Educator Perspectives on Building-Led School Change Leadership

• In Event: Education for Liberation: Centering Marginalized Students in a Theory-to-Practice Model of School Change

Abstract

Objective
Education for Liberation is built on a model of School Change Leadership that engages every educator in naming, reflecting upon, and taking action to address racial equity and social justice with new ways of thinking, acting, and relating to marginalized student populations. This paper aims to share the stories of educators who participated in this school change effort by illuminating the affordances and constraints of implementing school change in an urban elementary school.

Theoretical framework
School change is a nonlinear complex endeavor with many contextual factors impacting success (Strom & Viesca, 2020). Kemmis et al.’s (2014) Theory of Practice Architecture is a framework for examining the contextually specific relationship between practices, language, and power as social practices. These practices take up characteristic arrangements of sayings (what is said), doings (what is done), and relatings (how people relate to ach other) that are particular to the school site/context. To radically transform schools, we must understand these site-specific social practices or the cultural-discursive (discourses), material-economic (practices), and social-political (relationships) arrangements that constrain or enable change for equity and justice.

Method of Inquiry
Educators’ perceptions of the E4L model of school change was qualitatively analyzed using the Theory of Practice Architecture (Kemmis et al., 2014). Focus group video data was viewed informally twice, transcribed, and analyzed to answer this research question: “How do educators represent their school’s E4L professional learning?” Themes emerged around what enabled teachers’ professional learning and what constrained implement the Enduring Principles pedagogy. Then, data chunks were reviewed and coded for sayings, doings, and relatings.

Data sources
Four focus groups of 23 educators were conducted at the end of the two-year intervention in one urban elementary school. The focus groups were (a) the School Change Leadership Team (SCL), (b) PreK, K, and 1st-grade teachers, (c) 2nd-3rd-grade teachers, and (d) 4th-6th-grade teachers. While the analysis focused on the responses and experiences of the School Change Leadership (SCL) Team members, teachers’ focus group responses were also analyzed for similarities and/or contradictions.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions
Educators’ focus group responses indicated that the E4L model was more impactful than other professional learning opportunities in which they had participated. Educators’ responses told several stories about this two-year change cycle. Overwhelmingly, participants said E4L was more meaningful professional learning for several reasons, including the structure of the professional learning engagements, the content, and the commitment of staff and administrators working together. They described how they could rethink their teaching beliefs and practices and connect the curriculum with students’ lived experiences.

Scholarly Significance
These findings contribute to understanding the trainer-of-trainer E4L school-based model for school change. For educators, the structure, content, and commitment to school-wide professional learning became an exercise in reculturing their school (Fullan, 2007). Educators reframed their habits of mind and unconscious ways of teaching (Mezirow, 2012). E4L exemplifies how building leaders, in partnership with university teacher educators, can unsettle dominant and unsuccessful institutional practices (Wilson & Horsford, 2014).

Authors

• Sara E. Bangert, Indiana University - Indianapolis

• Frances Rivera, Indianapolis Public Schools