Changing From Within: The Impact of a Small-Scale Equity Reform on the School System

• In Event: District-Level Reforms for Equity: Politics and Implementation Challenges

Abstract

The current call to reform public schooling systems to equitably serve our most marginalized students raises the question of whether and how major reform can be accomplished within existing school systems. The purpose of this study is to share the efforts of central office leaders in one district who decided to take on this responsibility by piloting a prototype school-within-a school centered around a humanizing curriculum. Despite being a small-scale pilot that enrolled only 75 of the district’s 17,000 students, this innovative approach to schooling required central office leaders to adapt multiple aspects of the existing school system. This study examines the changes central office leaders made to support their new school, and the challenges and affordances they encountered.

Authors

• Lok-Sze Wong, University of North Texas

• Jeanne M. Powers, Arizona State University