The study on screen integrates the thematic field of school management focusing its investigation on the performance of school leadership, represented in most cases by the principal, in the context of Covid-19 pandemic. Initially, we sought to identify in the literature the concept and typologies of school leadership and how they are associated with autonomy and educational outcomes, having as main reference the concepts of instructional leadership and distributed leadership (Leithwood e Sun, 2012; Spillane, 2005). In addition, a survey of recent national and international production on school management in the context of the pandemic was carried out. Through a case study of a qualitative nature, the experiences of managing two municipal public schools in São José de Ribamar (MA) were investigated to understand how school managers mobilized different resources and developed actions to respond to the challenges generated. and intensified by the pandemic regarding guaranteeing the right to learn for students. The research includes documentary analysis, interviews with supervisors of the municipal education department, principals, and teachers, as well as data from the School Census (2020) and the contextual questionnaires of the teacher and the director of Prova Brasil (2019). The analysis was built from three categories: the sociocultural context, structure and organization of each school, perceptions of school directors and teachers about the profile and actions developed by the school management and the network during this period. The findings of this work initially indicated a considerable centralization of actions in the secretariat with little space for pedagogical guidance for schools and principals, in contrast to the relevance of the role of principals for the reorganization of the school routine. In this last aspect, it was observed that the process required the collaboration of teachers and pointed to a more autonomous, distributed, and instructional leadership in one of the cases. In the other, it indicates a school dependent on the guidelines of the secretariat and a leadership focused on more administrative issues. If, on the one hand, directors develop different actions and mobilize different resources according to their experience, training, and knowledge, on the other hand, the lack of training and support from the central body constitutes one of the biggest obstacles to development of their autonomy and leadership.