The little district that could: The process of building district-school trust

Purpose: This article describes how trust emerged as an issue in one school district and the processes by which central office administrators enhanced trust with its school site leaders. Method: This exploratory participant observer case study uses multiple sources of data including surveys, interviews, observations, and documents collected during a 4-year period from central office and school site leaders. Findings: The article illustrates how a university partner can play a critical role in sur-facing and bringing forth action on an undiscussable issue—trust between the central office and its schools—and the actions taken by the central office to address specific facets of trust: openness, communication, risk, and integrity. The site administrators’ response to these actions revealed that trust can be developed at both the relational and organizational leadership levels. Significance to the Field: The study is significant in illustrating that building trust between the central office and school sites can be an essential step in an underper-forming district and can serve as a resource in achieving and sustaining school district reform. It also shows that attending to specific facets of trust can be useful when exam-ining the development of trust between school sites and the district office