Calming the Storm: Natural Disasters,Crisis Management,and School Leadership

Abstract

Natural disasters can negatively impact students’ educational outcomes and well-being. After a natural disaster, families and communities often rely on schools to foster stability and serve as a conduit to resources. Yet, school principals face many challenges, often with little guidance, in how to best respond to natural disasters. This case demonstrates that, in the aftermath of a natural disaster, educational leaders may be required to communicate effectively with staff and media; make operational, managerial, and logistical decisions quickly and under immense pressure; efficiently assess families’ needs; manage the outpouring of philanthropy; and integrate parent and community voice in governance.

Keywords

school leadership natural disaster school crisis crisis management school principal family–school–community relations

Background

Walnut Hill Elementary, a public PK through 5th grade award-winning school, serves nearly 400 students in Dallas, Texas. It sits in a historic, grand building on beautifully landscaped property. As shown in Table 1, more than 80% of students at Walnut Hill identify as Hispanic, 8% African American, and 7% White—with nearly 70% economically disadvantaged. Not only do test scores at Walnut Hill far outpace the state’s average, but the school is also recognized for closing racial and economic achievement gaps. About 90% of all Walnut Hill students do not live in the area surrounding the school; the school’s reputation from its U.S. Department of Education National Blue Ribbon status makes it highly sought after by families from all across the city who transfer there. With performance data reaching historic highs, the school has seen an influx of more socioeconomically diverse families in recent years from magnet and private schools in the area.

Table 1.

Walnut Hill Demographic Information.

Student characteristic	Percent of students
Ethnicity
African American	8.3
Asian	0.8
Hispanic	81.3
Hawaiian	0.3
Multirace	2.3
White	7.0
Economically disadvantaged	68.4
Special education	9.1

Because Walnut Hill had recently received a National Blue Ribbon award, Mr. Potter, the current principal, aimed to ensure that the school sustained its reputation. Relatively new to Walnut Hill, Mr. Potter. started the position in the middle of the previous year after serving as an assistant principal at a local high school. Although certified in K–12, Mr. Potter’s prior leadership and teaching experiences had been in secondary school contexts in two large metropolitan areas. In the past, he had dealt with his fair share of crises, including sexual assault cases, student deaths from suicide and violence, and campus lockdowns due to weapons on campus and active gunfire in the neighborhood. From this prior experience, Mr. Potter already knew that every campus in the district had safety coordinators and plans in place in the case of disaster.

On Sunday evening, October 20, 2019, 10 tornadoes touched down in Dallas, Texas. The strongest of the tornadoes, an EF-3 with winds up to 140 miles per hour, wreaked havoc along its 15 mile-long path (Branham & Jimenez, 2019). The tornadoes left thousands of homes and businesses without power and caused an estimated two billion dollars’ worth of damage, making them the costliest tornadoes in the state’s history (Holcombe & Maxouris, 2019). Out of the entire district, Walnut Hill Elementary, along with a middle school and a high school in the same feeder pattern, sustained the worst damage (Harris & Howerton, 2019). Due to the extensive damage to Walnut Hill’s building (see Figure 1), the school was moved to a nearby vacant school building.

Figure 1.

Damage at Walnut Hill Elementary School.

Mr. Potter had to immediately shift gears and engage in crisis management, where he attended to what he perceived as the most pressing and urgent priorities (see Reich, 2020). He was charged with moving his school to a completely empty building, opening up 2 days post-tornado, and then continuing to lead. Research (American Psychological Association, 2020; Kousky, 2016; Vogel & Vernberg, 1993) demonstrates that natural disasters can negatively impact students’ emotional and psychological well-being as well as their academic performance and attendance. Natural disasters can be traumatic, and students may need substantial supports in their aftermath (Baum et al., 2009). Furthermore, environmental justice literature (Chakraborty et al., 2014; Johnson, 2008) suggests that the risks to and impacts of a natural disaster are not evenly distributed; low-income students of color are more likely to experience poverty and trauma and may be more at-risk of the adverse impacts of a natural disaster (Gilles & Carlson, 2015; Simmons & Douglas, 2018).

Mr. Potter also knew that schools often play central roles in sheltering students from trauma and helping them cope with adversity. In fact, research (Mutch, 2015; National Center for Homeless Education [NCHE], 2015; Simmons & Douglas, 2018) suggests that schools are often pivotal to how students, families, and communities respond to natural disasters and loss of housing. First, they often provide students and families with much needed routines and a sense of safety and stability. Schools can also allow parents to have the time and flexibility to respond to urgent concerns at home, such as finding a safe place to shelter, making crucial safety repairs to their property, or accessing needed resources such as clean water or food for their families. Finally, schools can broker resources and services for families—connecting them to the essential supplies they require (Miller et al., 2015; Miller, 2011a, 2011b; NCHE, 2015; Simmons & Douglas, 2018). Mr. Potter knew that his leadership decisions would play an important role in shaping how the Walnut Hill community responded to and recovered from the tornado (Mutch, 2015; Smith & Riley, 2012).

Case Narrative

Immediately following the tornadoes, Mr. Potter’s leadership was dominated by two main demands: operations and purposeful messaging and communication. Afterwards, Mr. Potter’s leadership priorities shifted to assessing families’ needs, managing philanthropy, and incorporating parent and community voice into governance decisions for the future of Walnut Hill. In the narrative that follows, the authors purposefully use first-person language to underscore and center Mr. Potter’s lived leadership experiences in response to a real-life crisis event.

The Tornadoes and Immediate Aftermath

On the night of the tornadoes, Sunday, October 20, 2019, I was watching the Dallas Cowboys lose on the television when a news flash came up on the screen announcing a tornado near my school. Trying to use my network to figure out what was going on and get a sense of everyone’s condition, I called families, district personnel, and the police. I eventually heard back from the district central office who told me, “it’s just not good.” I then remember seeing the school in shambles and water squirting out of the roof on the television. I didn’t sleep much that first night as I considered the possible next steps for our school and the message that I wanted to deliver to staff.

The next day, all the teachers and leaders in the feeder pattern met. The situation was evolving minute by minute as the executive district leadership worked through options. By the afternoon, I heard about the plan from central staff: We would relocate to a nearby vacant school, Tom Field Elementary School, for 2 to 3 years. We were really fortunate that our district had held on to this property, but there was absolutely nothing inside and I knew we had to have school there in less than 2 days.

Operational, managerial, and logistical decision-making

When I arrived at Tom Field that afternoon, I first designed a floor plan. I knew when people showed up the next morning, they needed me to already have a plan and know where they would be located. I had a special education student who had a history of running and Tom Field was on a major road. I needed to keep this student safe, so I placed that classroom in the middle of the main building with all the other classrooms around it. I decided to place the older students outside in the portable classrooms.

I also knew that transportation was a priority. With 90% of the students being transfers and living miles from our new site, many students arrived by car. I was really concerned about traffic, especially because the building was on a major road. I looped the traffic back around the school so cars and buses were not backed up on that major road with semi-trailers zooming past.

The day before school was meant to open my phone was ringing off the hook. I was trying to coordinate logistics and respond to endless questions. I remember going into a supply closet and eating my lunch in about 2 min. It was overwhelming; I had to open school tomorrow and I did not know how I was going to do it. I felt like I couldn’t answer any more questions and thought to myself, “I am going to eat lunch here in the closet and when I come back out, I’ll handle it.” I knew that I had to remain strong and collected for my staff and learning community.

One difficulty I faced was coordinating the delivery of items. Furniture just started showing up and it was everywhere; at one point, I had about 30 desks sitting out in the grass. Other items showed up far later in the day than we expected—after most of the volunteers had left. Luckily, there were a few college students heading out the door that I persuaded to stay and help. The superintendent and deputy chief came to offer support and evaluate progress on the new site. As the evening came, the school was starting to come together.

Messaging and communications

I also had to manage my communication to media and staff. I knew that this messaging was important both to our school’s reputation and to how others responded to the crisis. Because the destruction at Walnut Hill was a top news story, I was in close contact with the communications department, and had never been on camera more in my life. I knew I needed to remain consistent in my communications so I purposefully chose my lines of messaging. One was, we lost our building, but we didn’t lose our school. I did not want attrition of our families. I told them, “I need you to realize that I understand this is an inconvenience, but you chose this school for a reason.” Even before the tornado, families had been asking if we could expand our school to be a PK-8 school. With the tornado, the opportunity to transform into a PK-8 school began to emerge. I tried to drill this home to parents as a silver lining. Because I kept pushing the message that we still had our school community, one parent made buttons that said, “We are Walnut Hill.”

My other media message was gratitude. First of all, we were grateful that we did not lose our school—just our building. But we also expressed gratitude for the goodwill of others. In the days and weeks that followed, we focused on assessing families’ needs and providing them with access to resources, managing donations and philanthropy, and balancing parent and community voice. In addressing these issues, my media taglines become increasingly important in guiding my leadership.

I also applied similar messaging with my faculty and staff. I met with them the day before the school reopened to set a tone. Fortunately, most staff members were not personally impacted by the tornado, though many were worried about their belongings in the old building. Some were inconvenienced by the commute and were trying to adjust to the new location. I told them,

It’s going to be a challenge and we have to launch a school by tomorrow. We have 12 hours. We have today and that’s it. We have no copiers, printers, or Internet. We have no furniture, no desks, no bulletin boards, no supplies, just a building.

I set an expectation with the staff that we were going to be Walnut Hill in this space. “So, you know what that looks like, right? Okay, make that happen in a day.” Even in the cafeteria, I remember saying, “Hey this should be exactly the same. We are just in a different space.” I then went to each classroom and space of the school and asked, “Hey, what do we have? What do we still need? I was worried about our staff, but I knew that we could do this. It was because of their strength, resolve, and commitment that I knew we would persevere. Especially because I did not have long-standing relationships with staff to fall back on, I knew that I needed to remain calm and visibly project my unwavering faith in our ability to rise above this crisis.

The “first” day of school

When I woke up on the day we were tasked to reopen it felt like I was starting the school year all over again. I was under pressure because I knew district staff members would be there; they were coming to help but I also knew that there was an expectation for the transition to go well. I decided to go to school extra early to ensure that I could restore a sense of safety and routine for everyone. I thought that if parents saw me in front of the building that morning, it could help normalize drop-off. I decided I would replicate what I typically do on a first day—I called a meeting to coordinate staff to help start the day. When our superintendent visited, he commented that the efforts were “amazing” and that “students were learning just like they would at Walnut Hill.” This was a proud moment for me as I knew that the support from our district, staff, community, and partners made the immediate transition a success. However, I still had a lot of work to do.

Long-Term Response

Once school opened, I faced new challenges: namely, assessing families’ needs, managing philanthropy, and ensuring that parent and community voice was integrated into governance.

Assessing families’ needs

Every day I learned more about families’ needs. Some families were temporarily sharing housing or their possessions were damaged. We had parent meetings and I routinely asked the full-time counselor and other veteran staff members, “Have you heard anything from families?” Identifying those key staff members who knew the families well was important in gauging needs; it also validated the expertise of others on my campus and helped me forge trusting relationships with school personnel. Fortunately, our district’s Family Engagement Department was on hand to help families access needed resources. The process functioned similar to an interview; families shared what was going on and then there were follow-ups and check-ins. Due to a partnership between the district and community organizations, one family was even connected to a nonprofit that fixed their damaged roof. We were grateful that gift cards had been donated so we could say, “Hey, here’s food for the weekend.” Although trust often takes time, by connecting parents to needed resources during a crisis, I was also able to accelerate and deepen the bonds between myself and the families I serve.

Managing philanthropy

In times of crisis, everyone wants to help. Several corporations and sports organizations wanted to give, which also came with media appearances. We certainly had needs, and we were really grateful because we received a lot of supplies and targeted help that made it easier for us to focus on teaching and learning. School supplies arrived in large quantities, some of which were even delivered by the Dallas Cowboys. There were enough school supplies donated that our needs were covered for the next 2 years. Gift cards were also ideal donations; they were small, easy to log and track, and helpful to families and teachers. People also donated their time; volunteers kept showing up and asking me what I wanted them to do. They organized the bookroom and created a literacy library for us. They created an inventory of everything in our portable that was used for storage. It was a great use of time and effort—and it took months. We also had a nonprofit partner that sent someone to us full-time.

However, we also experienced misalignment between our needs and the resources offered. Everyone, including sports teams, family friends, friends of friends, private and suburban schools, alumni, and total strangers, were showing up and asking what we needed. At times, it was challenging because I was not always sure. I kept saying, “Let me look into that. What I need right now is a safe environment for teaching and learning.” Especially in the beginning, we sometimes needed space to figure out our specific gaps—before people dropped off resources or volunteered their time in ways that were not useful, created more work for us, or were sometimes even harmful.

For instance, multiple book drives started quickly after the tornado, some of which I did not even know were happening. All of a sudden I got a phone call, “Hey, such and such school collected 5,000 books for you guys.” We were actually able to recover pretty much our entire library from the old building, so we were not in need of used books. Such a large donation would have also created new burdens on us to sort and store them. I remember saying in a parent meeting, “I don’t want our kids to have sticky, used books. The kids deserve better than that.” While I was grateful for the goodwill, I had to be sure that what we received was what we needed. But I also had to be really careful because some of the items were really pushed. Reflecting the tagline of gratitude, I got the message out as, “Thank you. We have these items taken care of; we actually really need these other items. If you want to put your donation to good use, here is a place you can go.” We started using centers that could receive these items and then redistribute them to families elsewhere.

When deciding how to respond to various donations, I would ask myself, “Is this going to cost our kids or help our kids and teachers?” I remember a corporation came in and they wanted to do a photographed event with their majority White staff and our Black and Latinx kids. I declined pretty quickly. Other times it was harder to say no. What do you tell someone when they drive all the way over to us, and they have all this stuff that you do not need and have nowhere to store? There were times where I just thanked them and tried to find space in our portables. We had other public schools giving us supplies that they likely needed more than we did. I would say, “Hey guys, we so appreciate it, and we will take it if you want us to, but we actually have a ton of it, and don’t want you do go without.” When a family friend retired, he reacted to our predicament thinking he could help by donating his old office stuff from 1998 to 2005. I still have all these old outdated mini-disks taking up space in my personal garage at home. Overall, managing philanthropy turned out to be more time consuming than I would have ever predicted.

Parent and community voice

Another challenge I faced was how to lead around parent and community voice. I had to manage critiques from parents on the quality of the Tom Field property and the surrounding area. Because I was still building trust with families, it was particularly important that parents saw that I listened to them—and when possible—also delivered on their needs. Yet, I was sometimes expected to have solutions to problems and situations—such as a homeless encampment nearby, traffic concerns, industrial smells, and other safety issues—that were far beyond my own jurisdiction as principal. For the issues we could address, district leadership was helpful in managing these concerns; they offered an abundance of upgrades to the building, such as fencing, resurfacing, and painting, all which helped our families feel valued and facilitated trusting relationships between myself, families, and central office.

Until the January school board meeting, it was unclear where we would be located for the long term. Would we ever be able to repair our building? The district was waiting for a report from structural engineers not only for our building but also for the whole feeder pattern. Some parents felt they had little voice in the process; others expressed gratitude for the possibility of expanding our school to PK-8. Still others felt so much urgency that they bypassed me and went right to Central Office with their questions. The district, however, needed time, and while it was challenging to please all stakeholders, they were committed to finding a democratic and equitable process. As principal, I couldn’t turn my back on either the district or the parents but I often didn’t have enough information to provide answers. I was able to remind parents that the district and I also wanted what was best for their children.

When it became clear that we would not be returning to our old building because it would be much faster to build a new school, some staff and families were disappointed. Unfortunately, a lot of myths, fears, and rumors also started to surface. Even though it was never on the table, some parents were worried that the district was going to make us a PK–12 school. Parents started worrying about the safety of having high schoolers around their pre-Kindergarten children. The district and I kept saying, “Well, of course we’re not going to do that.” The district’s philosophy was that they wanted to have a plan to present and they needed time.

Moving forward with tornado recovery

The district plan, which included expanding the school to PK-8, was to be voted on and approved. After that, community input would be solicited in spring 2020 to guide the specifics, including allowing parents to play around with the actual layout and the architect sketches. However, once again, the unexpected happened: in March, the public health pandemic, COVID-19, made it unsafe for students to physically come to school—in Dallas and throughout the country. COVID-19 created unique managerial, logistical, and communication issues and has already led to substantial delays in the timeline around gathering parent voice and moving forward with construction. Walnut Hill is currently still recovering from the tornado while attempting to meet these new demands for remote learning, delivery of free/reduced priced meals, and other challenges.

Discussion

In the immediate aftermath of the tornadoes, I had to make quick leadership decisions under pressure. Although I consider myself an instructional leader (Blase & Blase, 2000; Marks & Printy, 2003; Robinson et al., 2008), I also needed to prioritize operations (see Reich, 2020) and engage in a series of managerial and logistical concerns, such as around transportation and the floor plan (Valentine & Prater, 2011). Some of the issues that I worried about before the tornadoes struck, such as student growth in math and reading and our achievement data, were no longer as imperative as stabilizing our kids so they could learn and grow. Knowing people come first, I was certain that our students, their families, and our staff needed to feel safe and stable before we continued our pursuit of remaining a premier elementary school.

Furthermore, I needed to be able to communicate effectively with the media, staff, families, and broader community (Smith & Riley, 2012). From the start, I made the choice that I was not going to let the tornado define us. My clear messaging was important and allowed us to retain our sense of community and continue to support one another. These messages also proved vital to other leadership challenges I faced, such as managing philanthropy and volunteers (see Brown, 2018; Mutch, 2015). Likewise, aligned to research on cross-sector partnerships (e.g., Pavlakis, 2018; Miller et al., 2015), I found that identifying those individuals that knew the families well—both in and outside of the school—was crucial to assessing families’ needs and connecting them to vital resources.

Because I started at Walnut Hill only months before the tornado, in some ways the disaster helped to establish my identity as a leader and served to accelerate the trust-building process between myself, families, and staff. Immediately, the school saw my leadership in action. Through various social interactions, members of the school community gained evidence that I listened, and when I could, I delivered—and at a much faster pace than they might have otherwise (see Bryk & Schneider, 2003).

Yet, despite the importance of principals helping their staff understand their own emotions to be able to better assist students (Baum et al., 2009; Mutch, 2015), in hindsight, I do not know if I did a great job helping my staff process everything. We had students in our classrooms so soon after the tornado, and a formal academic assessment only a week or two later. We paused our Professional Learning Communities to allow staff to continue to adjust to the new setting. I trusted them to use their time wisely, and they did. I waited a few weeks to allow the dust to settle a bit and then I started bringing back the routine a little bit at a time. After winter break, we were back on track. Of course, we talked, but I was not always sure what everyone needed. I remember telling them that I did not expect them to be perfect, but in the same way “don’t anticipate exemplary ratings from the State if our kids aren’t achieving.”

Looking back, I also wonder if there were ways I could have gotten a bit in front of the rumors that emerged among families. I was often making leadership decisions on incomplete information (Smith & Riley, 2012), but I do wish I could have gathered more information and gained clarity around some of the unknowns so that I could have incorporated parents more into the process earlier. Yet, I also feared speaking too soon and was cautious to not promise anything I could not keep; I was well aware that these sidesteps could hurt perceptions of my integrity and could unravel trusting bonds (see Bryk & Schneider, 2003).

When I first came into leadership, I remember feeling like my skin was always on fire because everything felt so urgent. Now, I have learned to lead with clarity, manage stress in moments of pressure, and stay calm—and that has been a huge upgrade. I went back to the root of why we were here: We’re here for kids and ultimately for each other. In some ways, I think our school community has grown more united, and I bet that when we move into our new building, we will be even stronger.

Teaching Notes

This case foregrounds the lived experience of a principal during and after a tornado, which damaged his elementary school. It demonstrates that, in the aftermath of a natural disaster, educational leaders may be required to communicate effectively with staff and media, make operational, managerial, and logistical decisions quickly and under immense pressure, efficiently assess families’ needs, manage the outpouring of philanthropy, and integrate parent and community voice in governance. This case provides a rich context for considering the challenges school leaders may face in the aftermath of a natural disaster, such as a tornado, hurricane, or fire. It may also have overlapping relevance to school leadership challenges in the aftermath of health pandemics, such as COVID-19. This case can be used in a variety of master’s and doctoral-level educational leadership preparation courses that cover crisis management, operations, communications, leading with values, or family–school–community relations.

There is limited research on leadership in the aftermath of natural disasters, leaving school leaders with a dearth of guidance on how to respond to these distinct crises. Research generally suggests that crises happen in a number of phases (McAdams & Keener, 2008; U.S. Department of Education, 2013). In particular, research on natural disasters suggests a distinction between the immediate response to the event and the short- and long-term recovery from the event (Mutch, 2015). In the case of Walnut Hill, “response” best characterizes the 36 hr from the onset of the tornado to the start of first day of school post-tornado while “recovery” has yet to conclude.

Response Mode

In immediate response to the tornadoes, Mr. Potter faced a lot of uncertainty around what would happen to his school. Would they be moved to the vacant Tom Field building? Would they be split up? When would they open? Once he knew they were going to be at Tom Field and that they needed to open quickly, Mr. Potter had a little over a day to start school in a completely vacant building. During this time, he made key operational, managerial, logistical, and communication decisions.

Re-opening the school rather quickly was important; research (Mutch, 2015; NCHE, 2015; Simmons & Douglas, 2018) suggests that in the aftermath of a natural disaster, students, families, and communities often rely on schools to serve a crucial role. Schools can provide students and families with a sense of routine and stability, can provide parents with the child care necessary to allow them to address urgent concerns at home (NCHE, 2015), and can serve as an important conduit to needed resources and services (NCHE, 2015; Simmons & Douglas, 2018).

Mr. Potter knew he needed a plan. He made crucial operational, managerial, and logistical decisions (see Reich, 2020). He started by purposefully creating the floor plan; this not only allowed staff to know where to go the next day but this was also an important safety decision. Furthermore, he had to coordinate delivery of supplies and design traffic patterns—challenges that in some ways would continue past the response mode.

While being closely monitored by central office and media, he also had to make decisions under immense pressure. Recognizing the importance of school–family–community communication, particularly in response to a crisis (Smith & Riley, 2012), he carefully considered what consistent messages he sent out to his staff, families, and the broader community. His messages—of gratitude and that they lost a building but not a school—became taglines incorporated into pins and media reports. Both proved helpful as he addressed various constituencies. Yet, he also noted that while many of his teachers and support staff did not experience personal damage due to the tornado, he was not always sure how they were doing—with potentially unforeseen consequences on how they might serve their students. A common theme in the natural disaster literature is the importance of assessing and meeting the psychological and emotional needs of staff (see Baum et al., 2009; Fletcher & Nicholas, 2016).

In summary, the response phase required key leadership actions. Mr. Potter’s time was dominated by creating the floor plan and traffic pattern, coordinating the reopening of Walnut Hill, and using deliberate messages when speaking with media, staff, and families. Using skills that are essential to educational leadership during a crisis (Brown, 2018; Pepper et al., 2010; Smith & Riley, 2012), Mr. Potter had to make decisive decisions based on incomplete information and apply his previous educational leadership experience and knowledge of his school community to guide his path. Aligned to the research (Mutch, 2015; Smith & Riley, 2012), he also had to remain flexible and effectively communicate messages that were optimistic and encouraged tenacity in the face of adversity.

Recovery Mode

During recovery from the tornadoes (Mutch, 2015), Mr. Potter needed to assess families’ needs, manage philanthropy, and carefully consider how to communicate with parents and the community, integrating their voices into governance processes. According to Self-Brown and colleagues (2013), 14% of U.S. children will experience a natural disaster sometime during childhood. Natural disasters can substantially impact students’ academic achievement, attendance, and general well-being (Kousky, 2016). Students may lack the coping mechanisms and supports needed to address the trauma of experiencing a natural disaster (Baum et al., 2009). Their responses can also be shaped by exposure to prior trauma (Jaycox et al., 2010) or compounded by other childhood stressors, such as living in poverty (Simmons & Douglas, 2018). Because low-income students of color are disproportionately exposed to poverty and trauma, they may be more at-risk of adverse outcomes in the face of natural disasters (Gilles & Carlson, 2015; Simmons & Douglas, 2018). Helping to address these adverse consequences on students, while simultaneously fostering trust with his families, Mr. Potter worked with the Family Engagement Department and prioritized connecting families to the resources they needed. Supported by research (NCHE, 2015; Simmons & Douglas, 2018), collaborative partnerships with community organizations often proved helpful in meeting families’ needs in the aftermath of disaster.

One challenge Mr. Potter did not expect was how best to manage the outpouring of philanthropy. Would the photo-op or donations align consistently with the needs of his students and teachers? How would he manage the influx of donations he did not need and had no place to store? In many of these cases, he had to carefully consider his response to protect relationships. He also had to manage multiple constituencies around complex issues, such as concerns around safety and quality of the surrounding area of the temporary building and the rumors that developed around the future of Walnut Hill. In other cases, he had to lead his school community with only imperfect or incomplete information (Pepper et al., 2010; Smith & Riley, 2012).

During the recovery phase, Mr. Potter needed to establish processes for assessing and meeting families’ needs, make strategic choices around the management of donations, and balance district priorities and timelines with the desire to meaningfully incorporate family and community voices in the decision-making processes that would shape Walnut Hill’s future. Unlike the challenges of the response phase, which focused on the immediate need to quickly and safely resume instruction in a way that most closely resembled the pre-tornado Walnut Hill, the demands of the recovery phase required Mr. Potter to consider what practices and procedures would best fit their new realities.

To accomplish this, Mr. Potter needed to make decisions amid conflicting information, relying on his intuition when he lacked complete information (Pepper et al., 2010; Smith & Riley, 2012). He also had to communicate these priorities and decisions to a variety of stakeholders (Fletcher & Nicholas, 2016; Mutch, 2015) in ways that addressed concerns, promoted trust with families and the community (Bryk & Schneider, 2003), and gave the district the time it needed to plan. Finally, Mr. Potter had to use his past educational leadership experience and knowledge of his staff, students, and families to determine how to best meet their needs (Mutch, 2015; Smith & Riley, 2012) when he was confronted with offers for donations and school–community collaborations (Brown, 2018; Fletcher & Nicholas, 2016; Mutch, 2015; NCHE, 2015).

In some ways, the tornado served to solidify his identity as a relatively new principal of Walnut Hill. It taught him that there are always pressure points in school leadership and that it is important to manage your own stress and serve as a steady leader through times of uncertainty. These strengths will continue to prove helpful as Walnut Hill traverses the new realities and uncertainties ahead. What challenges will they face as they attempt to rebuild? How will the recent outbreak of COVID-19 shift their course?

Suggestions for Teaching With the Case

The instructor may use this case as a springboard to discuss various educational leadership topics including crisis management, communications, cross-section collaborations, and family–school–community relations. By working through the case, the reader must contend with the ambiguity and complexity often inherent in educational leadership. In the following section, we provide simulations and discussion questions that an instructor could integrate into class—with modifications for courses that may be held virtually.

Simulations

Mr. Potter faced challenges that required him to lead differently at unique points in the crisis. Assign a prompt and ask students to role-play the scenario in small groups based on their own leadership decisions. These prompts could include the following: the delivery of old office supplies or subpar books, leading a staff meeting on the “first day,” or responding to the rumor about transforming Walnut Hill into a PK–12 school. After the role-play, ask students to justify their leadership choices.

Crisis response and recovery often occur in phases (McAdams & Keener, 2008; Mutch, 2015). School leaders must prioritize their responses. Split the class into two groups: response and recovery.

(a) Based on the case, the response group (see Mutch, 2015) creates a list of Mr. Potter’s actions and decisions. The team then decides what they might have done differently and creates their own action plan for the response mode. Ask students to discuss what variables influenced how they ranked their priorities? How did they come to a consensus?

(b) The recovery group (see Mutch, 2015) creates a list of Mr. Potter’s leadership actions and decisions for Walnut Hill after the first day of school in Tom Field. The team then decides what they might have done differently and produces their own action plan for the recovery mode. Ask students to discuss what resources they need for each priority.

Groups can present their action plan while their peers offer critical feedback.

Discussion Questions

How would you prioritize the competing needs of students, staff, and other stakeholder groups in this case?

Given the importance of communication during crisis (Smith & Riley, 2012), what would your talking points be when addressing the following stakeholders: media in the first 48 hr; staff and faculty prior to the “first day”; superintendent when they visit during the “first day”; organizations or individuals wishing to donate time or resources to your school; parents and community members when the decision was made that Walnut Hill would not return to its original building.

Consider your own leadership journey and style (Blase & Blase, 2000; Marks & Printy, 2003; Robinson et al., 2008; Valentine & Prater, 2011). Knowing that crisis is not a matter of “if” but “when,” what steps should school leaders take logistically and mentally to prepare for unforeseen challenges? How might school leaders with different leadership styles (such as instructional, managerial, transformative, or social justice leaders) approach these challenges differently? What may be the strengths and weaknesses to these different approaches?

Drawing on your own professional experiences with crises (including but not limited to natural disasters or health pandemics), what did you learn about your own or someone else’s ability to lead in unprecedented circumstances? How might your learning apply to this case and other situations (see Brown, 2018)?

Modifications for online courses

These activities could also be used in an online course through video conferencing software, such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Students can be assigned to breakout rooms to discuss, create, and prepare for simulations before they return to the main meeting to present their ideas. Shared Google documents or collaborative Miro boards may prove helpful for group brainstorming. Polling software, such as Poll Everywhere, Qualtrics, or features built into Zoom, could also be used to quickly glean opinions around agreement with Mr. Potter’s decisions or students’ own professional experiences leading amid crisis. Discussion questions could be examined during synchronous whole class sessions, in smaller groups, or asynchronously through graded or ungraded discussion boards on Canvas or Blackboard.

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

J. Kessa Roberts

Author Biographies

Phillip D. Potter is a principal at Walnut Hill Elementary and an EdD student in the Simmons School of Education at Southern Methodist University. His dissertation research focuses on collective teacher efficacy in urban secondary schools.

Alexandra E. Pavlakis is an assistant professor in the Simmons School of Education at Southern Methodist University. Her research interests include educational leadership in the context of community change, school–family–community engagement, and student homelessness. Her work can be found in Educational Researcher, Teachers College Record, Urban Education, and other venues.

J. Kessa Roberts is a postdoctoral fellow in the Simmons School of Education at Southern Methodist University. Her research on educational leadership and policy focuses on schools’ relationships with families and communities, particularly as these issues pertain to spatial and economic inequality. She previously worked as a school psychologist supporting students and families in high-needs schools.

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