The Principal and the PEA (Parent Education Association)

Abstract

With discourse on immigration policies being brought to the forefront in U.S. education, educational leaders need to be more conscious than ever of changing demographics, diversity, and the multilingual and multicultural value of their students and community. This case study focuses on how educational leaders engage with Latino/a parents and how caregivers in Southwest borderland rural communities can assist in the academic success of their Latino/a students from a culturally responsive approach. The principal and the PEA (Parent Education Association) encourages administrators to engage in conversations regarding immigration policies and parental involvement in hopes of better understanding cultural disparities in parental involvement.

Keywords

cultural competence culturally responsive leadership ethic of care social justice Latino/a families immigrant students parental involvement

Background

Del Norte High School can be found in the north valley of one of the poorest counties in the Southwest United States. The school is located in a large rural area with many small communities including the village of Del Norte. The total population of Del Norte, which is located 60 miles north of the second largest city in the state, is 4,800. Del Norte ranks toward the bottom in educational attainment percentages. This community is primarily agricultural, its industry and primary places of employability being dairy, onion, corn, and pecan farms. Demographically, Del Norte’s population self-identifies as Latino given their Mexican descent and comprises 93% of the population. The remaining 7% of the population self-identifies as White. Although the county does not have exact figures, it is believed that roughly 40% of its residents are residing in the community without proper documentation.

The Del Norte School District has approximately 1,200 students, all of whom receive free and reduced lunch. There are three schools in the District—an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school, the latter of which enrolls 405 students. The median poverty rate for school-aged children in the county is 48%, making it the poorest county in the region, a stark difference from the 16.5% poverty rate for U.S. school-aged children (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016). In addition, no public transportation is available in the county, and thus students must be transported to school via school buses or by family. The lack of public transportation is also a challenge for working families struggling to keep or even gain full-time employment. Securing employment is an issue that has plagued this area since the most recent recession, with many in the community serving as migrant farmworkers. Compounding the economic issues for this area is budget cuts across major sectors of the state that are funded by the federal government. In addition, the projection for new positions in the area is grim, with recent policies aimed to incentivize small businesses via tax cuts simply not producing in the manner that had been expected. Last, the unemployment rate in this county is also the highest in the state.

In addition, 71% of the students are classified as English Language Learners (ELL) with Spanish being the native language. In the village of Del Norte, only 4.5% of residents in the county over the age of 25 have earned a 4-year college degree, which is below the national average of 30.3% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016). Only 20.5% of residents in the county have obtained a high school diploma, again, well below the national average of 87% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016).

Case Narrative

Del Norte High School’s superintendent, Dr. Joaquin Sanchez, who is now serving in his tenth year, recently spoke to the local newspaper on the challenges the District has encountered. He covered issues including funding, recruiting and retaining qualified teachers and administrators, and student enrollment in postsecondary education following the completion of high school. The interview took place on a hot August day in his conference room located at the school district’s main office. The building is in desperate need of extensive repair as evidenced by the numerous oscillating fans circulating hot air to provide some reprieve from the broken air conditioner units.

The interview came at the request of the local newspaper’s educational liaison, Susana Reyes. Ms. Reyes wanted to better understand the Superintendent’s decision to hire Allison D. Sterling as Del Norte High School’s principal because she felt it was suspect that Ms. Sterling, one of three finalists for the position, was the only candidate without direct ties to the community and showed less understanding of the local issues in the Village. Superintendent Sanchez, in answering her questions, demonstrated an immense confidence in Ms. Sterling, saying, “Principal Sterling is going to address the greatest area of need for the students enrolled at Del Norte, matriculation to college.”

Ms. Reyes left the interview wondering whether there was any external pressure from the state with regard to the hiring of the new principal. In wanting to better understand the pulse of the community, Ms. Reyes interviewed two community members who spoke under the guise of anonymity. The first interviewee who has two children enrolled at Del Norte High School shared thoughts on the position announcement by remarking, “Of the candidates who interviewed, she [Ms. Sterling] was the only one who failed to speak on issues that directly relate to me. As an undocumented individual in this community, I worry about the safety of my children at school, and think this may no longer be a safe place for me and my family.” The second parent worried that the knowledge and skills he possessed culturally were not going to be valued or incorporated into any proposed changes made by the school’s administration.

Ms. Sterling was hired to serve as the fourth principal of Del Norte High School in late July, despite a small but strong opposition. Ms. Sterling, who is a White female in her early 60s, recently retired as a high school principal from a charter school in the northeast area of the United States. The demographics from her previous school were primarily middle- to upper-class families. The school boasted a strong academic record with well over 95% of the students attending her school enrolling in postsecondary education following the completion of high school. As a school leader, Ms. Sterling’s approach is best described as that of a bureaucratic leader.

The need to hire a new principal at the high school was prompted by Rosa Robles’s recent retirement due to health reasons at the end of the spring semester. She had been the devoted Del Norte principal for 14 years and was going to be sorely missed. Both principals at the elementary and middle school were still in place and have been in their roles 10 and 12 years, respectively. Principal Robles was beloved by the students, staff, faculty, and other constituents of Del Norte High School. She was known as an advocate for student rights and was seen as a trusted resource by the other principals in the district. She was born in the village of Del Norte and graduated from Del Norte High School prior to obtaining her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the state’s land grant institution less than an hour away. Furthermore, her parents were migrant farmworkers who instilled in Rosa a strong work ethic.

Principal Robles understood the unique challenges of serving as a school leader in a rural community with migrant families whose first language was not English. Principal Robles was a resourceful, culturally competent leader who brought out the best in her faculty and staff. These skills were essential to combat the teacher and administrator shortages not only affecting her school but also districtwide. Of extreme need were additional counseling and bilingual services, in particular at Del Norte High School where there is no bilingual services director and only one counselor, Mr. Carlos Hernandez, for 405 high school students. Mr. Hernandez spent the majority of his time doing administrative duties such as creating student schedules, evaluating transcripts, and administering state standardized tests. These tasks took away his ability to be a student-centered school leader providing direct services to students so as to ensure their success, academically and personally. Moreover, his duties were complicated by the fact he was not bilingual, nor did he have bilingual support or a bilingual counterpart, and many of his students needed dual-language support. The situation did not fully allow him to deliver individualized plans and services.

During the most recent school year prior to Principal Sterling’s tenure, both Principal Robles and Mr. Hernandez leaned heavily on Ms. Maria García, the Parent Education Advisor (PEA) for Del Norte High School. Ms. García’s first year with the school overlapped with former Principal Robles’s last year. Ms. García saw Principal Robles as a mentor and admired her cultural responsiveness. She had recently completed her master’s in educational leadership and administration and had interned at Del Norte when she was a graduate student. She intentionally sought a position at Del Norte to work with Principal Robles’s leadership team. Ms. García grew extremely fond of the community as she had a passion for serving undocumented students and rural communities. She felt she could connect with the families of the students because one of her greatest strengths was understanding the political landscape affecting the community. Ms. García’s role required a great deal of communication and involvement with parents in ways that would meet their needs.

With the start of the fall semester, Del Norte High School’s Principal Sterling was at the helm and fully committed to increasing (as she terms it) the “atrocious” numbers of students failing to enroll in postsecondary education at the completion of high school. She viewed Ms. García and her role as parent education advisor as vital in making positive gains in closing the gap. Principal Sterling outlined her plan to involve parents, modeling her approach based on what worked for her at her previous Northeast school. Recognizing the need for stronger parent support, Principal Sterling spoke to the local newspaper in an attempt to plant the seed on the need for the parents of students at Del Norte High School to serve as partners in their children’s education, or as she puts put it, “parents as partners.” Although the school recently had to cut positions to address significant budget cuts affecting the district, Principal Sterling was very protective of the Parent Education Advisor (PEA) and minced no words during her first meeting with Ms. García at the start of the fall semester, with her goal of seeing a thriving Parent Education Association (PEA) being established by mid-fall. The association, under the guidance of the advisor, would set the tone for other parents to get involved. Principal Sterling also saw this as a way to ask parents for support in meeting some of the financial needs of the school, given the recent cuts in school funding statewide.

As the school semester went on, very little progress was made by Ms. García, in large part due to a contentious relationship between the faculty, staff, and Principal Sterling. Similarly, Principal Sterling’s displeasure with the lack of support for the Association as well as other initiatives to connect parents to campus led to several negative interactions with the teachers of Del Norte High School. Principal Sterling felt the teachers could have done a better job of supporting Ms. García, in particular with inviting parents to campus. Ms. García, in still viewing former principal Robles as a mentor, reached out to her for support, advice, and guidance. Ms. García’s passion for her position and her ability to support the families of Del Norte came to a crossroads. She felt as if Principal Sterling’s vision ran counter to her view on how being an involved parent could include not participating in school functions and how families could partner with the school in school/home collaborations that are nontraditional in nature. Ms. García and Ms. Robles spoke over lunch, meeting at Restaurante Martinez, a mom and pop Mexican restaurant where they would regularly meet when Ms. García had been a graduate student. They discussed at length recent raids by Immigration officials taking place on school campuses across the Southwest. Ms. García felt at ease sharing her concerns with Ms. Robles, yet could not help but look over her shoulder several times during their lunch. Ms. García feared that Ms. Sterling would see her with Ms. Robles and assume that Ms. García was not fully committed to meeting her vision of what needs to be done to move the school forward.

Ms. García, in discussing the climate nationally, touched on Principal Sterling’s lack of a clear understanding of what Del Norte High School considered as parental involvement. Ms. García’s performance had recently been criticized by Principal Sterling in particular for failing to connect parents to campus in a manner that resembled what she was accustomed to seeing in her previous roles as a campus leader. Furthermore, Ms. García shared with Ms. Robles that she took great exception to the fact that Principal Sterling felt parents who failed to visit the school were not serving as partners in their child’s education. She shared with Ms. Robles her belief that Principal Sterling lacked an understanding of the culture of the community and seemed unwilling to change her practices to be more culturally responsive to her constituents. Ms. Robles also pointed to the national climate on immigration and how current policies are creating, for some in the district, a chilling effect on parental involvement on campus. Compounding this further was the fact that many of the students attending Del Norte High School came from migrant farm-working homes. Not only did the traditional hours for parent sessions as dictated by Principal Sterling to Ms. García not work for the parents, but the mere idea of visiting the school created a sense of apprehension for many of the families. Recently, in a county nearby, a raid took place by Immigration Enforcement officials that had made national news. Ms. García, seeing this play out not too far from her own district, had grown increasingly concerned for her students and parents. While schools have been somewhat of a sanctuary, Ms. García no longer trusted that the school had the best interests of the students and families in mind.

Ms. García pointed to the strong Latino/a population in the village of Del Norte and the ways in which parents assumed a nontraditional form of involvement in their child’s education. While parent–teacher conferences recently yielded very few participants, the feedback from students to teachers was that their parents had been asking more about their experiences in school to include how they were doing academically. Ms. Robles urged Ms. García to assist Principal Sterling in better understanding the culture of the community and the ways in which national discussions on immigration have affected the school. In addition, Ms. Robles also asked Ms. García to point to the work schedules and inability of parents to miss work as a secondary reason as to why a higher degree of presence on campus from parents had not been felt. Ms. García wondered how to begin explaining the differences in context between the school district and student population that Principal Sterling was used to serving. Ms. García felt it was necessary to make the school the center of the community for students to become successful, thriving learners. To accomplish this, Del Norte High School would need to have a meaningful, safe, and supportive learning environment, and the teachers and administrators would need to have cultural competence for their community and be culturally responsive in their practices.

Teaching Notes

In this case study, the incoming principal has a high number of Latino/a students in her school, and many are undocumented immigrants. Her predecessor was a long-standing resident of the community who embraced the culture, the people, and the community. Taking some time to understand her new context of being in a rural, southwestern, borderland community would have been a wiser first step in a healthy leadership succession than initiating change without consulting the veteran employees, parents, and students in her school.

Change in School Leadership

Particularly in rural contexts, it is important for incoming leadership to respect and value the educational practice, culture, and history of those who came before them. “Keep what is working, rework what is not” is a well-known phrase in educational change research. In leadership succession in schools, incoming educational leaders often arrive with their own agendas and change initiatives or even dispose of many practices and structures that may be working within the current context of a school. New leaders that do not reflect on the existing culture do not take the time to allow change to happen slowly over time and build trust and buy-in among stakeholders within their new community. Most of all, time needs to be taken to reflect, share ideas, and build the professional capital needed for new and socially just initiatives. Decision making from fiscal accountability to instructional responsibility should be made with socially just intentions and purposes. Change and reform that is not within the scope and culture of a school or community is rarely sustained over time.

Latino/a Student Population

Another key component of this case study was the growing racial and ethnic diversity of K-12 schools. Latino/a school age individuals, defined as children ranging from ages 5 to 18, constitutes approximately 1.4 million undocumented immigrant youth living in the United States (Perez, Espinoza, Ramos, Coronado, & Cortes, 2009). According to Fry and Gonzales (2008), public school education enrollment has grown by 60% for Latino/a students from 1990 to 2006. Currently, in the United States, the Latino/a population is approximately 17.8% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016). The Latino/a population is the largest recognized minority group in the United States (Siegel, Naishadham, & Jemal, 2012). It is estimated that Latino/as constitute roughly one-fifth of all immigrants enrolled in K-12 schools (Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 2009). In addition, the Latino/a student body population comprises between 80% and 85% of all ELL students; 3.5 million in total enrolled in K-12 (Téllez & Manthey, 2015).

Abrego and Gonzales (2010), in examining challenges to education for the Latino/a community, noted parental educational attainment as well as structural racism in school systems. Adding to the structural racism found in schools is the dialogue of schools as sanctuaries for undocumented students and their families. Crawford and Fishman-Weaver’s (2016) work on school practice and immigration policy noted that school leaders must be equipped to handle challenges made to the school by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. They found that school personnel play a pivotal role for undocumented students by creating a safe space. The role of school counseling is also key yet remains undefined in many schools. School counselors according to Mau, Li, and Hoetmer (2016) focus on areas that are beyond academics, to include career development as well as social and personal growth. In today’s increasingly contentious environment, in particular for those students who identify as being undocumented, the need for strong school counseling is necessary to ensure academic success.

Among all ethnic and racial groups, the dropout rate for school is the highest for Latino/a students (Zambrana & Zoppi, 2002). Socioeconomic status is an attribute for educational attainment of Latino/a immigrant students (Spring, 2014). Immigration has been a hot button topic dominating the public’s consciousness since the most recent U.S. presidential election, with some policy makers calling on immigration reform. Recent policies at all levels in the United States have shed light on the experiences of undocumented individuals. With the disproportionate number of Latino/a students succeeding academically and with recent raids in schools on undocumented students, providing education for leaders in school systems on how best to support their students through culturally relevant partnerships with parents could prove to be beneficial. This is of particular importance for school leaders in border schools in the southwestern United States, an area that has a high number of rural communities.

Cultural Responsiveness and Family Engagement

Some educational leaders might misconstrue the manner in which Latino/a parents are involved in the education of their children (Turney & Kao, 2009). Furthermore, educators misunderstand the ways Latino/a parents are involved in their children’s education, indicating a weak home-school home/school bonding of Latina/o parents (Gaetano, 2007). With that said, educational leadership programs and teacher preparation programs have faced criticism for not preparing their graduates to be more culturally responsive in their teaching and leadership. In looking at ways that schools address the professional development of their faculty and staff, it often does not occur in the areas of parental involvement, which leads to a de-emphasis on the critical role that parents play in the success of their child’s educational attainment (Unal & Unal, 2014). Research has shown that Latino/a parents place a value on education that is greater than or just as much as parents of other racial and ethnic groups (Carger, 1997; Chavkin & Williams, 1993).

Latino/a parents have been shown to be more actively involved in activities based from home rather than those based out of school, for example, providing encouragement at home rather than participating in a school open house (Zarate, 2007). It is incumbent on school leaders to gain a greater cultural awareness so as to increase community and parental involvement (Banks, 1995; Lee & Bowen, 2006). Research, for example, points to increases in improved standardized testing scores in Reading/Math for Latina/o students with the greater parental involvement (Marschall, 2006).

Teacher Preparation and Critical Curriculum

Specific to teacher preparation programs, beginning teachers are not fully prepared to handle the communication and outreach necessary to involve parents and caregivers effectively (Coll et al., 2002; Gonzalez-DeHass & Willems, 2003). Nationally, traditional teacher education programs are under attack for failing to adequately train preservice teachers with the necessary skills needed to work with families. Further, these programs are not meeting the mark in stressing family involvement as an expectation. There is a need for institutions of higher education, particularly in the area of teacher preparation and educational leadership, to engage in dialogue about critical issues surrounding diversity and cultural awareness with pre-service teachers and administrators. This needs to occur in all teacher preparation programs, to include those who are outside of traditionally based teacher preparation programs. Watson’s (2017) research highlighted programs that demonstrated success in creating a culture of practice that embodies multilingual and multicultural pedagogies. She recognized that programs that truly personify multicultural practices are less common than one would ascertain. Furthermore, she found that university administrators go so far as to avoid critical conversations on topics such as equity, racism, and inclusion because “they are uncertain how to address or focus on the relevance” (Watson, 2017, p. 225).

Unal and Unal’s (2014) research on teacher education programs at a large university revealed that courses with an emphasis on parental involvement were not offered and that preservice teachers were dissatisfied with their preparation regarding the involvement of parents. It is clear that to foster positive working relationships with families, educators and administrators must have a solid understanding of parental involvement (Barnyak & McNelly, 2009). Last, Ladson-Billings (2005) spoke on the cultural homogeneity (White mono-lingual female) of teacher education programs and the teaching force in general, and the difficulty of preparing a teaching force that “serves students who are culturally, linguistically, ethnically, racially, and economically different from them” (p. 230).

Cultural Competence, Social Justice, and School Leadership

According to Diller and Moule (2005), cultural competence is the ability to successfully teach students who come from cultures other than our own. They offer four basic skills for cultural competence: (a) valuing diversity, (b) being culturally self-aware, (c) understanding the dynamics of cultural interactions, and (d) institutionalizing cultural knowledge and adapting to diversity. For many, the antithesis of cultural competence is deficit-based thinking. Deficit-based thinking places blame for underachievement on the oppressed—whether the lack of achievement is the fault of the student’s race, culture, and/or socioeconomic status. This theory ascribes blame to the individual rather than on the societal structures and institutions that reproduce inequity, therefore creating the conditions for oppression (Valencia, 2010).

School leaders, faced with an increasingly diverse student demographic, must be cognizant and educated on the importance of cultural competence (Barakat, Reames, & Kensler, 2018). Much of the current extant literature on K-12 leadership is anchored in developing leaders for social justice (Bogotch, 2002; Cambron-McCabe & McCarthy, 2005; Frattura & Capper, 2007; Larson & Murtadha, 2002; Theoharis, 2007). Yet there is a lingering need to explore how aspiring school leaders understand what it means to promote, challenge, and address issues of social justice and equity in K-12 schools, especially as it relates to issues of culture, immigration, and language. For the purposes of this case study, social justice leadership is defined as centering “on school leaders’ holistic and authentic approaches to interrupting oppressive school practices to empower and advocate for those from historically disenfranchised populations” (Boske, Osanloo, & Newcomb, 2017). One way to address this issue is to better incorporate and integrate cultural competence and social justice leadership in principal preparation programs. Furthermore, understanding the broader community and various constituents associated with schools is key. Stakeholder buy-in is important as well as strong communication between the school and community.

Ethic of Care

Along with developing cultural competence, educational leaders should also look at developing ethic of care, which is the argument that caring should be a foundation for ethical decision making (Noddings, 2013). Noddings (2013) argued that care is basic in human life and that all people want to be cared for. More specifically, Noddings (2013) called on educational leaders to “strive to meet all those involved morally” (p. 171) and for schools to focus on the moral obligation of teachers to develop an ethic of care. Noddings (2013) pointed to the way in which “we allow all sorts of organizations to press for the inclusion of their subjects in the preservice curriculum for teacher education” (p. 198). She goes on to call for changes in how schools are structured and teaching delivered, with caring playing a key role. Ethical care is an anchor for holistic decision making in educational leadership.

Discussion Considerations

One of the most alarming symptoms of the larger issue in this case is new leadership lacking a thorough understanding of cultural competence and valuing cultural wealth. A climate of fear took over in the district. Parental involvement decreased with a new principal who was unaware and unresponsive to the community culture and needs. In addition, the enforcement of current immigration laws contributed to empty school/community meetings and events. It is not known for certain if the school leadership lacked the desire to involve parents; however, an honest attempt was lacking. Perhaps there was an ignorance in cultural competence with regard to the Southwest borderland culture of Del Norte as it relates to the Latino/a and immigrant population of the area to include a lack of knowledge and training with regard to involving parents.

Extant research demonstrates a number of reasons for a lack of parental involvement in schools. Nationally, there are conflicting beliefs about teachers’ perceptions surrounding parental capabilities. For instance, caregivers and parents working full-time are not able to attend meetings during the day, and night options are not available to them. There are also conflicting ideas on what involvement actually is (Gonzalez-DeHass & Willems, 2003). In this case study, parental involvement was one of the first issues that arose with regard to a change in school leadership. To better understand decreased parental involvement, educational leaders must also be attuned to the landscape from a sociopolitical perspective. For example, the economic conditions in this particular county were such that parents/caregivers often had to leave their communities to follow farm-working positions. The political landscape is not conducive currently for those parents or caregivers who are undocumented, with schools being perceived by them as not being safe havens. Last, as mentioned earlier, transportation is a huge issue in this particular county, with no public services available. The lack of cultural responsiveness from the school’s principal was emblematic to larger issues taking place both locally and nationally. What is needed is school leader preparation, mentorship, and administrators that possess an understanding of how to initiate, encourage, and sustain a culture reflective of the community values. These are all critical elements to successful pedagogical, instructional, and teaching and leadership (Banks, 1995; Gaetano, 2007).

Ms. García and Ms. Robles, as culturally competent and socially just leaders in the school and community, could assist the principal, teachers, and school staff with family support services to link home and school. Research shows that, “once educators see the value and are sincerely receptive to parent involvement, instruction can be geared toward a range of parent involvement types and strategies” (Gonzalez-DeHass & Willems, 2003, p. 97). By providing professional development for all school leaders, gains may be seen from teaching and leadership standpoints. In addition, professional development opportunities can provide pathways for having important discussions regarding deficit thinking, cultural wealth thinking, and the larger systemic issues of racism—as endemic and pervasive in our society (Yosso, 2005). Engaging in discussions such as these emerging from our case study will help school leaders to overcome obstacles that control and perpetuate inequities in schools and communities.

Key Areas for Reflection

This case study is multilayered, with numerous areas to reflect and actively engage with from various perspectives. As you reread the case, one area to reflect on is the notion of principal succession plans and the role a new principal has to create change. A link is made to the importance of moral, professional, and ethical issues in school leadership. Budget issues were also woven into the case with an emphasis on how funding affects school leader decisions. The case began with comments from two parents, showing a connection between the broader community and stakeholder expectations of a principal. The principal in this case also displayed a certain leadership style, highlighting the various types of power a school leader can yield.

A major area of emphasis in this case is the importance of culture and climate in relation to leadership behavior and decision making. Cultural responsiveness and competence played a vital role throughout this case study. Serving all students and families with care, and the notion of schools as a sanctuary, was woven into the case by way of emphasizing the high number of undocumented and ELL students in this particular community. Furthermore, parental involvement and what it means to be an involved parent takes center stage in this case study, with several characters in the case highlighting and honoring the various ways in which parental involvement was displayed. Affecting the traditional forms of parental involvement were broader structural issues that also influence education (e.g., political, social, and economic). As you engage with the text, a connection could be made for school counseling as well as services for bilingual education. Last, interlaced within this are border issues and the role of a school leader in a rural school district.

Questions

Use your knowledge of educational leadership, community leadership, cultural competence/responsiveness, ethic of care, and public schooling as the locus of the community to analyze the case. Be prepared to discuss the following:

Problem Identification and Change

1. Define the primary and secondary problems in this case?

2. Analyze potential issues associated with a new principal’s ability to bring about significant change in a school?

Cultural Competent Leadership

3. Identify the characteristic of culturally competent school administrators committed to increasing home-school collaborations?

4. Identify three action items for a school leader to consider while adopting a culturally responsive approach to engage Latina/o parents in secondary education?

5. As a school leader committed to making a school more culturally responsive, predict areas of apprehension from faculty and staff who are “not on board.”

6. How would you describe working with the school board and community to promote a more culturally responsive climate?

School Leader and Teacher Preparation

7. To account for the educational disparities experienced by Latino/a students, discuss how school leaders might develop, implement, and evaluate teacher-training programs that promote home-school collaboration of Latino/a parents? Excellent reflection question.

Community Engagement/Outreach and Sociopolitical Issues

8. Determine what role the superintendent should play in helping develop and implement the school’s plan for actively engaging immigrant families in the schools.

9. In a group, weigh three key issues for the leadership team in the case study to consider in developing a plan for actively engaging impoverished and immigrant families in the school, and explain why each issue is important.

10. Summarize the local economic and political conditions of the school district in the case study. How might these conditions affect parental involvement?

11. Investigate the sociopolitical challenges faced in school districts in your area and how might educational leaders use their knowledge of cultural responsiveness to address them?

Activities 1 to 8

Individually or with a partner, research culturally relevant teaching and leadership and construct a reference list with a paragraph synopsis for each reference.

As part of a small group (3-5 persons), reflect on a school leader who you believe has displayed the qualities of a culturally responsive leader and identify what characteristics of this person would have benefitted the school leader in this case.

In pairs, create a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis of Del Norte High School with a focus on the ways in which faculty and staff at the school can support parents/caregivers in the case.

Analyze recent immigration news and articles to see the latest in what is going on nationwide regarding the issues related to this case study.

In pairs, assess the degree to which schools serve as the locust of the broader community.

Find data on the student population in your local public school and compare it to the demographics of your teaching and leadership in your district. Is there a match or a dissonance between the two?

Prepare a short analysis of an interview with a teacher about how he or she communicates and works with the parents and caregivers of the ELL and immigrant students.

Compare and contrast Principal Sterling’s approach to leadership by interviewing a principal, asking him or her about how to ensure ethical and equitable leadership and teaching that values all students in the school.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Rene O. Guillaume

Author Biographies

Rene O. Guillaume is an assistant professor at New Mexico State University in the School of Teacher Preparation, Administration, and Leadership (TPAL). His research interests include social justice issues in education, racial and ethnic identity development, and faculty teaching, life, and culture.

Azadeh F. Osanloo is currently an associate professor and the co-director of the School of Teacher Preparation, Administration, and Leadership (TPAL) at New Mexico State University. She was formerly the Stan Fulton Endowed Chair for the Improvement of Border and Rural Schools. Her research agenda focuses on issues of educational equity; educational leadership and policy; the philosophical foundations of education; diversity, multiculturalism, and human rights; bullying interventions; and social justice. Her interconnected lines of inquiry are underscored by four co-edited books and more than 30 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.

Kristin L. Kew is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Administration at New Mexico State University. Her areas of expertise are educational leadership, educational change and reform, systems change, and equity and social justice in education. She is currently conducting research in schools on the southwest border through an Emerging Scholars Grant she received. She is the chair of the Educational Change Special Interest Group through the American Educational Research Association (AERA), past Editor for Lead the Change Series, and past Managing Editor for the Journal of Educational Change. She holds a PhD in Educational Administration and Leadership from Boston College.

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