| The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the self-perceptions of Alabama public school principals' related to their knowledge of education law in the areas of compulsory attendance, discipline, due process, freedom of expression (press and speech), religion, corporal punishment, and search and seizure. A second purpose of this study was to determine the variation in self-perceptions of their knowledge of education law related to students' rights by the type of degree held by the public school principals, the level of the school in which the principal serves, the number of years of school administrative experience that principals have, the most recent law preparation principals received, and the number of education law courses they have taken.;The Alabama Principals' Legal Survey (APLS), a forced-choice 44-item instrument, was used to collect demographic and professional information. Additionally, the APLS was used to determine Alabama public school principals' self-perceived knowledge of education law in the select areas of students' rights. The APLS was submitted to principals electronically via Survey MonkeyRTM. The survey was submitted to 331 principals via the simple random sampling technique. There were 312 surveys returned, yielding a 94.3% response rate.;Data were analyzed in two ways: descriptive and inferential statistics. The analyses of variance (ANOVA) and the post hoc test were employed to determine if there was a statistically significant difference in the mean self-ratings of the principals' knowledge of education law (dependent variable) by the independent variables. The ANOVA revealed that there were statistically significant differences between the principals' highest level of degree earned and their self-perceived education law knowledge. Additionally, there was a statistically significant difference between years of administrative experience and principals' self-perceived knowledge in education law pertaining to students' rights component of compulsory attendance. The ANOVA indicated that statistically significant differences existed in all education law components relating to students' rights and the principals' self-perception of their knowledge in education law by the number of education law courses that they had taken.;Recommendations include requiring that school districts conduct in-service seminars related to education law and requiring the Alabama State Department of Education partner with the Council of Leaders in Alabama Schools (CLAS) to fund principals' attendance at the annual Law Conference. Also, it is recommended that all colleges and universities offer education law courses in Instructional Leadership preparation programs at the Class A and Class AA levels. |
