Educational Leadership, CAS

Future Leaders Scholarship covering up to 66% of tuition!
Additional scholarships are available

The highest standard for school leadership preparation in New York State.

New York State schools need more than capable administrators. They need leaders who can build cultures of belonging, advocate fiercely for every student, and navigate the legal, political, and human complexities of 21st-century education with skill and confidence.

The fully online CAS in Educational Leadership prepares working educators across New York State to be building leaders, principals, and superintendents. It features a curriculum aligned with NYS’s school administration certification requirements and live clinical simulations that no other state program can match.

Application Deadline: June 1 | More admissions information

Why Educational Leadership at Syracuse?

From your first course, Leadership for Diverse Learners and Communities, through your administrative internship, the CAS in Educational Leadership will help you build the skills, dispositions, and cultural responsiveness needed to ensure every student has full and equal access to a high-quality education.

• Faculty bring scholarship and experience. Courses are led by nationally recognized scholars in equity-focused school leadership whose books are among the most widely used texts in the field, alongside faculty with decades of school administrative experience.
• Richer experiential learning than competing programs. Every course includes hands-on experiential components, and the year-long internship provides more real-world leadership opportunities than comparable programs across the state.
• Live simulations in every course. The School of Education’s Center for Experiential Pedagogy and Practice embeds live simulations with trained actors into every course, letting you navigate the high-stakes situations that define the administrator’s role. No other educational leadership program in NYS prepares candidates this way.
• Cohorts become your professional network. The program’s cohort model means that you learn alongside the same group of emerging leaders. That shared experience allows you to develop the trust, mutual accountability, and strong relationships that define exceptional leadership.
• Financial support brings a Syracuse degree within reach. The Future Leaders Scholarship provides up to 66% off university tuition rates, with no separate application required. This makes our tuition comparable to SUNY rates. The Rising Educational Leaders of Color Scholarship offers additional targeted support.
• Transfer credits into a doctoral degree. The Ed.D. in Educational Leadership requires 60 credits of coursework and is structured to be completed in three years. Students who hold a certificate in educational leadership or a qualifying master’s degree may transfer up to 30 prior graduate credits (total credits will vary accordingly).

“Syracuse’s CAS in Educational Leadership prepared me for educational administration through hands-on, real-world scenarios that challenged me to think like a leader. These were experiences that continue to influence how I approach leadership today.”
—Pamela Odom G’03, Superintendent, Syracuse City School District

Who Should Apply?

This certificate program is designed for practicing K-12 educators who are ready to move into building or district administration.

If you are a classroom teacher, instructional coach, department chair, curriculum specialist, or school specialist with at least three years of experience—and you are committed to leading schools where every student belongs and every student succeeds—this program is built for you.

The program is particularly well-suited to educators who want to understand why schools fail students, build skills to change that, and lead with the preparation that only comes from training through real situations, not just reading about them.

Program at a Glance

The Certificate of Advanced Study in Educational Leadership is a fully online, 30-credit program, consisting of eight required courses (24 credits) plus a six-credit administrative internship.

• Study around your schedule: The program is delivered entirely online through synchronous evening courses, with no campus residency requirement. Choose our accelerated two-year pathway (two courses per week) or the popular three-year pathway (one course per week).
• Year-long administrative internship: Students who have completed 15 credits are eligible for the six-credit internship in school and district leadership. The internship can be structured as full-time, half-time, or individually developed, and provides supervised experience across building and district functions. This model is more extensive and more intentionally sequenced than internship components at most competing programs.
• A curriculum built across the full scope of school leadership: Coursework spans leadership for diverse learners and communities, curriculum and instructional leadership, organizational and institutional development, inclusive schooling, district and building leadership, and the legal basis of education.

More information on academic requirements available in the Syracuse University Course Catalog.

What Our Graduates Do

Graduates step into leadership immediately. Many become principals or assistant principals within their first year after completing the program, while others move into director-level and district administrative roles based on their own career goals and timelines. Roles our graduates hold include:

• Principal or assistant principal, across elementary, middle, and high school settings
• Director of curriculum and instruction, special education, or student services
• Director of specialized programs, including career and technical education, English language learners, or student support services
• Assistant superintendent, superintendent, or district-level administrator

Up to 30 credits from the certificate in Educational Leadership can be transferred to SOE’s Ed.D. in Educational Leadership.