The purpose of this design-based research study was to explore with a few principals the impact that focused student-centered principal leadership would have on working with teachers that would employ particular formative assessment practices that could more deeply engage students intellectually in their school work. The rationale for this study originated from my desire to see more students intellectually engaged in their school work than presently. It was my assumption that student

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... l engagement could be strategically improved by leveraging the combined impact of principal leadership and teacher formative assessment practices. The purposeful sample included four principals from schools with varying grade configurations from the same district. The primary data collection was from two in-depth interviews of the principals. Secondary data sources were from teacher and student self-report surveys. The interview data were transcribed, shared with principal participants to determine accuracy, coded, organized by themes and questions, compared again to the original transcript, and then linked to the conceptual framework to arrive at the findings. The study has shown that student-centered principal leadership is at the heart of building principal capacity. Principal leadership was found to have positive effects on teacher formative assessment practices. Student intellectual engagement measures revealed a negative relationship in intellectual engagement perhaps due to the timing of the student data collection, or student push-back resulting from changes in teacher classroom practice, or established teacher competency. Recommendations are offered for principal leadership development, teacher formative assessment practices, and student intellectual engagement.