Please note: This transcript was automatically generated. We have reviewed it to ensure it reflects the original conversation, but we may not have caught every transcription error.

Christopher Saldaña: Hi everyone. I'm Chris Saldaña and this is the National Education Policy Center's Talks Education Podcast. On this month's podcast, we spoke with three researchers doing important work at the intersection of school leadership and equity. Our guests this month are Dr. Ain Grooms, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Dr. Joshua Childs a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and Dr. April Peters, a professor at the University of Houston. Together they are leading research on the design and implementation of equity-centered principal pipelines, a project supported by the Wallace Foundation. In this month's podcast, Doctors Grooms, Childs, and Peters help us understand how to support educational leadership that truly centers equity.

For listeners who aren't familiar with your work, tell us a little bit about what you all focus on in your research. And why don't we start with Dr. Grooms?

Ain Grooms: Thanks Chris. So thanks for inviting us to the podcast. So I think a lot of our collective work that we're doing on this particular project is really thinking about how our districts reflecting on their local histories and using that information to design principal pipelines that are focused on advancing student outcomes, particularly in districts that serve high numbers of students of color students from structurally disenfranchised communities, whether that's students from low-income backgrounds or students whose first language is not English. And really thinking about how can districts build upon the histories of these local communities and use that as a mechanism for change. And specifically around principals and the principal pipeline,

April Peters: What I think is important there is also a specific centering and urban context so that while there are challenges in all kinds of school districts, specific and even there's diversity across urban districts. But really trying to think about what anchors the work in some common bonds in the experiences of urban districts. Not only the challenges, but how we leverage the capacities of the resilience of those communities to get the work done.

Joshua Childs: And I'll just add, and thanks for having us on to talk about our collective work. I'll just add that, I think for us, we've been really thoughtful to how do we approach this in partnerships with the districts and the people in which we are engaged in this research this work with. And so we've been really intentional to not make it seem like we are coming in gonna abstract all this data or these conversations or these relations for you all.

And then once we are done, we are just gonna close the door behind us to never communicate or talk back with you all. So we've been very intentional about ongoing continuous communication, really building relationships and being really mindful and thoughtful. Even as we've uncovered some of the challenges as Dr. Peters talked about that are happening within these communities and districts, to be mindful of what are some of the assets? What are some of the strengths and what are some of the potential possibilities that exist as they engage in this longstanding type of work to really help their students and community.

Christopher Saldaña: So when you think about centering students and what improving educational leadership systems in districts means for students, from where you sit as researchers, what does it mean to genuinely improve educational leadership systems? What does that open up for students and for families?

April Peters: I'll start. Yeah. I think one of the things we're really aware of and keeps getting drilled in this work is the importance of the role of the principal, the influence of the principal on student outcomes in very important ways, and then the ways in which the principals need to be supported by the central office to get that work done.

Everybody has skin in the game and so often we traditionally outside of this work the principal's important and if they don't get the work done, they're fired. And I think this project offers and really requires districts to think about how they support principals, what are the mechanisms to do that? Who's responsible? Who should be at the table? And then at the end of all of that, what does it, what does, what do we expect our graduates to look like? What do we expect our leaders to look like? What are the student outcomes that we can be assured of, or at least that we can look to as goals tto confirm that we're on the right track with the work. And I think that's really just grounded in the research around the influence of principals on student outcomes.

Ain Grooms: And I would also add, I know your question is really about students and families, but I would also add that by focusing on principals and assistant principals, it really builds a system that people wanna stay.

April Peters: Yeah.

Ain Grooms: Like part of this, I think, in a lot of education research, rightfully so, the focus is on the students. But when we think about the adults that work in the building and like creating systems that make people wanna stay, and especially in large urban districts that serve kids of color and all of this, how can districts develop structures that support not only teachers, but having them go through a pipeline that gets them to leadership positions and that they stay, and it's that it's grounded in equity, that it's grounded in a desire to dismantle racism and oppression and advocate for justice and all of these things. And so while it's important to always center the students, it's really also equally important to think about how are we supporting the adults that also make the engine go.

Joshua Childs: I think I'll just maybe piggyback on the fact of really thinking not of our leaders, particularly the principals and assistant principals that we discussed here, but really thinking about them not in isolation or working in silos, but working collectively within a larger ecosystem that includes students, families, community members, folks at a central office within different divisions and so forth.

And I think that's super important because the work can be isolating and it can be siloed and it can be really your day-to-day can have you focusing a lot on what is happening in your building and in a lot of ways, rightfully so, but they exist within the larger schooling system that has impacts and implications not only the present day, but down the road, but it is also informed by those histories as well.

So really thinking about what those connections and networks look like and how that moves the work forward for them.

Christopher Saldaña: So you've each already alluded to some of the challenges that come up when you're in the day-to-day life of leaders and principles. What sort of challenges have you observed that educational leaders face and what sort of strategies do they use to try to push through those challenges?

April Peters: I have two thoughts. One is the political context has changed since this work has started, and so leaders have now had to try to figure out how to continue good work in the midst of a lot of political turmoil and structures that don't actually endorse or support the work and actually are punitive -- use certain language or do certain things or focus on certain students. So I think that's one challenge. What I will say is that the districts have been very adamant, I think, in many ways about the importance of the work. And then they have had to be flexible about how to get it done.

I think the political context has been really interesting. Like things literally have changed over the time that we've been engaged in this work. Really from one end of the spectrum to the polar opposite end. And so that's been a significant challenge and with that challenge has also come the challenge of reduced state funding as just budget cuts and things like that, that and then an additional eye of scrutiny, to make sure you're not using this language or not doing these things. So it's been a really interesting, I think, opportunity for districts to think about how to present the work externally while continuing to be committed to it internally. The other thing I'll say is sustainability.

With any sort of project like this that's funded, having an opportunity to engage in it is great. But then districts have had to start to think about how do we continue the work once that's gone. One district or I guess multiple districts, but one example that I can say that I can think of is how they've placed people so that programming has been tied to soft money as opposed to people, so that when the money is gone, the people can remain because they're not on soft money and they can continue to think about how programming gets done. I think that's a really smart opportunity to be focused on sustainability in real ways because we can talk about sustainability, but if we're not talking about how we finance it, then we're gonna have some problems.

Joshua Childs: Yeah, and I would add, oftentimes we are hearing about how leaders are stuck in this reactive mode, jumping from one urgent thing to the next without having time to really implement in a lot of ways, some of the proactive vision that they're some of the leaders above them or they have worked on collectively because it's going from one, almost one fire to the next fire, right?

Regardless of how big that fire is. And so really trying to get a sense of thinking about like how you get the support and resources necessary so that you can also have that time to really like, implement and even design the kind of vision and thinking that needs to carry forward. I think another thing, and we haven't discussed this in depth as a team yet, but one thing that I would also say is you often hear about the shortage of, whether it's a teacher shortage or we have a leadership shortage, but some of that leadership shortage and I think why some of these districts are really engaged in this work is also just a shortage of experience. So a lot of early career teachers and administrators stepping into roles that usually require lots of experience. And maybe Dr. Peters can talk a little bit because Dr. Peters was a building level leader previously and had worked in some administration, I think.

So that kind of like experience matters in terms of leadership in something and not just being thrown in. And then I think there's the not-talked-about in the first position type ways is mental health, right? There's an emotional toll for owning and stepping into these leadership positions, and you're carrying not only whatever you bring personally or professionally, but also those of the staff that work with you and the students and the families that come into your buildings and interact with the schooling system on a daily basis.

And I think that it's something that we should be as a country unpacking a lot more when it comes to the leaders in our building. And then just two other things I would mention too is one is just like the kind of ed policy reform type thing is like we do the same thing over and over again.

We've been doing the same thing for years and years, and we get stuck in this sort of like legacy mode of churn, right? Because we've always done school scheduling this way. We've always graded this way. We've always staffed our schools this way. So how do we reimagine, rethink about how we go about doing that?

And then how do we, and the thing that we've been finding is like districts have been really focused on this, but I still think there's this, the pandemic in a lot of ways broke the traditional trust between the communities and the schools, right? And so leaders are now trying to continue five years, whatever, however you ever wanna define the COVID-19 crisis since, or post COVID-19. How parents are, how they're building that trust between families in the school, the schooling system, school buildings in which they lead, and what that looks like. And it's not just a one size fits all, one model fits all.

And so really thinking about that I think is some of the challenges that leaders that we're finding and have heard conversations are grasping on.

Christopher Saldaña: So this next question is similar to the last question that I just asked you. So public schools, school districts, leaders, teachers are all under an immense amount of pressure right now, which you all have already alluded to.

How are the districts that you've partnered with in this work staying committed? April, you talked about sustainability being an issue. An issue and an aim. And so how are you seeing leaders stay committed to this work and what strategies are they using as they try to respond? Not only political shifts, but shifts that we're seeing with technology now, demographic shifts that we're seeing with declining enrollment, some of the economic shifts that you all have already mentioned. What are leaders doing to stay committed to this work?

Ain Grooms: I think one thing that the districts that we're working with are doing is recommitting to and reimagining community involvement and what that looks like.

They've had as part of this project they're redeveloping their community engagement plans and really thinking about so what does it mean to have different voices at the table? Especially those who are we always talk about amplifying voices. These are voices who are never invited to the table, right?

So what does it mean now to get community involvement? So in thinking about all of these pressures that they're facing, that leaders and districts and families and students are facing, in response to that, it's so if we do wanna come from this equity-focused perspective, how are we going to include folks who typically aren't included and then respond to their needs?

Especially as demographics are changing, even within communities of color, there are various, there's lots of different types of people and people from different backgrounds speaking different languages. And so when we say the black community, what does that even mean? Right? And one of the ways I think that the districts in our projects have, or the districts that we're working with are doing that, is really looking internally to say, how do we expand how we engage with the folks who we wanna serve the most, like who we are responsible for?

And I think that also opens up some uncomfortable conversations and areas for growth, but it's like a recommitting to the why of all of this work, saying that we need to bring in families when we do hiring for principals, we need to bring in families when we talk about budgets and budget cuts and closing schools.

And what does it mean to say that we're an equity-focused district if we are not engaging at every point to, again, like the people that districts serve. So I think watching districts go through this process of rethinking their community engagement plans and models and their partnership organizations has been really fascinating to watch in real time.

Christopher Saldaña: There's the work that happens within the district that you were describing, where district leaders have to rethink their processes and who's involved in them. How does it look when the district is working with groups that are maybe above them in the organizational structure, like with state departments of education or like how does that sort of partnership look in this kind of work when you're trying to support school leaders?

April Peters: Yeah. I think it has evolved. So oftentimes, particularly like state departments and things like that, the relationship with the district is a compliance relationship. And so there's a wariness, right, in that relationship initially, just, or it's an ongoing one. Then when everyone's brought to the table to have a different kind of conversation just like anything else, the relationship has to be built.

Walls have to come down, people have to commit to being on the same page about things and commit to engaging in the work collaboratively. And so we've actually seen that where State Department of Education folks and the district folks and the university partners and whomever else have had to come to the table and have repeated conversations and build relationships that are strong.

I think the benefit for them is, one, they get to see each other from a different lens, right? And they get to get in, collaborate in the work in meaningful ways, but post the grant, post this opportunity, they still have those relationships and they're able to leverage those relationships and network in ways that are beneficial without just the idea of compliance hanging over their heads.

Really thinking about, okay, I know this person, I know this office. I know how this works, so how can we leverage that to get the work done? 'cause at the end of the day, I think what they've all said is we have the same goal. So ultimately we're on the same team and we have to reframe our thinking that we're not at odds anymore.

We're actually going to, even when we don't when we have differences of opinion and differences in how, where we start, the end goal is the same. So how do we get there to together? It's been really interesting to watch over the years in a really good way.

Ain Grooms: And just I think to add to that the districts that we're working with are, if not the largest school districts in their respective states, one of the largest. And so like that relationship with the state can sometimes be, there's some tension there. Not even like I know April said at odds, but we can ramp that up a little bit, right? Especially, sometimes politically, there's differences between how a city wants to serve its or city and or school district wants to serve its local residents versus maybe some decision making at the state level.

And so really being able to bridge that gap, between state-level folks and district folks, I think also serves as an example of what is possible even for smaller rural districts that may wanna make some changes or may desire to be more equity focused.

So if it can happen with the largest school district in the state serving whatever a hundred thousand kids like, then it can certainly happen. That can certainly serve as an example for what that could look like with a smaller rural district of 5,000 students or something.

Christopher Saldaña: That's a great segue to my last two questions.

The first of which is to ask you we've talked a little bit about the challenges and the pressure and everything that school leaders and district leaders are responding to. But when you think about what gives you hope as you're doing this work what are some of the instances that you've encountered while you've done the work that sort of makes you feel hopeful about where we're going in terms of the field of educational leadership and the work that districts are doing?

Joshua Childs: I'll start this off and I'm actually gonna take it somewhere a little bit different and I'm gonna focus on folks like Dr. Grooms, Dr. Peters and myself. I'll wanna focus on the researchers for a second. I think the fact that with all the changes that have happened within academia, within research, in terms of whether it's cutting of funding, less access to certain types of data. Harder to go ahead and being able to launch studies or enter into partnerships and agreements with districts, the resilience of researchers during this time has been phenomenal, I think, and I am really proud that those who aren't just, who are staying focused on really wanting to be partners with schools, districts higher institutions, other types of organizations, and really support during these political times while also trying to help uncover some really big questions whether there is deep-seated and rooted in systemic injustices, things around race or gender issues like that, many researchers still committed to the work regardless if they have hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to it, or no dollars to it, right? Because this work is so important.

And one of the things that we had all agreed on when we decided to work collaboratively together was that we were going to remember why we first engaged in this type of work, why we all want to become researchers and remembering the fact that this has implications for communities and students and families that we ourselves are a part of or came from.

And so I know this isn't, I'm not really directly answering about schools and districts and maybe my colleagues will do that. But I think I would just really want to give a shout out to the researchers who are still keeping the main thing, the main thing, which was like, how is my work? How can my work impact day-to-day practice, positive school reform and really help to shift the narrative around what is happening in education?

Ain Grooms: I'll say this, it's personal in a sense that technically all of this research is personal to me, right? Because we're studying communities that look like me. And I would argue that it's the same for my colleagues.

 But even more so is that, my brother lives in one of the cities that we're studying. And so his kids go to that city schools. And so really thinking about to me that's one degree of separation. Seeing how these districts are really invested in this work means that it's gonna have a direct influence on my nephew.

And so it gives me hope to see like the commitment that, the central office has for this work in that it will trickle down to principals and to teachers, and to kids. And so they say the kids are gonna be all right. And I wanna be hopeful that the kids will be all right because there are teachers and leaders in situations that are gonna ensure that the kids are gonna be all right.

And will foster the brilliance of black and brown children and so I think it's just seeing what could be, and I think to one of Josh's earlier points around how COVID is as horrible as it was in a lot of ways for a lot of people, it really uncovered what schools can and should be doing, how we can change what public education could be.

And so I think this sort of this project is one example of how we can rethink or begin to rethink and reshape what schools can be for children. And again, for the adults that work in the buildings as well.

April Peters: Ditto. And I think what gives me hope, in addition to everything that's been said, is the folks who are actually in here doing the work.

There's a strong commitment to everyone that I've seen in different roles, different positions across different districts for doing that work. And I think oftentimes when there's, different kinds of work to do in schools. People are cynical. There's a lot of cynicism. I haven't seen that.

I've been very, people have their own perspectives and people have been staunch in those perspectives, but they haven't been cynical, they've been dedicated, they've been committed. They've been thoughtful about how they can do things differently instead of the, we've always done it this way.

So it's refreshing to see that the approach is not what you might ordinarily think is the default, but that really, that all of the folks who are involved in the work have been ultra committed to it, including the partners to the districts and the different folks in the districts themselves.

And that's a great thing. I think the other thing that gives me hope is in spite of all the churn, because we've seen a number of different equity directors and superintendents and other people moving in and out of these districts since this work has began, was begun. And so that part has been a little concerning at first, but I think what gives me hope is that the work still continues. And that there's still a commitment to do the work in spite of having to say, okay, we have to, now we've got a new director of equity, but this is the work. And so that whole notion around sustainability and even succession planning has happened in real time in many of these districts.

And the new person who has been brought on board has had to, has come on board with the knowledge that this is what we're engaged in. This is what we're committed to. And they're doing that. So I think that gives me hope too, that sustainability actually can happen.

Christopher Saldaña: I know it's hard to, I know you all have done a tremendous amount of work, and I know this is an enormous project, and I know it's hard to boil down all of the good work that's happening into a few recommendations.

But if you were, if there was a leader listening at a smaller district, you mentioned, eventually the goal is to have this great work be done in places outside of some of the large districts that you all are partnering with. What would be your initial words of wisdom for folks who are trying to think about doing this work in districts around the country?

April Peters: I think a couple things that I, what I've learned from this is that there are so many layers to the work, and so district-level folks should not do it alone. They have partners that can help them leverage this work, that the work can be sustained across whether or not a person is there, the idea to do the work is there.

And so it can be sustained even when there's transition. Also that things change, the political landscape changes. And I think there's the notion that you have got to be committed to the work. And what does that look like when certain support dries up or is now in opposition?

And plan for that, like plan for the opposition. And if you don't have to face it, that's fine, but if you do, then you've already started to plan for how you might regroup when something comes head to head directly in opposition to the good work that you're trying to do.

I think there's ways to do that. Thinking about how we use language and how we use data to support the things that we're doing. And lots of district leaders already know how to do that, but I think we've been a little bit surprised by the way in which the political landscape has said, no, you cannot do this anymore.

And I think preparing for those kinds of potential eventualities are, is really important. And then I think the other thing is just the commitment to do the work, right? And so surrounding yourself, hiring people who are committed to this work and that I think is the most important piece.

So in the hiring process, vetting people who have equity orientation as a commitment, have the success academically and otherwise of black and brown and other disenfranchised and marginalized kids at their core as their purpose is really the point. And so then I think then we can save the world.

Everything would be great.

Ain Grooms: I would add I think a couple things. One to April's point about needing, it's a group project. It can't be the responsibility of one, although a lot of it always or often falls on the superintendent or the highest person on that particular hierarchy or org chart, I should say.

Use that word org chart. But I would also say what does it mean around school boards? Like where even beyond, above and beyond the person leading the district, there are people who that person reports to and how are they thinking about equity in all its various forms. And then I think my second sort of recommendation is that, or I don't know, recommendation thought is that, commitment to equity work is a long road. It's an ongoing process and we all have to learn, right? Like regardless of background, gender, racial identity, whatever the case may be, like, there are still things that we all need to learn and work on and improve upon and question ourselves on maybe how we've viewed the world previously.

And so really thinking about, it's not only white people that have to do equity work; people of color need to engage too. And really think for ourselves around our own equity orientations and what does that mean for us and in our work. And so again, like really thinking, and it may be a long road, but it's worth it. And it's, and there's no end point. It's not oh, I read the one book, so now I'm an equity leader. It's no, there's more. Which is not a bad thing.

Joshua Childs: Two books, you mean? There's two books, not just one, there's two books.

Ain Grooms: Right.

And cause if that was the case, then we'd all the world would be so different, schools would look different. And so really thinking about like, how do we continuously learn? How do we continuously learn and grow? Again in the service of, in the service of kids and families and communities.

Christopher Saldaña: Thank you Dr. Grooms, Childs, and Peters for being on this month's podcast. As always, we hope you're safe and healthy. And remember, for the latest analysis on education policy, you should subscribe to the NEPC newsletter at NEPC.colorado.edu.