Listening to Leaders:
Insights from the SDA Education Leadership Survey

In Spring 2023, the foundation conducted an online survey of Seventh-day Adventist education leaders within the North American Division (NAD). A total of 870 SDA leaders serving as in-school administrators (Principals and Teaching Principals) and out-of-school administrators (Conference, Union, and NAD education leaders) were invited to participate. The survey received 454 responses, resulting in an overall response rate of 52% across all levels of the education system.

The survey had three primary goals:

• Generate comprehensive system-wide data about SDA education leaders’ most pressing challenges and priorities.
• Collect useful system-level data about the experiences of SDA school leaders that can be made available throughout the education system.
• Solicit insights to help the foundation understand how it can best partner with the system to build a talent management strategy that strengthens the SDA K-12 leadership pipeline

While key findings were shared with attendees at the August 2023 Adventist Educators Conference in Phoenix, this report provides a comprehensive analysis of the survey findings. It highlights opportunities for improvement regarding education leaders’ perceptions of work-life quality, on-the-job priorities and challenges, training and development needs and interests, and equity and decision-making.

Download the full report