EDL 530 - Leadership Disposition

EDL 530 Leadership Dispositions:

Leadership Disposition 3:  promote culturally responsive teaching practices

Leadership Disposition 5: promote an inclusive school culture

Competencies:

Strike et. al. (2019) identify the following leadership competencies that align with the aforementioned

Leadership Dispositions in this course. My goal and related action steps are directly aligned with these

components.

Component 3a: Champions and supports curriculum development

Component 3b: Advocates for instruction that supports the needs of all learners

Component 1e: Promotes a positive school culture

Background

As part of my new role as Professional Learning Specialist at Northridge Elementary, I am working on

strengthening and streamlining our processes around READ plans. Traditionally, the literacy interventionist

took full responsibility for identifying students with Significant Reading Deficiencies (SRD), creating

READ plan goals, parent communication and progress monitoring. There are many challenges that come

with this system but, in my experience, the most significant issue is the inability for instruction to be

culturally responsive because there is a disconnect between the planning process and implementation which

often results in lower expectations for the learner.

I plan to create a system in which classroom teachers, learning specialists and our ELD teacher work

collaboratively to create READ plans, plan and deliver interventions and progress monitor student growth.

This will take a significant amount of change management, training and leadership. Ultimately, however, it

is essential that all of the students’ reading teachers have responsibility for and accountability to the

READ plans. The first step in this process is to collaborate with learning specialists to create READ plan

goals and plan interventions.

Leadership Goal

By October 2024, I will create a process for collaboration between our ELD teacher and the classroom teachers

that leads to sharing of responsibility for and continued monitoring of READ plan goals for our multilingual

learners.

Action Plan

The following steps were used over the course of six weeks: 

• Identify multilingual learners that are currently on a READ plan.

• Select 1-2 teachers to participate in the initial data cycle.

• Meet with an ELD teacher to create a tool or system for aligning READ plan goals with

            ELDP goals. 

• Analyze beginning of the year iReady Data, formative assessments and READ plan goals

            with classroom teacher and ELD teacher.

• Collaborate with ELD and general education (and SpED if necessary) to create an intervention

            and progress monitoring to support READ plan goals.

• Introduce progress monitoring template.

• Assign roles for 6 week intervention cycle including parent communication component.

• Review progress during iMTSS meetings.

• Solicit feedback on the process from stakeholders.

Successes and Areas for Improvement

My objective for this activity was to create a system for collaboratively sharing data related to READ plan

interventions. An integral part of this was to foster a sense of accountability amongst all learning specialists

and classroom teachers. I also wanted to encourage these teams to lean on each others’ subject matter expertise

to create meaningful goals and interventions that will ultimately support student growth.

I succeeded in using student data to identify our multilingual learners with the highest need for multidisciplinary

collaboration and initiating communication of the new systems with learning specialists. I also successfully

created a working document that will enable the teams to track data using common language and systems.

While I feel as though I am on the right track, I failed to anticipate the time constraints of the beginning of the

school year testing cycle (specifically with our ELD teacher). We have a record number of students who are

required to be screened for language instruction and we do not (yet) have the data necessary to formulate goals

and action steps. 

Reflection

As a former English Language Development Teacher I feel as though I have a very solid foundation in culturally

responsive teaching practices and am comfortable coaching others in this area. Specifically, I understand and

value the importance of promoting culturally responsive teaching practices and promoting an inclusive school

culture. Through my coursework and my internship assignment, I have expanded my knowledge and

understanding of both of these dispositions from the leadership lens and have had the opportunity to build upon

my foundational skills to grow in both of these dispositions.

Disposition 3 requires school leaders to promote culturally responsive teaching practices. Within my goal I am

promoting culturally responsive teaching practices through identifying and modifiying systems that create

barriers to culturally responsive practices. Strike et. al. (2019) suggest that a leader's role in curriculum,

instruction and assessment is to demand equity and accessibility to curriculum and resources, promote

differentiated instruction and explore gaps in expectations and opportunities to improve. I will continue to foster

competency in this disposition through developing systems that empower teachers to collaborate and use an

asset-based approach to teaching and learning.

Disposition requires school leaders to promote an inclusive culture. An area of concern with READ plans and

multilingual learners is the tendency for teachers to lower their expectations for academic performance for

multilingual learners. When we develop goals and interventions for students who are simultaneously learning

English and academic content, we tend to focus solely on the language goals rather than adjusting our own

teaching to promote academic and language growth. Khalifa (2018) reminds us that “culturally responsive work

must maintain high expectations for students” (p. 155). To continue my growth as a leader in this area I will

continue to promote a vision of inclusivity, use equity teams to create reflective practices, maintain high

expectations for all learners and reject deficit-based approaches, and be a “warm demander” for both students

and staff (Khalifa, 2018). As I work to improve upon our READ plan processes, I hope to utilize and model

these strategies to improve student outcomes and teacher efficacy.

References:

Khalifa, M. A. (2018). Culturally responsive school leadership. Harvard Education Press.

Strike, K. T., Sims, P. A., Mann, S. L., & Wilhite, R. K. (2019). Transforming professional practice: A         framework for effective leadership. Rowman & Littlefield.