Becoming the Force for Innovation

In this chapter, the authors, former school and district leaders, submit that COVID-19 is a force that has caused collective sight and accelerated momentum relative to shifts we have always known we needed to make in education but haven't yet made at scale. Those shifts, manifested in instructional practice, equitable systems, and the strategic integration of technology, represent an urgency COVID-19 has revealed as an absolute. The authors argue that too often we have hidden behind readiness as a barrier to translating urgency to the lived experience of learners. COVID-19 has shown us our readiness matters little in a global pandemic. Ready or not, educators will respond in the face of unprecedented circumstances. How then, might educators become the force COVID-19 has been to ensure continued momentum?

A Critical Review of Secondary Educational Shifts to Online Learning Modalities in the COVID-19 Pandemic

The widespread impact of the COVID-19 pandemic affected K12 schools globally. This unprecedented disruption to education transformed teaching and learning experiences for children, teachers, administrators, and parents in many ways. The challenge of shifting traditional classroom teaching to online and distance modalities were met with various responses by school leaders and communities across the globe. This critical review highlights recent responses to continuing education for K12 students through collaborative efforts as the delivery of instruction as redefined and redesigned to meet the needs of children. Despite the lack of preparedness for this sudden shift to online learning, K12 district leaders and other stakeholders demonstrated their commitment to navigate through this crisis head-on. While disparities and unequal access became more evident during this unforeseen time, the future of online learning can be strengthened by this experience. This awareness can lead to further improvements in K12 education to serve all children with equity despite the circumstances.

“Their Own Personal Unicorn”: The Workplace Experiences of Transgender Teachers

Multiple studies have shown that transgender individuals routinely face increased levels of hostility and discrimination in the workplace compared to their cisgender peers; this is also true for transgender educators, who are often marginalized or silenced for expressing their gender diversity. Exploring the experiences of transgender teachers can provide much-needed information for school and district leaders seeking to support and affirm transgender individuals as valued members of the school community. The workplace experiences of six transgender educators in various teaching roles were examined in this qualitative study. The researchers utilized semistructured interviews to explore participants’ professional lives, focusing on factors that affected decisions to reveal or conceal their gender identities, the climate of the schools in which they worked, and their support for LGBTQ students. Findings suggest that while support for LGBTQ teachers is growing, heteronormativity persists in troubling ways, particularly for transgender educators. Implications of these findings for school and district leaders are discussed.

Stress and its Impacts among Pastors in the Moravian Church of Tanzania

This study sought to establish stress and its potential impacts among pastors in the Moravian Church of Tanzania. The study adopted the mixed methods research approach whereby interview schedule and closed-ended questionnaire gathered data from respondents. The study comprised of 41 out of 120 population of pastors selected through simple random sampling, including one Bishop, four provincial and district leaders and thirty-six church pastors. Disagreement between church members and pastors was found to be one of stressors to pastors. It is therefore high time to intervene with strong means and alternatives so that pastors work in supportive environments. In order to enhance working morale among pastors it is essential to keep them motivated. Furthermore, the Moravian Church of Tanzania needs to review policies on working conditions so that pastors will work comfortably. The church should also establish regular seminars and trainings to educate pastors on essential skills, such as leadership and financial management in order to reduce unnecessary conflicts with church members and leadership as the conflicts are the causatives of stress.

Concluding Comments and Looking Ahead

This chapter provides concluding reflections and implications for future work in school development amidst global trends toward evidence-based practice, tensions between centralization of curriculum and evaluation policy and the needs of particular, and increasingly diverse communities, schools, and students. We see the globalization of evidence-based school development policies and university-community partnerships, the use of generalizable models developed from experimental design, and increasingly diverse demographics in schools. Thus, we have argued that context matters; evidence does not necessarily mean that a model developed from an experimental design is appropriate for a problem of practice in particular school settings. At the same time, school and district leaders benefit from dialogue within levels and beyond as they work toward improvement in order to navigate the Zone of Uncertainty in their particular school and community context and in relation to particular problems of practice affecting schools in other communities, other states, or even other nation states.

Evidence That In-Service Professional Learning for Educational Leaders Matters

Educator leadership requires continuous development, including extended professional learning opportunities for principals in the field. This is also true for district leaders who likely have even fewer robust opportunities to grow professionally. We conducted a comparative interrupted time series of publicly available student achievement data from New Mexico to analyze the impact of a university-based organization that partners with district leaders to provide intensive professional learning opportunities for district leaders and school principals. We found positive impacts on student achievement in math and for English learners in English language arts. Implications for educator preparation and in-service programs are considered.

Where Were the Mexicans? The Story is a Conversation

This essay explores the institutionalized master narrative of public institutions and how the mandated policies enacted by public institutions impact social studies teachers when they are delivering instruction to their students. A socio-transformative constructivist framework guides the essay in order to affirm that knowledge is socially constructed and mediated by cultural, historical, and institutional contexts (Rodriguez, 1998; Rodriguez & Berryman, 2002). This essay also examines how educators can go beyond the teaching of their course curriculum to enact change at their campus and district. Also, this essay examines how district leaders can support teachers who want to be social justice change agents.

Relinquishing power: creating space for youth of color leaders

PurposeThe purpose of this manuscript is to demonstrate how school and district leaders supported the youth of color leadership initiatives at the district and school levels in ways to advance youth agencies and transformative change. The specific research question guiding this study was What actions do formalized leaders engage in to share leadership opportunities with the youth of color that protect student agencies and control?Design/methodology/approachA multi-site qualitative case study design was used, drawing on the understanding of shared leadership and student voice as analytical lenses.FindingsLeaders across both sites supported the youth of color leadership in three ways: (1) being open to new and different sources of knowledge related to persistent issues of inequity in their schools; (2) initiating spaces for the youth of color to engage in leadership and (3) buffering student leaders from outside pressures.Research limitations/implicationsThis research demonstrates the ways leaders with positional power can support youth of color leadership while not removing youth agencies and independence.Originality/valueThis manuscript contributes to existing scholarship by demonstrating how the understanding of shared leadership and student voice scholarship combines to deepen understanding of supporting youth of color leadership.

On Leadership: In equity efforts, which voices should be included — and excluded?

In a time when political activists are raising controversy about schools’ pandemic responses and critical race theory, how can district leaders decide who to listen to? Josh Starr considers the possibility that some voices should be excluded from the conversation.