Rapid and complex developments in the field of educational management have revealed the limitations of centralized structures and highlighted the necessity of transitioning toward more flexible models of school governance. Within this framework, strategic decentralization has been proposed as a structural approach to enhancing educational quality and strengthening teachers’ professional creativity. The present study was conducted to examine the effect of strategic decentralization on educational quality, with teachers’ professional creativity serving as a mediating variable. This research was correlational in nature and employed structural equation modeling. The statistical population consisted of 225 secondary school teachers from District 4 of Karaj, who were selected through stratified random sampling. Data were collected using questionnaires on decentralization, teachers’ professional creativity, and educational quality, and were analyzed using SPSS and LISREL software. The results indicated that strategic decentralization had a significant direct effect on teachers’ professional creativity (β = 0.75), and professional creativity also had a significant positive direct effect on educational quality (β = 0.54). Furthermore, the indirect effect of decentralization on educational quality through professional creativity was significant (β = 0.40). Model fit indices confirmed an acceptable fit between the proposed model and the empirical data. The findings suggest that strategic decentralization can play a decisive role in improving educational quality by fostering teachers’ professional creativity. Therefore, the purposeful development of decentralization policies, accompanied by structural support for teachers’ professional innovation, is recommended.