Leading Urban Schoolteachers of Black and Brown Students During Social Injustice and the Pandemic

• In Event: Leading Through the Pandemic: Serving Students Through Different Leadership Channels, Moving Online, and Mitigating Disruption

Abstract

This study illuminates an innovative approach to leadership during times of disruption that combines leadership for learning and cultural proficiency. The study focuses on educators from a large urban charter school whose response to the pandemic and the social justice movements was using a year-long professional development to provide continuous support and foster a growth mindset among educators. Self-evaluation on the cultural proficiency scale showed that the principal and thirty teachers differed in their levels of proficiency. Qualitative interviews helped participants interrogate their personal interpretations of the connections between their cultural proficiency, their awareness of structural inequities, and the ways this awareness might have impacted how they teach Black and Brown students in their classrooms. New framework and recommendations emerged.

Authors

• Nicole Patterson, School District of Philadelphia
  Presenting Author

• Aubrey H. Wang, Saint Joseph's University
  Presenting Author