Queer Resistance, Detracking & Racelighting: A Historical Case of an Urban Mountain-West High School

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium historicizes detracking reforms, school improvement initiatives, and queer student resistance at a Mountain West high school, with attention to the role of racelighting practices. Utilizing archival research, oral histories, counterstory methodology, and policy analysis, it charts leadership decisions from early detracking experiments to contemporary equity challenges. The session explores how racelighting—where BIPOC and queer students and educators doubt their own experiences—shaped reform trajectories and how queer resistance prompted policy and practice shifts. By embedding local narratives within administrative and organizational frameworks, the symposium surfaces strategies that leaders can adopt to counter racelighting, implement inclusive detracking, and sustain equitable improvement. Centering marginalized queer voices and racelighting counterstories, it offers concrete pathways for leadership committed to transformative justice in schools.

Sub Unit

• Division A - Administration / Division A - Section 4: School Contexts and Communities

Chair

• Nicole C. Wilson Steffes, University of Utah & Westminster University

Papers

• Archival Foundations: Detracking in Context - Katie Nitka, Salt Lake City School District

• Racelighting Counterstories in Practice - Nicole C. Wilson Steffes, University of Utah & Westminster University

• Queer Resistance and School Improvement - Sonny Partola, University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point

• Leadership Pathways for Inclusive Detracking - Laura Cheney, University of Utah

Session Organizer

• Nicole C. Wilson Steffes, University of Utah & Westminster University

Discussant

• Laurence Parker, University of Utah