K-12 Principals, Instructional Leadership, and Equitable Gifted Program Placements for Students

School leaders struggle to implement best instructional leadership practices to enhance student diversity in gifted programs. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand how K-12 school principals implement instructional leadership practices regarding equitable placements of students in gifted programs. Three elements of Hallinger and Murphy’s instructional leadership model, (a) developing and promoting expectations, (b) assessing and monitoring student performance, and (c) supervising and evaluating instruction, informed this study. The research questions addressed instructional leadership practices and behaviors of K-12 school principals regarding placements of students in gifted programs. Ten K-12 school principals who worked in a large suburban school district located in the southern United States were interviewed via Zoom; each participant had at least 2 years of service in their buildings and supervised a gifted program. A combination of open and axial coding was used to support thematic analysis. Important themes include (a) principals have a process for placements of students in gifted programs, (b) principals use criteria for placing students in gifted programs, (c) principals’ practices are used to identify students for gifted programs, (d) the role of K-12 principals is to support students in gifted programs, (e) every student should be given the opportunity to be placed in a gifted program, and (f) principals need professional development regarding equitable practices. In order to close the placement gap and to support positive social change, principals must communicate a clear vision for the school that supports student growth and achievement and implement processes with set criteria that are fair and equitable to promote the placement of all students in gifted programs