KEPEMIMPINAN KEPALA SEKOLAH DALAM MENGEMBANGKAN SEKOLAH EFEKTIF :Studi di SMA Titian Teras Muara Jambi, SMA Negeri 1 Kota Jambi dan SMA Negeri 2 Sarolangun

Penelitian dilatarbelakangi kepemimpinan kepala sekolah dalam mengembangkan sekolah efektif belum sepenuhnya mencapai harapan yang diinginkan oleh masyarakat. Kepala sekolah sebagai pemimpin sekolah belum sepenuhnya menunjukkan kinerja yang memuaskan. Hal ini jelas akan mempengaruhi mutu pendidikan di sekolah. Fokus penelitian ini adalah kepemimpinan kepala sekolah dalam mengembangkan sekolah efektif.Rumusan masalah penelitian adalah: Mengapa kepemimpinan kepala sekolah berkaitan erat dengan pengembangan sekolah efektif? dijabarkan ke dalam pertanyaan penelitian (1) bagaimanakah visi kepemimpinan kepala sekolah dalam mengembangkan sekolah efektif?, (2) bagaimanakah cara kepala sekolah dalam mengembangkan sekolah efektif?, (3) bagaimanakah kepemimpinan manajerial kepala sekolah dalam mengembangkan sekolah efektif?, (4) faktor-faktor apa yang menghambat dalam mengembangkan sekolah efektif?, (5) bagaimanakah alternatif strategi memecahkan masalah dalam pengembangan sekolah efektif?. Tujuan penelitian adalah: (1) memperoleh deskripsi empirik tentang kemampuan kepemimpinan kepala sekolah dalam mengembangkan sekolah efektif, (2) memperoleh hasil analisis keterkaitan temuan dengan temuan penelitian terdahulu, (3) merekomendasikan alternatif solusi tentang kepemimpinan kepala sekolah dalam mengembangkan sekolah efektif, (4) mengetahui kemampuan manajerial kepala sekolah dalam mengembangkan sekolah efekftif,(5) mengetahui hambatan dalam pengembangan sekolah efektif. Teori yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah teori kepemimpinan (leadership) dan sekolah efektif. Prosedur penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif. Tempat penelitian di tiga sekolah. Informan ditentukan secara porposif, snowball sampling, internal sampling dan sampling waktu. Data dikumpulkan melalui wawancara mendalam, observasi partisipan dan studi dokumentasi serta triangulasi. Analisis data dilakukan dengan menelaah data, menata, mensistesis, mencari pola dan menemukan apa yang bermakna secara sistematis. Keabsahan data didasarkan pada empat kriteria, yaitu derajat kepercayaan, keteralihan, kebergantungan dan kepastian. Temuan penelitian ini adalah (1) kemampuan kepala sekolah dalam merumuskan visi kepemimpinan bervariasi sesuai dengan kemampuan dan pemahamannya, (2) strategi kepala sekolah dalam mengembangkan sekolah efektif, tergantung dari kemampuan dan pemahaman kepala sekolah dalam pemahaman sekolah efektif, (3) kapasitas manajerial kepala sekolah bervariasi sesuai tingkat keterampilannya, (4) setiap sekolah terdapat beberapa hambatan dalam pengembangan sekolah efektif, tergantung kondisi sekolah tersebut, dan (5) pada dasarnya kepala sekolah telah berusaha mencari alternatif strategi dalam mengatasi hambatan-hambatan pengembangan sekolah efektif. Kesimpulan. Dalam pengembangan sekolah efektif, kepala sekolah secara komprehensif telah berupaya menjalankan peran dan fungsinya sebagai pemimpin di sekolah. Dalam pengembangan sekolah efektif, kepala sekolah selalu berpedoman kepada visi dan misi sekolah. Kepala sekolah mempunyai strategi dalam upaya mengembangkan sekolah efektif. Kepala sekolah juga telah berupaya menanggulangi permasalahan-permasalahan dalam pengembangan sekolah efektif. Rekomendasi. Kepala sekolah harus selalu meningkatkan kompetensi dan pengembangan diri melalui berbagai macam pelatihan-pelatihan dan pendidikan. Pemerintah harus selalu mengadakan penilaian kinerja kepala sekolah dan melaksanakan bimbingan teknis peningkatan kinerja kepala sekolah. This research is based on the fact that the principal's leadership in fostering effective school hasn't been able to fulfill expectation of our society. The performance of the school's leader, the principal, has not so far shown the best and satisfying result. For sure, this flaw can affect the quality of education at school. This research focuses on the principal's leadership in fostering and developing effective school. The statement of problems are: Why leadership at school correlates to the effective school development? It is then manifested in the research of (1) what is the vision of a principal as the school leader to foster effective school?, (2) how is the way of a principal to foster an effective school?, (3) how the principal's managerial leadership can foster effective school?, (4) what factors that impede ahead in fostering an effective school? (5) what alternative strategy that can be used to solve the problem in dealing with fostering effective school? The purposes of this research are: (1) to know empiric description about the leadership skill of a principal in fostering effective school, (2) to know the relationship analysis between this research with the prior research done in the past time, (3) to recommend the alternative solution about principal's leadership in fostering effective school, (4) to know the managerial skill of a principal in fostering effective school, (5) to know the barriers in developing effective school. The theories employed in this research are the leadership and effective principal theory. The research procedure in this research uses qualitative approach. The place where this research conducted are in three different schools. The informants determined by doing purposive sampling, snowball sampling, and by implementing internal sampling as well as time sampling. The data collected by doing deep and intensive interview, participants observation and documentation study as well as triangulation. The data analysis conducted by scrutinizing the data, managing, synthesizing, and looking for the pattern as well as finding the meaning systematically. The data validity is based on four criteria – degree of confidence, change, dependence and certainty. The findings from this research are (1) the ability of principals in terms of formulating vision is varied correlated to their skill and understanding, (2) the principals' strategy in fostering effective school depends on their ability and understanding about the effective school, (3) managerial capacity of a principals varies based on their skill, (4) each school has barriers that hamper all of them in fostering effective school, each school has different barriers, (5) basically, every principal has done several efforts to implement the right strategy in solving those barriers. Conclusion. To foster the effective school, the principals have actually been doing some efforts and strategies in their school. They did that according to the guidance and compass prevailed at their school – vision and mission. Indeed that have strategies to solve every problem they face in fostering effective school. Recommendation. The principals or headmasters have to always improve their competence and develop themselves by doing research and participating in training or education. The government has to arrange kind of performance assessment on the principals as well as give them technical guidance to boost their performance at school.