Ethical Challenges of School Principals during of COVID-19

Today, societies pay attention to ethics and moral values, emphasizing that moral values ​​should be preserved and kept alive in educational organizations. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to identify the ethical challenges of school principals in the Corona period.

The present study was applied in terms of purpose and qualitative in terms of method. Its statistical population included educational management professors and school principals of West Azerbaijan Province. Sampling was done systematically through snowball technique and based on theoretical saturation criterion. Research data was collected by reviewing 21 articles related to the ethics of educational management or educational leadership in the COVID 19 period and then through semi-structured interviews (17 people) based on the model of qualitative interviews and its criteria, in an approximate time between 25 to 45 min, collected in person, electronically, and by telephone. Data were categorized using thematic analysis method in the form of basic, organized and comprehensive themes.

The results showed that the ethical challenges of school principals in Corona period as a comprehensive theme included 98 basic themes. According to the classification of basic themes, 7 organizing themes, including professional ethics, social-communicative ethics, individual ethics, technical-educational ethics, spiritual ethics, behavioral ethics, and decision-making ethics were obtained.

The results showed that the closure of schools under COVID exacerbated 19 ethical problems in the education policies and practices, creating moral challenges in them. In this regard, principals are expected to use their knowledge and ethical skills to improve their scientific knowledge to address the problem of students at school during the Corona epidemic.