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This case study examines the leadership practices and actions of an urban high school principal who faced many challenges, but worked diligently to improve student achievement and school climate over a 3-year period. Significant improvements were made by using elements of Distributed Leadership, Professional Learning Communities, and Social Justice Leadership. The authors suggest that contextually responsive leadership practices rather than one best practice present better solutions to the complexity in urban school leadership.

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The purpose of this study was to understand the perspectives of recently retired principals who were mentors to new school leaders in a high-need urban school district. Mentors reflected on the mentoring needs and challenges faced by new school leaders while also reflecting on their own careers as school principals. This study was informed by the literature on mentoring as well as the reflective practice literature. We used focus groups as the primary method of collecting data. Data analysis followed the process of open coding and independently identifying relevant data followed by constant comparison to narrow down the list of codes. The findings point to the need for mentoring new school leaders and to focus on promoting confidence and a growth mind-set in principals. Additionally, the findings point to reflective mentoring as a possible mentor model to benefit and support mentor self-learning as well as supporting principals.