Challenge,” by Andrews and Covell was published in 2007. Since then there has been little research and/or peer reviewed literature that might offer ideas and data to serve as resources for all Deaf school and program leaders as well as aspiring leaders both in and out of our field. Despite this lack of research-based data and practices, there have been efforts to address the shortage of deaf leaders, particularly educational leaders. There were programs like Leadership Training Program and Gallaudet Leadership Institute. Both have been discontinued. The closest effort is our own Leadership Academy, which is a 4-day training program. However, even with these efforts, these programs (and we as a field) are still lacking the research, data, and documented best practices to provide our leaders what they need.