Finding Opportunities in the Crisis of COVID-19: Central Office Perspectives on Reframing Leadership

• In Event: Central Office Leadership Approaches Toward Equity

Abstract

Emerging research on the COVID-19 pandemic suggests that school leaders should manage and mitigate the crisis unfolding before them. In this study, we use a sensemaking framework to examine how district leaders moved beyond merely managing the crisis of the pandemic to finding opportunities in the crisis. We draw on interviews with central office leaders across 30 districts during the 2019-2020 school year to understand perspectives around leadership during COVID-19. We find that while all districts in our sample viewed the pandemic as a disruption, a small group of districts saw the pandemic as a way to reframe their conceptualization of leadership and redesign practices around hiring, support, and accountability to align with their beliefs around equity.

Authors

• Christine M. Neumerski, University of Maryland - College Park

• Ellen B. Goldring, Vanderbilt University

• Anna Moyer, Vanderbilt University

• Laura K. Rogers, University of Utah

• Mollie Rubin, Vanderbilt University