A Practitioner's Guide to Responsive School Leadership

A Practitioner’S Guide To Responsive School Leadership

My foundation of literacy started with my mother. She was a proud elementary school teacher and spent much of her time teaching us songs, telling us stories passed down through the generations, reading storybooks, and teaching us how to read and write. Mother was like an intriguing griot from our motherland.

As my literacy skills developed, Mother worked with me to write stories and essays about our family traditions, foods, music, celebrations, losses, socio-political issues, and the uniquely Creole 7^th Ward things my grandmother, Big Momma, used to say. Connecting my learning of literacy to what was relevant to my world was the basis for my love of literacy, and it is that same foundation of love and relevancy that I used to teach my child how to read and write. This underpinning is the essence of what should be present in literacy instruction in schools. Still, deliberate measures must be taken to establish a learning environment that can harness this connection with students. School leaders are ultimately responsible for supporting, guiding, and leading this process to fruition.

According to the Wallace Foundation (2013), a major responsibility for school and district leaders is “improving instruction to enable teachers to teach at their best and students to learn to their utmost” (p. 6). To fulfill this role, school leaders must actively engage, support, and monitor factors inside and outside the classroom and school, such as the selection and implementation of a standards-based curriculum, effective instructional strategies, professional development, family and community engagement, and political influences. This list is not exhaustive, but it presents some critical components required to improve student achievement for all students.

According to the United States Department of Education (2018), over the past 25 years, the reading achievement gap at the fourth-grade level between White and Black students closed by only six points, currently standing at a 26-point reading gap. The White and Latinx reading achievement gap did not close, currently at a 23-point gap. The United States Department of Education (2018) also shared 8th-grade data, finding that in 25 years, the reading achievement gap between White and Latinx students closed by seven points, currently standing at a 19-point reading gap. As for the White and Black 8th-grade reading achievement gap, it did not close, standing at 25-points. Griner and Stewart (2012) state that “culturally responsive practices in schools and classrooms have been shown to be an effective means of addressing the achievement gap” (p. 1).

This chapter serves as a blueprint for school leaders preparing to embark upon the culturally responsive journey. The process is presented utilizing the 5Rs of Responsive Leadership: reflect, relate, represent, respond, and revisit. To support the structure of this approach, five school and district officials share their leadership lived experiences of implementing culturally responsive literacy instruction. Their voices are woven into the 5Rs Responsive Leadership discussions. Each phase description aligns to quotes from the participating school and district leaders, contains support examples for literacy instruction, and correlates to the Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (PSEL), formerly known as the ISLLC Standards, which is published by the National Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA, 2015).