Realizing the Potential of Whole Child Education: Developing Systems for Teacher Leadership in Community Schools

• In Event: Community Schools: A Strategy for Supporting and Sustaining (BIPOC) Teachers

Abstract

During the 2022 convening of the International Summit on the Teaching Profession, ministers and union leaders from across the globe highlighted the need to reinvent the role of teachers in building more inclusive and sustainable communities (NCEE, 2022). Daniel, Quartz, and Oakes (2019) explore the role of the community school teacher in supporting this task, but little attention has been paid to the systems required to support new conceptualizations of teacher leadership in creating and sustaining whole child approaches in community school settings (Author et al., 2021).

This paper shares implications from an exploratory dual-case study of Anaheim Union High School District in California and Surrey Schools in British Columbia conducted from 2021-2023 by a research team from the University of South Carolina and UCLA. Drawing on extensive document reviews, purposeful sampling of teacher and administrator interviews and focus groups, and participant observation via site visits and inter-district learning exchanges, we identified six key drivers and accelerants (embedded and promising practices) for teacher innovation needed for a system of whole child education. In this presentation, we focus on approaches to developing systems to support community school teacher leadership.

This paper elaborates on two accelerants from the study - spurring school-university-community partnerships that prepare teachers as change agents and redesigning the job of teaching to transform professional learning environments - to suggest six ways to support systems of teacher leadership for whole child education:

1. Invest more education personnel funds in hybrid roles for teachers, while simultaneously preparing them as change agents with other school leaders;
2. Create more teacher collaboration time by streamlining teaching schedules, moving to team teaching models (Next Education Workforce, 2023) and including allied professionals in the community as part of a district’s human capital strategy.
3. Develop joint appointments for faculty who currently serve in siloed roles in school districts, universities, and community colleges;
4. Evolve teaching evaluation processes to identify the strengths, expertise, and passions of every teacher to fuel the spread of innovations;
5. Capitalize on advancing learning platforms to assemble evidence of localized impact (Safir & Dugin, 2021) of leading teachers in advancing student-led learning and redesigned whole child accountability; and,
6. Redesign the lockstep salary schedule, building off “extra service pay” positions found in many CBAs to place a premium on informal leadership and teachers who develop whole child innovations and spread their expertise to colleagues in the district and the community.

This study demonstrates the need for reimagined partnerships between K-12 school districts, institutions of higher education, unions, community partners and technology companies, in addition to reimagined collaboration amongst teachers and school staff. Such reconceptualizations have significant implications for the future of teacher development policies needed to realize the power and potential of whole child education and community schooling.

Authors

• Barnett Berry, University of South Carolina

• Natalie L. Fensterstock, University of California - Los Angeles