Abstract:
The setting for this study was rural, urban, and suburban school districts in thestate of Missouri. The participants for this study were middle, junior, and high schoolprincipals. The purpose of this study was to determine secondary school principals’knowledge of school law pertaining to teacher and student issues and to determine thequality of legal training perceived by school principals. A descriptive quantitativeresearch design was utilized for this study. A purposive sample study was used toidentify the population. A non-experimental descriptive summary analysis wasimplemented for this study. The training quality was explored through three perceptionitems. The knowledge questions were based on a criterion of 51% of respondents wouldscore an 80% or higher to be considered passing. The findings supported a review of theliterature that additional training is needed in schools to improve the legal knowledge ofschool principals.The results of this study presented evidence that Missouri secondary principalsdid not meet the criterion established for knowledge of school law. However, the resultsof the sample size calculation revealed the margin of error was plus/minus 13.75%.Since the margin of error was above 10%, there is low confidence in the results of thisstudy. The findings from this study should be used with caution. The results showed thatadditional training is needed for principals in specific areas of educational law. Inaddition, several recommendations were suggested to enhance the research.