The superintendents in this study identified 14 additional behaviors which they considered important for supporting school-based change. They included attending to the ongoing learning needs of board members and inviting them to serve on school planning teams. Other behaviors with school stakeholders and central office staff focused on ensuring diversity among citizens invited to join planning teams, expressing clear expectations for school-based decisions, and clearly defining the support role of the central office staff.

Behaviors identified as most important when working with school board members to support school-based change included the importance of establishing an organizational structure to support change, developing parameters for school-based decisions, clarifying board member support for school differences resulting from school-based decision making, and revising district policies when necessary to support school-based change. The most important behaviors with school stakeholders were concerned with providing staff development resources, communicating district values and priorities, and communicating directly with principals. The most important superintendent behaviors when working with central office staff included communicating through shared decision making and demonstrating collaborative behaviors.

This study examined the opinions of public school superintendents in school districts using the /I/D/E/A/ School Improvement Process. The purpose of the study was to determine the importance of superintendent behaviors reported in the literature for supporting school-based change. Additionally, the superintendents were asked to provide reasons for selecting the most important behaviors and to identify those they believed important which were not found in the literature.

The Survey of Superintendent Behaviors (SSB) was developed by the researcher to collect data for this study. It included 33 superintendent behaviors related to supporting school-based change when working with school board members, school stakeholders, and central office administrators. The data were collected through a mailed survey that resulted in an 88% return. Frequencies, percentages, standard deviations, and means were used to report the data contained in the survey. Follow-up telephone interviews were conducted to discover the reasons for the superintendents' selection of the 14 most important behaviors. Interview data were categorized and analyzed.