“We Do Better Working Together in Community”: Educators Reconceptualizing Professional Roles and Engagement During COVID-19

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Family, School, Community Partnerships and Teacher Education (Table 20)

Abstract

This research focuses on educators’ reconceptualizations of their professional roles and community-engagement strategies during the closing of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By engaging in Zoom conversations with educators, we present results of the various ways they shifted their professional roles and engagement with their most disadvantaged students and families to better meet their needs. Extending the scholarship on radical care (Rivera-McCutchen, 2021) and community-centered practices (Author et al., 2022), we found that these educators shifted their relational approaches with their students and families by not only focusing on academics but also meeting with them in the community. This study’s findings contribute to research efforts to redefine family-school engagement by centering equity, care, and community.

Authors

• Leticia Alvarez Gutiérrez, University of Utah

• Taeyeon Kim, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

• Sonny Partola, University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point

• Paul J. Kuttner, University of Utah

• Gerardo R. López, Michigan State University

• Almaida Yanagui, University of Utah

• Laura Hernandez, Community Organizer

• Amadou Niang, Salt Lake City School District

• Jenny Mayer-Glenn, University of Utah