The research literature on the principal shortage is inconsistent regarding the actual scope of the shortage and a clear articulation of factors contributing to the successful recruitment and retention of today’s school leaders. Often, critical data related to the principal shortage are ignored, including the number of younger principals overlooked in a candidate job search or the number of credentialed principal candidates who ultimately withdraw from a search. This study is based on a survey of 197 superintendents concerning their views on the principal shortage and factors associated with influencing the recruitment and retention of school leaders. Some major findings are that superintendents often underestimate the principal candidate applicant pool in their own districts, compensation continues to be the primary method of attracting qualified principal applicants, and rural schools are at a distinct disadvantage compared with urban and suburban schools in their search for new school principals.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate mentorship practices during the COVID-19 pandemic and to consider how mentorship could be improved to support students of educational leadership (EDLE) during crises.Design/methodology/approachParticipants in this collective self-study were four faculty members (i.e. the authors) within an EDLE program in one public, research-intensive university in the southern USA. Data sources were memos, email correspondence, reflective dialogue, course evaluations and meeting notes. Analysis involved dialogic engagement among the research team to identify emergent themes.FindingsAnalysis revealed five themes that reflect our collective experiences as mentors during the pandemic. These themes were challenges created by dismantled systems; meeting students' needs for understanding, flexibility and meaningful learning experiences; evolving personal–professional boundaries; grappling with our own sense-making and well-beingness; and clarifying values and priorities.Practical implicationsThe pandemic exemplifies the need for a deeper conceptualization of mentorship that stimulates more intimate, compassionate relationships between mentors and mentees. When mentorship is grounded in compassion, intimacy and mutual vulnerability, it demonstrates a genuine ethic of care and concern for others that is supportive of well-being and serves as a model for mentees entering the profession.Originality/valueThis paper extends disciplinary knowledge by focusing on the mentorship of EDLE students during crises and provides insights on how mentorship could be enacted to mutually support mentor–mentee well-being.

This article examines the salary trajectory of teachers as they move up the career ladder into leadership positions. The issue of compensation is set in the context of a principal shortage that has been widely reported and discussed in the literature. Urban schools are shown to experience the principal shortage differently from rural schools. District size and school type show significant differences in the additional compensation offered for moving from teaching to various leadership positions. The influence of salary is discussed in concert with the changing role of the principalship and candidate's concerns about increasingly less desirable working conditions for school leaders.Despite a widespread perception that there is a k-12 leadership shortage that cuts throughout education, the literature offers conflicting views on the issue. Several studies indicate a modest to no decline in candidate pools for the principalship and a surplus of credentialed administrators for available posi-

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to explore the well-being of school principals and the job-embedded demands responsible for challenging their adoption of healthy self-care practices.Design/methodology/approachDrawing upon a multidisciplinary theoretical framework that included contributions from the fields of neurobiology and psychology, three tiers of self-care needs were established to inform the study: basic physiological needs such as sleep, hydration, and nutrition; active self-care practices such as exercise, relaxation, and stress relief; and higher order needs such as belongingness and love addressed through work-life balance, volunteerism, and relational belonging. A 45-question survey containing Likert scale items and open-ended questions was returned from 473 practicing building administrators (a 24.4% response rate).FindingsFindings from this study, compared to estimates from the literature, indicate that school leaders work longer hours, are more sleep deprived, more dehydrated, have poorer diet practices, exercise less regularly, and spend less time with their friends and family than the general population. Administrators struggled to find ways within their control to improve their self-care behavior and offered suggestions regarding how the structure of the job itself might be changed to facilitate improving the health of school leaders.Originality/valueThis work offers insight into the current well-being of school principals, and by better understanding administrators’ self-care practices, this study can inform the field in developing supports, practices, and expectations, which promote the health and well-being of building-level leaders. Unhealthy self-care practices may influence their effectiveness, happiness, and possibly their longevity within the profession. Data collected through this study informed ideas about policies and procedures that could promote greater opportunities for healthier, more effective leaders within schools.

This theoretical paper provides a framework for developing a college ethics curriculum that emphasizes the development of moral reasoning skills and behaviors. The framework draws heavily from successful efforts in the fields of moral development and learning theory applied to teaching complex problem solving skills. Best practices addressed in this paper include balancing theory and practice, teaching cross-contextually, practicing metacognition, targeting improved decision making skills in curriculum and assessment, addressing independent components of the decision making process, scaffolding moral decision making, and integrating skill development and curricular language throughout the program. ______________________________________________________________________________ uilding moral habits is critical for realizing moral courage in moments of crisis. People are most likely to fall back upon their habits when they are in crisis. They need well practiced and comfortable behaviors to see them through. Even when thoughtful deliberation leads to a more moral solution to the dilemma before them, people often fail to traverse the judgment-action gap with their own moral reasoning intact. Crisis situations bring a wide range of social, cultural and cognitive obstacles to bear on a person's ego integrity and it is in those times that their moral behaviors are most influential in revealing character. As college educators teaching ethics and moral reasoning, we are tasked to teach students how to navigate crisis, deep cognitive dissonance, and moral dilemmas. Yet we often operate in environs that are by their nature free of the real life obstacles we are training students to face. We teach about ethical frameworks and try to develop the reasoning skills of students, but we are left with little more than a hope that they will learn the moral habits they need when the moment of moral crisis comes. Therefore, an effective college ethics curriculum should allow students opportunities to practice moral behaviors, hone reasoning skills, gain a deep understanding of moral theory, and develop the ability to transfer these skills and habits across diverse contexts when they leave college. As we went through the process of designing a new ethics curriculum at the University of Arkansas (referred to in this paper as the Arkansas Program) we looked first to research in moral development and ethics curricula and then to studies that explain how complex behaviors and reasoning skills are most effectively taught. Our goal was to develop an understanding of how college students learn the range of skills that lead to more effective moral decision making. It was critical that the new curriculum not merely replicate existing examples of best practice in the field, but rather that each component of the curriculum was built from a research based foundation of how college students learn. The goal was not only that students graduate with a better understanding of ethical issues, but that they also experience the intellectual and emotional e...