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277 Top Leadership Research Topics for Your Thesis

For most students, working on leadership research topics is a fascinating task. That’s because this subject spans different disciplines, including education, management, sociology, politics, and psychology. For this reason, many learners choose these topics when writing college and university papers.

In most cases, educators do not specify the topic for learners. That means every learner must choose or develop a topic for their academic paper. Consequently, learners look for leadership areas that interest them and then pick their leadership paper topics.

Here are pointers for selecting a topic for your leadership essay or paper:

Start by choosing a subject area Narrow down your subject area Focus on leadership, not management Bear the educator’s instructions in mind Aim to answer a question in your subject area

If interested in this subject, here is a list of leadership topics you consider for your papers.

Interesting Dissertation Topics in Educational Leadership

When pursuing a course in educational leadership, educators require learners to complete a dissertation by employing their new learning and professional knowledge. When writing this paper, a learner should demonstrate organization, transformative leadership, and the ability to initiate community change. Here are sample topics in this category.

• Interrelation between poor school results and poor leadership
• How social media affects educational leadership
• Impacts of technology on educational leadership
• How leadership in mediocre schools can simulate top performing learning institutions
• Effects of the leadership culture on running educational institutions
• How to blend strategic teaching methods with efficient organization
• How educational leadership affects society
• How educational leadership influence researchers and literature
• Educational leadership and success path
• Educational leadership and social transformation
• Educational leadership’s role in society
• Can education leadership bring about change?
• How to include the community in education leadership
• Effectiveness of interdisciplinary teams in the running of the middle schools
• Women role in education leadership
• How cultural organization affects educational institutions
• Diluting racist habits in accredited universities
• How to seamlessly pass teachers’ excellence to students
• How educational institutions can offer exceptional leadership by thinking outside the box
• How to evaluate negative traits of instructors teaching similar subjects
• How fighting for leadership positions affect schools and students
• How to compassionately develop students with dyslexia
• How to strategically blend teaching methods with efficient organization
• How culture influences educational institutions’ leadership
• How effective educational leadership helps learners achieve academic goals
• How educational leadership affect how learners think about their future and intellectual abilities
• How teachers can encourage learners to take exams and testing more seriously
• Do teachers have adequate training on how to be influential leaders?
• Should learning institutions evaluate teachers depending on their leadership abilities?
• What changes in training opportunities can encourage teachers to exercise leadership strategies?

Pick any of these educational leadership research topics and investigate them extensively to develop a brilliant dissertation.

Hot Leadership Training Topics

Leadership training is crucial for future and current leaders. Anybody that wants to become a supervisor, manager, or leader at any capacity should undergo some training to cultivate and nurture their skills. Here are some of the best leadership topics to write about in this category.

• How organizational leaders can enhance productivity
• How company leaders can retain the best employees
• How to improve decision making in an organization
• How to implement effective leadership styles
• How leaders can support succession in their organizations
• How to delegate and empower employees
• Role of organizational leaders in conflict resolution
• How to change management and executive leadership
• How leaders can command respect without issuing commands
• How leaders can motivate and engage employees
• How corporate leaders can enhance interpersonal relationships
• How decision skills can streamline organizations and nurture confidence
• How leaders can train employees on energy and time management
• How leaders can train employees about self-awareness
• Practical communication skills for organizational leaders
• How leaders can encourage peer-to-peer training
• The role of leadership in organizational development
• How to design helpful leadership training modules
• How to automate corporate learning paths
• How to measure results in leadership training
• Importance of leadership training
• How leaders can deal with organizational change
• How leaders can use coaching to enhance employee performance
• Qualities of practical leadership training and mentorship programs
• How leaders can create a learning culture in an organization
• How a company employee can benefit from a leadership course
• Which leadership strategies can enhance a team’s performance?
• Describe different leadership styles with examples
• What leadership training means for a business
• Can leadership training affect organizational success?

Any of these topics can be the basis of an excellent paper. However, take your time to research your preferred idea to come up with a high-quality paper.

Trendy Leadership Development Topics for Research

Leadership development entails expanding individuals’ capacity to perform their leadership roles in organizations. Here are topic ideas to consider in this category.

• When is leadership coaching necessary?
• Who should provide leadership coaching?
• Which are the best leadership development opportunities?
• How emotional intelligence can enhance leadership development
• Describe executive development
• How innovation can enhance leadership development
• Mentorship for leadership development- How does it work?
• Can leaders act as teachers?
• Why strategic planning matters when it comes to leadership development
• Role of leadership development in team building
• How coaching can enhance leadership development
• Can leadership development enhance accountability?
• Why change management coaching should be part of a leadership development program
• How leadership development can turn leaders into negotiators and influencers
• How communication skills can enhance leadership development
• How organizational leaders can develop creativity
• Essential skills to acquire from a leadership development program

Pick any of these topic ideas and then develop them via research to develop a winning paper. Use different information sources to gather relevant information before writing your essay.

Organizational Leadership Dissertation Topics

Organizational leadership is an exciting research field. What’s more, you can use a topic in this category to impact a difference in an organization. And this can enhance your employability when seeking a job. Depending on your dissertation requirements, you can pick and work with any of these topics.

• How blended-learning techniques can enhance the critical thinking of organizational leaders
• Essential administrative services that hospitality industry leaders should provide
• Qualities of charismatic and prevention-oriented leaders for the success of medium-sized enterprises
• How leadership behaviors affect the corporate culture
• How leadership practices influence the success of an organization
• How organizational leadership and culture affect the success of a small enterprise
• Why executive leadership is essential in developing countries
• Organizational leadership’s role in a multicultural environment
• Investigating variations in conventional organizational leadership and charismatic leadership
• How leadership quality and training can improve organizational performance
• How corporate culture can influence the leadership decisions to try a new business strategy
• How a country can produce the organizational leaders it requires
• How managers can provide leadership aspirations to subordinates
• How global company leaders can influence their overall cultures
• How corporate culture impacts a company’s leadership
• How assumption-based planning can save money for an organization
• How organizational leadership differs from management
• How differentiating leadership from management can enhance the achievement of organizational goals
• How to evaluate the effects of administration on the organizational performance
• How to examine leadership effects and vision clarity on business organizations
• How leadership affects organizational performance
• How a corporate leader can devise work teams in a company
• Impacts of leadership skills on employees performance

Any of these organizational leadership topics can be the basis of a brilliant paper. However, you must research the idea extensively to include relevant information in your writing. That way, your educator and organizational leaders will find your essay worth reading.

Fantastic Women’s Leadership Topics

It’s no secret that studies about women in leadership topics have increased over the years. Perhaps, that’s because women’s status in workplaces has improved recently. Here are brilliant ideas to explore if interested in writing a research paper in this category.

• The role of women personality in leadership
• What are the primary barriers to women’s leadership?
• Society stereotypes that threaten women leadership
• How the responsibilities of women differ from those of their counterpart males
• How the personality of women leaders differ from that of men
• How women’s leadership style differs from that of men
• How family responsibilities affect female leaders
• Do current male leaders resist female leaders?
• Must women leaders outperform their male counterparts to be considered adequate?
• How lack of sufficient household support affects women leaders
• How women leaders can help in unlocking the full economic potential of a country
• How influential women leaders juggle between family and work
• How powerful women leaders define work and success
• How gender stereotypes affect female leaders
• How modern female leaders balance careers and family
• How stereotypes shape women leaders’ performance and intellectual identity
• Family business success- What is the role of women?
• Gender, sex, and leadership
• How women can change organizational leadership
• How great women leaders can inspire people to take action

Take any of these topics and develop them into an excellent paper through research. The internet is awash with resources that cover women and leadership issues. That means you won’t have a hard time finding relevant information for your topic.

Interesting Leadership Topics

Perhaps, you’re looking for an exciting topic for your research paper or essay. In that case, here are some of the best ideas to explore.

• A case study of Bill Gates’ leadership
• Motivation and leadership- What’s the difference?
• What are the key characteristics of transformational leadership?
• Investigating leadership and management across culture
• Characteristics and distinctions of management and leadership
• Explain radical leadership with examples
• Discuss different leadership and management styles
• Ethical leadership theories and models
• Othello and Machiavelli’s leadership skills
• Leadership concepts, according to Kentucky Fried Chicke
• Moral and cultural contingencies of leadership
• An investigation into team leadership
• Discuss the hospitality industry’s leadership and management
• How diversity affects the leadership effectiveness
• Which are the best leadership practices
• Socrates and organizational leadership
• Aspects of leadership and team behavior
• Leadership and management in business- How they relate
• What is ethical leadership?
• Leadership as a strategy in human resource and company policies
• Leadership and organizational behavior- How they relate
• Why is strategic leadership essential in the business environment?
• How gender difference affects leadership styles
• What is systematic leadership?
• Why is civic leadership important?
• How negative leadership affects an organization
• Leadership role in an organization’s transformational
• Classifications of different leadership theories
• Theoretical perspectives of organizational leadership
• Human resource planning and leadership development
• Leadership contingency theories
• Military leadership style and coaching combination
• Benefits, roles, and limitations of leadership
• Supervising and leadership influence on human services
• Leadership theories and effective organization change
• Discuss various leadership style concepts
• Governance and leadership- What’s the difference?
• Troubled companies and their leadership
• Participative and situational leadership theories
• Analyzing the authoritative leadership style
• Effective management and leadership strategies
• Why strong leadership is crucial in a business organization
• Integrating different leadership styles
• Leadership and education role modeling
• How effective leadership can enhance employees productivity
• How managers can motivate employees by serving as their leaders
• How political leadership can affect an organization
• Leadership role in solving organizational challenges
• A critical perspective on leadership and management
• Evaluation of John Kennedy and Bill Clinton’s political leadership
• An analysis of the most influential leader in the world
• Effective leadership learning processes in an organization
• Servant and followership leadership
• Leadership principles of effective teachers
• Analyzing Ciulla Joanne’s The Ethics of Leadership
• Is servant leadership effective in school administration?
• Creativity and leadership revision
• Leadership and motivation theories
• The role of leadership in a multinational company
• Participative approach versus autocratic leadership
• How ethical leadership can influence decision-making
• How a company’s leadership can manage change effectively
• Innovation and leadership in a business
• How transformational leadership can benefit women
• Describe the role of leadership in a medical facility
• Variations in ethical leadership
• Scientific methods for studying leadership
• Strategy as leadership and practice
• Leadership and service quality
• How school governance affects school leadership
• How leadership and power relate
• Investigating leadership through a behavioral approach
• Effective styles for strategic leadership
• Strategic leadership- A critical examination
• Describe how contingency leadership works
• Discuss theorists and theories on leadership
• How to develop a leadership strategy in an organization
• Why leadership models are valuable
• Leadership strategies as success factors
• Qualities of effective leadership strategies

These are exciting leadership topics for discussion in an academic paper or essay. Pick an issue in this category and then research it extensively to develop a brilliant piece.

Nursing Leadership Paper Topics

Do you want to write a research paper or essay about nursing leadership? If yes, pick any of these brilliant nursing leadership paper topics.

• Strategies for developing nurse leaders
• How concept-based learning techniques affect nurse leaders
• What are the qualities of the best nurse leaders?
• How a nurse leader can manage stress
• Criteria for being considered a nurse leader’s mentor
• Essential nursing leadership areas to study
• Qualities of a practical nursing leadership program
• Why nursing leadership is vital in healthcare management
• A review of ethical nursing leadership and practice
• What are the values of ethical nursing leadership and training?
• How to balance nursing leadership and service quality
• Nursing leadership fundamentals
• The global status of nurse leaders
• Practice experience that every nurse leader should exhibit
• Nursing leadership from a patient’s perspective
• How to apply nursing leadership in a nursing home
• A comparison of nursing leadership in an adult ward and a pediatric ward
• Vital skills for a nurse leader during an emergency
• Challenges facing nursing leaders
• What leadership means to nurses
• Leadership from a nurse perspective- What does it mean?
• Disadvantages of being a nurse leader
• What are the inherent nurse leaders’ values?
• The role of nurse leaders in public hospitals
• Nursing leadership status in private hospitals
• How nursing leadership differs in private and public hospitals
• Trends in nursing leadership
• Assessing nursing leadership in third-world countries
• Long and short-term goals for nurse leaders
• Activities for enhancing nursing leadership.

Any of these nursing leadership topics can be a great idea for research. However, prepare to investigate your preferred issue to develop an excellent paper. Nevertheless, you can even seek professional assistance if you love the topic but lack adequate time to write about it.

Leadership Speech Topics

Perhaps, you want to write a speech to present to your class or during a business meeting. In that case, this category comprises some of the best leadership presentation topics.

• How to be a transformative leader
• What makes a strategic leader?
• Why organizations need moral leaders
• How to lead with inclusion and integrity
• Leadership and dissent- Doing the right versus doing something right
• Practicing leadership in an inter-agency context
• How to make a difference using leadership
• Transactional or transformational leadership- What works?
• How effective leadership looks like
• How to practice effective leadership
• How to become a leader
• How to lead with compassion
• Qualities that every great leader should exhibit
• The power of effective leadership
• How a leadership vision can propel an organization forward
• How to understand and work with followers as a leader
• How a leader can adapt and listen to changes in an organization
• How consistent efforts make great leaders
• Qualities that made great leaders in history
• The golden rule of outstanding leadership

These are brilliant leadership discussion topics. However, prepare to research your preferred idea before you write a speech about it. That way, you will come up with a presentation that will move your audience.

Leadership Topics for Managers

Perhaps, you want to write about a leadership issue that managers will find interesting to read. In that case, these leadership research paper topics will interest you.

• How managers can develop performance standards and goals
• How managers can promote effective discipline
• How a manager can improve work habits
• How company managements can manage complaints
• How a manager can provide performance feedback
• Effective conflict resolution techniques for company managers
• How a manager can support change in a company
• Effective ways for managers to delegate tasks
• How to effectively communicate with the upper management
• How a manager can train or coach others
• Essential leadership skills for managers
• How managers can create trust and transparency in their organizations
• How managers can encourage individual employees to find personal motivation
• How managers can encourage innovation and initiative
• How a manager can build self-confidence
• Practical time management skills that every manager should have
• Body language and public speaking for managers
• How company managers can minimize employee complaints
• How managers can lower stress among employees
• Why training is essential for new managers
• Why every manager should know industry-specific regulations
• How managers can create an inclusive workforce
• How managers can nurture talents and ensure employee retention
• What training methods can managers use to empower employees?
• Firing and hiring- What should know managers know about these responsibilities?
• Which skills should managers cultivate to support company employees?

These are brilliant leadership essay topics for managers. However, you need time to research any of these topics to write a winning paper.

Having an Issue Completing Your Leadership Dissertation?

Whether you need leadership dissertation topics or essay ideas, you have many options to consider. Nevertheless, pick an interesting topic that you’ll enjoy working with, from research to proofreading your paper. But if you have difficulties writing your essay, seek an expert’s writing help online. With cheap, high quality assistance from reliable academic writers, you can have a competent specialist handle this assignment for you from the beginning to the end. And you can impress your educators to accord you the grade you desire. So, if stuck with this assignment, contact the best expert writers for hire to write your paper or essay without breaking a sweat.

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More From Forbes

What’s wrong with leadership development (and 5 ways to fix it).

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Neena Newberry is the president of Newberry Solutions and creator of the New Lens leadership platform .

As an executive coach and founder of a leadership development learning platform, I thrive on seeing our clients achieve lasting change. Unfortunately, not all organizations see positive outcomes from their leadership development programs, despite the global market exceeding $81 billion a year .

Post-pandemic, it's clear that this investment often fails to deliver expected results. So what's the issue, and more importantly, how can we solve it?

Too Many Leaders Aren’t Prepared

One of the biggest red flags about leadership development I’ve seen recently comes from the Josh Bersin Company . Their two-year study of corporate leadership programs found that just one out of four companies believes their leadership training efforts are delivering high value. Additionally, only 24% of companies say their development model is relevant and up-to-date. This is alarming—and also not an outlier.

You don’t have to look far to find other indicators that leadership development programs are falling short. I’ve seen in my own work that far too many managers are promoted not because they’re ready to lead, but because there’s an operational need. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), an international HR association based in London, calls managers who have not had formal leadership training " accidental managers ."

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It gets worse. CIPD also found that these ill-prepared managers are driving employees away—specifically, one in three employees who quit. And 84% of respondents in a study by the Society for Human Resource Management said poorly trained managers create stress and extra work. Might this help explain why less than one-third of U.S. employees feel they are engaged at work?

I believe that a lack of training and preparation for leadership roles is also damaging managers’ mental health—to devastating effect regarding their performance. More than half of managers feel burned out. It’s time for this to change.

5 Key Steps For Change

Clearly, the leadership development industry as a whole needs a shakedown. We must rethink how we approach our work. That imperative has been top-of-mind for both me and my company as we have responded to pandemic-driven changes in the business environment while simultaneously developing our own leadership development platform. Here are five of our key learnings, based on both our own experiences and current research:

1. Mental health comes first.

Even before leadership development, prioritize enhancing your managers’ well-being. No training program can be truly effective if the participants are at their breaking point with stress, fatigue and burnout.

2. Expand access to leadership development.

As Josh Bersin puts it : "Leadership is now everyone’s job. The new employee or first-line manager who’s leading a project to save money or analyze the sales team is now a leader. What education, training and perspectives have you given this person?"

When only a few employees get access to leadership development, your organization misses out on what others could potentially contribute. Even small improvements across a larger number of employees can have a big impact.

3. Increase the relevance of training.

Leadership development is not " one size fits all ." You can’t just throw a huge online content library at your employees and expect them to figure out what they need. Instead, look for programs you can customize according to both organizational goals and your employees’ needs.

4. Leverage the power of connection.

Your employees have so much wisdom to share with each other, but mentorship, sponsorship and peer learning are all underutilized tools when it comes to leadership development. As a bonus, such programs also strengthen connections that may have frayed during the shift to hybrid work.

5. Build learning into every day.

Most of us have had the experience of going to a development workshop or event, learning things we’re excited about—but then never putting that knowledge into action. Studies have found that if we don’t apply what we’ve learned within a day or two, then we’ll forget most of it. It’s more effective to take even a little time every day to learn and then start trying out that new knowledge right away.

Final Thoughts

I’ll end with a call to action. Think about the current state of leadership at your own organization. What’s happening with your leadership development programs? And how effective are your managers and leaders?

Now, more than ever, companies must invest wisely in their leaders and empower them to drive meaningful change in the ever-evolving business landscape. The future depends on it.

Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?

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The Good (and the Bad) of Using Apps to Connect With Parents

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How often should parents and teachers communicate? That’s the question at the center of a growing push for technology that allows parents constant access to the classroom.

For a long time, parents relied solely on physical report cards and papers teachers sent home with their children to know what was happening at school. When email came along, teachers could communicate directly with parents and vice versa, but it was still time-consuming, with conversations sometimes taking days to play out.

A slew of apps are looking to change that reality through messaging platforms and digital experiences that give parents and teachers constant and instant access to each other. The apps allow teachers to seamlessly share pictures and videos, or just chat with parents about what’s happening in the classroom.

At the same time, tools like Zoom have opened the virtual doors to classrooms, letting parents watch their kids participate in spelling bees and quiz bowls. Text messaging platforms like ParentPowered send parents tips on supplementing students’ lessons at home. And schools continue to use social media to share updates and reach parents who might miss information through email.

The options for communicating with parents can seem endless, yet many parents remain unaware of what’s happening at school, or confused or misinformed about it. And school leaders struggle to reach certain families, especially those they really need to so their children will come to school.

Technology can improve parent and family engagement, experts say, but schools should be strategic about using it—and be mindful of apps’ privacy policies as well as the reality that not every family has access to smartphones with internet access. They shouldn’t use apps to replace in-person relationships, but rather to supplement them. And teachers should be transparent about their expectations for using the tools, so parents understand their boundaries around technology that allows for constant communication.

“These are platforms, not best practices,” said Helen Westmoreland, director of family engagement at the National Parent Teacher Association. “They are a platform for communication, and they are only as good as what goes into them. Sometimes we see that districts stop at the platform; family engagement is 90 percent beyond that platform.”

Bringing back the ‘village’

Brian Prybil learned about ClassDojo when he was principal of Washington Elementary School in Moline, Ill., about two-and-a-half hours west of Chicago near the Iowa border.

A group of teachers had heard about the app as a way to improve student behavior—teachers reward students for demonstrating social-emotional skills, such as grit or empathy, through “dojo points” on the app—and approached him about using it.

Prybil was unsure at first but told the teachers they could continue using it as long as they stuck with the in-person behavior intervention practices the school had in place.

Within a year, though, Prybil said he noticed major changes in the classes where teachers used ClassDojo.

Students there had fewer behavior problems, and parents weren’t calling the school as often because teachers were keeping in touch through the app.

Prybil held a staff meeting and suggested they adopt the app schoolwide.

“As a principal, it took me just a few moments to type to a parent and message them if they had a question, and pretty soon it became our main mode of communication,” he said. “It also became the main mode of communication for our teachers to our parents, and the kids knew that communication was happening.”

Now the 7,000-student Moline-Coal Valley school district’s deputy superintendent, Prybil is working with ClassDojo to adopt the app districtwide. It’s part of a new endeavor for the company, which has always marketed to individual teachers.

They are a platform for communication, and they are only as good as what goes into them. Sometimes we see that districts stop at the platform; family engagement is 90 percent beyond that platform.

School staff will be able to use the new districtwide offering more seamlessly, said Sam Chaudhary, ClassDojo’s co-founder and CEO.

Administrators will be able to access school-level data on the app’s use, such as how many families are engaging with messages, how many messages the app is translating to other languages for families who don’t speak English, and statistics on the top skills teachers are building with students. They’ll also be able to send out mass messages to parents on important district developments. Soon, administrators will also be able to use the app’s “stories” feature—similar to Instagram’s feature by the same name—to showcase what’s happening at school.

Meanwhile, teachers will be able to continue messaging parents directly to share videos and pictures from their classrooms, reminders of class assignments, and any concerns they might have about specific students.

The idea behind ClassDojo, which launched in 2011, was to improve communication and strengthen connections between families and schools, Chaudhary said.

“In some ways, we’re just giving people a way to reconstruct the village,” he said. “Parents can’t be there all the time and teachers can’t be home all the time. But if you can have the sense of us being on the same page, you’re rebuilding the village around the classroom.”

Other technology companies operate under the same premise.

Seesaw, for example, offers the same instant messaging capability as ClassDojo, but operates more as a learning management system for elementary schools that also includes lessons, data on student progress that parents can track, and the ability for teachers to assign activities.

It gives parents real-time updates on student progress in different academic areas. Teachers can send videos and photos to parents showing students participating in reading or math activities. Students can also have a hand in deciding specific activities and memories to share with parents.

Seesaw has more closely connected parents to their children’s education, said Tiffany Wood, an instructional technology specialist at the Mid-Del school district in Midwest City, Okla., east of Oklahoma City.

“Teachers get to build that sort of digital scrapbook with kids,” Wood said. “Because parents can’t be in the classroom—they have to work; that’s not an option—now parents can be a part of that educational experience.”

Bringing parents into student learning

The major benefit to platforms like Seesaw and ClassDojo is that they provide parents with a digital look inside the classroom that they wouldn’t otherwise have. If used well, parents gain a deeper understanding of what their kids are learning, through pictures, videos, and messages, and they become part of the process, realizing a core goal of effective parent engagement.

That was the idea behind ParentPowered, a platform that provides parents with weekly text messages with activities, insights, and learning opportunities, so they can continue the learning at home with their children, said Terri Lynn Soutor, the company’s CEO.

ParentPowered specifically aims to serve parents and families who might otherwise have a difficult time becoming engaged school community members. They might speak a language other than English, have multiple jobs, or have other barriers that make it difficult to connect with the school.

Those families “are the ones that are most in need of this high-quality kind of support,” Soutor said.

Unlike Seesaw and ClassDojo, ParentPowered’s platform is technologically basic. It sends text messages to parents’ phones that parent and family engagement researchers have designed to provide caregivers with actionable tools they can use at home with their children. The thinking is that this form of participation will ultimately get them more engaged in their students’ education and more comfortable coming to school in person.

When districts partner with ParentPowered, they can either automatically sign all parents up for the platform, giving parents the ability to opt out, or have parents opt in. The goal is to make it as easy and accessible as possible, not requiring parents to download anything or even have access to Wi-Fi, Soutor said.

“Our approach is really around making the guidance for families, parents, and caregivers very easy and accessible, using the most equitable and research-backed technology that reaches every family—and that is text messaging,” Soutor said.

Accessibility limits are one of the primary downsides to the apps because not every parent has internet access or a smartphone, said Catharyn Shelton, an assistant professor of educational technology at Northern Arizona University.

“I always, with tech, want to ask who benefits and who doesn’t?” Shelton said. “There’s just such clear ways that privileged parties benefit and others do not. While there are opportunities for increased accessibility through offering different channels of communication, there’s other people who are left out.”

The app-based platforms are aware of this limitation, but they argue their products compensate for some of those problems.

ClassDojo and Seesaw offer language translation, for example, so parents who don’t speak English can write to teachers in their native language and the app translates the messages to English.

I always, with tech, want to ask who benefits and who doesn’t? There’s just such clear ways that privileged parties benefit and others do not. While there are opportunities for increased accessibility through offering different channels of communication, there’s other people who are left out.

The platforms can also reach parents who are overseas for work or other reasons, said Matt Given, Seesaw’s CEO.

“They can see what’s happening with their student in real time and it doesn’t have to be a game of telephone, getting the information to the parent that’s overseas,” Given said.

Still, it’s largely up to teachers and school and district leaders to get parents logged on. A small handful of parents of Moline-Coal Valley elementary students don’t use ClassDojo, Prybil said.

“When you get down to that last 5 percent of your families, a lot of it is just reaching out, which we should do anyway,” Prybil said. “If that family can’t get on, then we need to reach out, and ClassDojo just accelerates that reach-out.”

Maintaining student privacy

A top concern about apps like ClassDojo and Seesaw should be student data privacy, said Shelton, of Northern Arizona University. Anytime pictures or videos of students are shared through an internet-based platform, the adults involved should research those apps’ security and privacy policies.

Shelton’s 1st grade daughter’s teacher uses ClassDojo, but is careful to share pictures or videos of students only in a section of the app that’s restricted to parents from the class she said. Shelton said that makes her more comfortable.

“You have to weigh out the risks and benefits of offering up our kids for these tech platforms, to profits and for potential online predators to get lots of information about them and their community,” Shelton said.

ClassDojo is designed to ask for as little identifiable information about students as possible; students can be identified by initials or nicknames or avatars rather than by name, gender, email, address, or student ID number.

The app also deletes “Dojo points,” which students earn from teachers by advancing in social-emotional skills like “grit” or “curiosity,” after a year, and students’ entire profiles are deleted after a year of inactivity, a ClassDojo spokesperson said.

Seesaw restricts access to student videos and photos to people who work directly with students, usually parents and teachers. The platform also works across the world and has to operate under the strictest privacy laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that exists in some European countries, Given said.

“We are obsessed with [privacy] to a very significant degree,” Given said. “It’s a big part of our job, that responsibility.”

Data privacy concerns are especially prevalent with social media platforms, Shelton said. Photos posted to such platforms can be easily shared, and districts should ensure that they’re only featuring students with signed media releases on those platforms, she said.

Going beyond the technology

Sharnae Oden, a 3rd grade teacher at Stevenson Elementary School in Southfield, Mich., uses ClassDojo to communicate with students’ parents. But ClassDojo isn’t the only platform teachers at the school use; some use Remind or Clever, which operate in a similar way.

Oden said the app has been instrumental to improving parent engagement. Rather than calling or emailing parents, or hoping messages make it home in 3rd graders’ backpacks, Oden can use the app.

“There’s not enough time in the day to get to every single thing,” Oden said. “The best way I can try to manage that communication is ClassDojo. We can instant-message each other versus trying to set up a time to meet or trying to meet on the curb after school, which is not always the most feasible time.”

Oden said she occasionally deals with parents who need a lot of support and communication. The app has helped her navigate those situations and kept her from getting frustrated with those parents, she said.

Oden primarily uses the app to contact parents when they don’t have time to meet in person. Sometimes, she’ll message parents to remind them of upcoming school events or assignments, or she’ll ask when they have time to visit the classroom for a deeper discussion if their child is struggling.

That kind of interaction is difficult without ClassDojo, Oden said, as many parents might not check their email or have time for a phone call at work. Oden uses ClassDojo for her own son, who also attends Stevenson, and said it’s also been helpful from the parent perspective.

In Midwest City, Okla., Seesaw has been especially helpful during parent-teacher conferences in the district of more than 12,000 students, Wood said. It allows students to show their favorite lessons and activities to parents during the conferences, and parents get recommendations through the platform on how to further their children’s learning.

The platform “lets the kid present all of the things that they know they’re good at and all the things that they’ve done,” Wood said. “The parent can then be like, ‘Hey, my kid knows they’re getting this, my kid knows that they need to practice this. Now, I can have those conversations at home.’”

That approach—using the app as a starting place to connect with parents rather than the only communication method—should be the ideal for educators, said Shelton and Westmoreland, the National PTA director.

Schools should look for tech programs that “align to the classroom curriculum and say, ‘OK, your child is learning about adding unlike denominators this week. Ask them this question at home,’” Westmoreland said. “That’s very different than sending out the mass message of, ‘Come to the school tomorrow to pick up your child’s uniform.’”

Teachers should also be careful to set and communicate firm boundaries with technology that allows parents constant access through messaging, Shelton said. They should set specific hours for when they’ll read and respond to messages.

“Introducing app-based communication may set bad expectations among caregivers that teachers should be always available to communicate whenever caregivers need,” Shelton said. “The reality is that teachers are paid professionals with official working hours. So when teachers communicate with caregivers outside the work day, it is essentially free labor.”

The National PTA advises educators to get feedback from families to inform decisions about which platforms to use, to invest in texting services like ParentPowered that have greater accessibility, to partner with vendors to improve implementation, and to be transparent with families about the technology platforms.

“It’s the starting place for good family engagement, not the ending place,” Westmoreland said.

Dive Deeper

This story is part of a special reporting project on parent engagement . The Future of Parent Engagement: Parents and caregivers are paying more attention to their children’s education than ever. Here’s what that means for schools . A New Community School Model: Family and community engagement is central to the success of Stevenson Elementary School in Southfield, Mich. See how the transformation started . “Add-on” or Core Skill? Researchers agree family engagement is effective, but few colleges actually teach it . Bridging the Gap: A home visit program is helping parents and teachers build more trusting relationships in Denver. A New Generation of Apps: Tech platforms are changing the way teachers communicate with families. How can schools use them effectively? 5 Strategies: Schools don’t need an influx of money and resources to have effective family engagement. Find out how . ( Here’s a downloadable guide .)

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Opinion | Readers sound off on student protest, Biden’s…

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Opinion | Readers sound off on student protest, Biden’s leadership and police firearms training

The kids are alright — because they are right

Lackawaxen, Pa.: In attempting to placate too many interests, the April 24 editorial “ When protest turns to hatred ” became a travesty. Its only truth lies in the sad recognition that antisemitism survives. But, except as a weapon of insult, that form of racism had little to do with the Columbia University protests, which are a response to the genocide waged against the Palestinian people, which is “horrendous” but not a “lie.”

Israel, if any religious state should be allowed to exist, at least should not have been established where Jews were given political power over a Muslim majority. So, in principle, the pro-Palestinians are correct that Israel should go. But in the real world, the Zionist state is not going anywhere, so the Arabs need to get together with the Jews and figure out a solution. Ideally, that solution would enable both Israelis and Palestinians to travel anywhere within the former Mandatory Palestine.

Although it may be an affront to self-determination, the Palestinians’ apparent preference for decentralized, tribal government is not going to work, so the UN should reinstitute a mandate over the territory allocated to them until they are capable of self-governance. Paternalistic, but unavoidable. Israel should pick up the tab for reconstruction.

Students, especially those of privilege like Columbians, should have the opportunity to express moral outrage, since they may not get another chance to do so. But they should realize that the university is no longer a student-teacher enterprise. It’s just another corporation, so it may lose donors, and sushi may have to be removed from the dining hall menu. John A. MacKinnon

Bronx: I totally disapprove of Benjamin Netanyahu’s scorched-earth destruction of Gaza. What Hamas did was horrendous and inhuman, however, Netanyahu’s response of killing at least 30,000 Gazans, mostly women and children, is equally deplorable. This brings us to the protest at Columbia. Freedom of speech does not include threats of violence, intimidation or infringing on the rights of students who want to attend classes in a quiet learning environment, which they so costly paid for. As a retired teacher and administrator, I did not give up on disruptive students, but I made certain that they did not prevent learning for students who came to school eager to learn. Where was the collegiate uproar when genocide was happening in many African countries? Gilbert M. Lane

Intro to protesting

Whitestone: The anti-student protesters may have trouble wrapping their minds around this, but people protest when they feel that their own leaders are not listening to them, not when anybody anywhere does something they don’t like. President Biden arms Israel and Israel kills civilians, so students protest their government’s policy, as well as their school’s investments in weapons manufacturers. What the hell kind of influence do you think college kids in America have over Hamas leadership? Figure it out! Adrienne Langone

Uncivil disobedience

Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: To Voicer Blake Fleetwood: You draw reference from the 1968 protests at Columbia to address today’s protests. You state: “Peaceful protests and free speech are the hallmarks of American tradition.” After two or three days of protesting in 1968, the president of Columbia invited the NYPD onto campus to stop its destruction. The first sign was a hanging sheet calling us pigs. I was told of, but did not see, the burning of an American flag. As we entered the campus, we were pelted by bottles. Once inside, I saw the destruction to equipment and furniture, rooms with small fires, etc. I was one of the pigs (detectives — pride, integrity, guts) investigating a group called Students for a Democratic Society (Mark Rudd, who would evolve into the bombmaking Weathermen). You and I were both there, yet our memories differ as to a peaceful protest. Randy Jurgensen

It’s on them

Williamsville, N.Y.: Voicer Steven Davies misrepresents Israel’s goals and methods in Gaza. It will take many years to denazify the civilian population of Gaza, which is among the most antisemitic peoples on the face of the Earth; and contrary to Davies, there were no expectations that the IDF would be hailed as liberators in Gaza. Davies is addressing his concerns about destruction in Gaza to the wrong party. Hamas chose to embed terrorists and their infrastructure in civilian areas, and all resultant destruction in those areas is therefore the fault of Hamas. Daniel H. Trigoboff

Pine Plains, N.Y.: Do we have any proof that President Biden is actually a living human being? Watching his pathetic performances on TV, he seems to be a robot, and a primitive, low-tech one at that. Joseph McCluskey

Unpleasant odor

Brookfield, Conn.: I’m at a loss. I don’t know what’s more ridiculous, Voicer Kevin Hanley’s letter or the fact that you printed it. Not enough intelligent letters that day, I guess. Kevin, if the only fault you can find with Trump is some intestinal distress, you might as well vote for him. Biden’s problems are much more serious. And if noxious odors concern you that much, please close your mouth. I can smell it from here. Fred Schoeneborn

Internal corrosion

Hammonton, N.J.: It’s a tough call to figure out who is trying the hardest to destroy America. Certainly, China and Russia are threats, but our own government is proving to be the most destructive. We are being invaded but give money to Ukraine to secure its border. Taxpayer dollars are being given to illegal aliens. Border Patrol is understaffed, but the IRS has expanded to milk citizens as much as possible. We have a choice in November to pick the hated orange man who secured the border or the likable old man whose puppet master will continue to ignore the illegal invasion of this nation. Unfortunately, judging by all these college protests, there are plenty of people who want America destroyed and will vote for that likeable old man, bringing this country to bankruptcy and poverty. William Cook

No more negativity

Brooklyn: That carrot-top mistake of a human being has caused havoc in every facet of the words “life and being” that is imaginable to anyone with common sense. Aren’t we all fed up and tired of seeing, reading and hearing all of his repetitious babble in this continuing saga? It’s time to be done with him. Wake up, U.S.A. It’s time to see some bright sunshine and smiles. Marilyn Kanarick

Uncounted accomplishments

San Francisco: To Voicer Doug Weinberg: Well, Doug, San Fran smells like the B.S. that you are shoveling. You conveniently glazed right over the Infrastructure and Jobs Act, which is creating thousands of good-paying jobs and getting infrastructure repaired where it’s desperately needed, which the former orangutan president promised but never delivered on. Yeah, talk is cheap. Then there is the CHIPS Act, which I’m guessing you don’t know of. This will have most microchip production done in the U.S. again, producing jobs. And you probably think nothing of gun safety legislation because those of your mindset apparently think we should live in the Wild West. Gun safety is a major issue to the majority of Americans. So, Doug, stick to your position and follow the orange maniac wherever he leads you by the nose. Have a nice day! Jimmy Layton

Crowd control

Edgewater, N.J.: Our last president cries that he can not get a fair trial in our midst because he makes us all deranged. Then he appears at photo-ops that seem to be staged by bodega owners, among a few construction workers, and at the tragic funeral of a beloved police officer; and he tells us that people love him everywhere. So, which is it? Jay K. Egelberg

A real shot

Holliswood: Voicer Mary Caggiano is a big fan of TV character Barnaby Jones and his ability to shoot his criminal adversaries in the shoulder. Mary, newsflash: It’s a fictional TV show. Actual police officers are trained to aim for center mass, typically the torso, for a number of reasons: increased accuracy, stopping power and a reduced risk to bystanders. Just saying. Gregory W. Chupa

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