School administrators' opinions on the challenges they faced during the Covid-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected people's personal, social and educational lives and has made changes necessary in many areas, especially education. All these changes have brought along some difficulties. School administrators have faced the most difficulties in education. It has become even more important for school administrators and teachers during the pandemic process for individuals to struggle with difficulties, produce alternative solutions and adapt to new situations. The purpose of this study is to examine the opinions of school administrators on the difficulties they faced during the Covid-19 pandemic. Case study design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the study. The study group consisted of 25 school administrators working in public and private schools in Istanbul. The data were obtained through face-to-face interviews using a semi-structured interview form. The data obtained were transformed into written texts and evaluated with the content analysis technique. According to the findings of the research, school administrators stated that when face-to-face education started after the pandemic process, a serious contamination anxiety prevailed in the school. The students' insufficient sensitivity to mask-distance rules increased this anxiety. Contamination anxiety was followed by difficulties in adapting to distance education. School administrators emphasized thedifficulties related to distance education as not being efficient for young age groups, teachers' inability to follow and control students, and not knowing how to use distance education platforms; they explained that they had difficulty in motivating students and teachers for distance education and establishing healthy communication with parents in this process. Administrators stated that these problems further disrupted the functioning of education, which was negatively affected by the pandemic. In addition, it can be said that administrators who have professional competence, can produce alternative solutions to the difficulties they face, and who have disciplined and patient personality traits also have higher psychological resilience in coping with difficulties.