Education has transformed over the years, but many aspects of the classroom look and feel the same today as they did in the early years of the traditional school house. A standard educational delivery and curriculum can work for many students, but for those students who do not benefit from a traditional classroom setting, the consequences can mean failure to graduate high school and therefore missing the opportunity to obtain a college degree. Not all students have the same resources to be successful at high school and many lack the vision and stamina to continue after their high school education onto earning a college degree.

This qualitative study looked at a specific educational change that challenged the way teachers were delivering traditional curriculum and the environment in which it was being delivered. The program in this study is identified as the Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH). This qualitative study reviews a specific group of students who were purposefully selected to attend the P-TECH program and identified as being at risk of not graduating high school and earning a college degree. A qualitative study researched the beliefs and actions of five college leaders on the implementation of this innovative educational change program, P-TECH. The relationship of the five leaders’ actions and beliefs related to change and the sustainability of the P-TECH program were analyzed into themes. This analysis triangulated the information on the perceptions and experiences from seven members of the faculty and staff and a sample of 10 students from the original cohort population of 50 students who experienced the educational innovation. The data was analyzed for culminating themes from three guiding research questions which recognized three findings. The results of the research show that leaders’ actions and beliefs impact educational change for both implementation and sustainability. The research also prompted that the initial program design and planning played a critical role in how the students ultimately experienced the program.

This research resulted in several recommendations being made for both educational policy and practice. The most significant of these recommendations identified that leaders should be mindful of a formal change process during the implementation phase of educational innovation. This study looked at the educational change philosophy of Kotter (2012) and the eight steps of change. Specifically, leaders need to consider empowering their staff to give them the capacity to implement the day-to-day operations of change.