http://hdl.handle.net/2451/75621 2026-08-26T18:49:23Z http://hdl.handle.net/2451/75968 Title: Critical Participatory Action Research as Leadership Praxis: Sociopolitical Crises as Ordinary Moments for Expansive Educational Leadership Authors: Goessling, Kristen P.; Cooper, Alice Saladino; marie, pep Abstract: Philadelphia offers an ideal case study for understanding how community and education leaders negotiate the contemporary sociopolitical context and various crises to advance educational equity and justice. This paper focuses on our critical participation action research and organizing within an education coalition to offer an example of community-engaged research that strives for education equity and justice through leadership development. Our goal is to expand conceptualizations of educational leadership to include diverse stakeholders connected to school communities as experts. Toward that end, we examine and amplify the expertise of informal education leaders (e.g., families and communities) involved in struggles for education justice with attention to their response to the twin crises of COVID-19 and uprisings against anti-Black racism and police violence. Our work centers those directly impacted by systems and structures of oppression as experts on relationship building and community engagement. Findings offer insights and strategies to educational leaders for fostering family and community engagement and collaboration in times of crises and conflict. 2023-02-24T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2451/75966 Title: Caring through Crisis: Supporting African Immigrant Students and Educators during the COVID-19 Pandemic Authors: Tesfa, Edom; Lowenhaupt, Rebecca Abstract: All human beings need care, including professional caregivers such as educators. What happens when a global crisis places care providers; own care needs in conflict with their duty and desire to provide care? In this article, we apply care ethics to a school district's decisions regarding newcomer English learners (ELs) and their educators during the 2020-2021 academic year. Drawing on qualitative case study data from a larger multi-district, multi-state study, we examine how educators and administrators in a small urban school district in New England make sense of students' and educators' sometimes conflicting care needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that even school districts with clear commitments to equity and justice have their efforts severely limited by state and federal leadership's neglect of care/essential workers, youth, and marginalized groups. To end the ongoing pandemic and prevent future harm, we recommend that educational and political leaders prioritize human needs and relationships through a move towards "universal care" (Chatzidakis et al., 2020). 2023-02-24T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2451/75967 Title: Examining Community Cultural Wealth of Multicultural Liaisons & Their Leadership Authors: Reyes, Cynthia C.; Haines, Shana J.; Ghemari, Larbi M. Abstract: The following report is a qualitative case study of five multicultural liaisons who belong to the same communities for whom they interpret, families with refugee backgrounds in two school districts in a Northeastern state. Using Tara Yosso's (2005) community cultural wealth (CCW) model, which draws from Critical Race Theory, we examine the interview data to reconceptualize the resource potential of their roles as community insiders to advocate for the families in two school districts in the Northeast. To understand their perspectives, we examined the following question: in what ways do multicultural liaisons draw upon CCW to transform schooling for families with refugee experiences during a Covid-19 school year? The findings highlight the shift in the way liaisons think about their roles and equity during the pandemic. 2023-02-24T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2451/75960 Title: "In the Shadow of the Happiest Place on Earth": Schools as Community Institutions in Anaheim Authors: Michael Matsuda; Pedro Noguera; Jennifer Goldstein Abstract: It has been my great good fortune in this life to work, in different ways and at different times, with two extraordinary educators. I have known Pedro Noguera, now Dean of the Rossier School of Education at USC, for upwards of 30 years, since he was my undergraduate professor at UC Berkeley. I have known Michael Matsuda, Superintendent of the Anaheim Union High School District (AUHSD), since we initiatied a robust partnership for leadership preparation between our two institutions in 2018. In Hebrew, a shadchan is a matchmaker. When I read the call for this special issue of VUE, with its focus on schools as community institutions, I thought of them both. My role was mainly that of shadchan; I proposed the Conversations in Urban Educationersation to the two of them, and edited the published version into something comprehensible for a reader outside of the California context. Dean Noguera and Superintendent Matsuda had met before; on December 16, 2021, Noguera interviewed Matsuda via Zoom, and the district produced a transcript. That interview, edited for comprehension as well as flow, is provided below. Matsuda has served as the superintendent of AUHSD for eight years. It is a large, urban school district located in Orange County, not far from Disneyland. AUHSD is a majority minority school district that covers five cities, including Anaheim. The district enrolls over 29,000 students, and about 45 different languages are spoken by the families it serves. It is a gateway community that serves large numbers of refugee immigrants. Demographically, the district is predominantly Latin-X, (65%), with another 20% of its students from Asian and Pacific Islander backgrounds. The overwhelming majority of students are from low-income households, with a substantial number (approximately 4,000) who lack stable housing. 2023-02-24T00:00:00Z