Equity-centered school leaders

The role of principal has changed over time, expanding beyond traditional management work to include transformative instructional and equity leadership (Grissom, Egalite, & Lindsay, 2021; Khalifa, 2018; Manna, 2015). To effectively lead today’s schools, especially in diverse urban communities, principals need specialized knowledge, skills, and dispositions. Equity-centered school leaders need to cultivate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions within themselves that will enable all students to have access to and benefit from high-quality education.

For 20 years, I have been working in Columbus City Schools (CCS), the largest and most diverse school district in Ohio, as an elementary teacher, principal, and more recently, district-level coach supporting school leaders. CCS serves approximately 46,600 students: 20% of our students are white, 15% are Latinx, and the majority are Black Americans and African migrants. About 95% of our students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals in schools. Our students and families have continually expressed how the effects of racism and poverty pose challenges for them as they navigate schools and society. Although public education is considered a vehicle for social mobility, for many poor and working-class Black students and families, the American Dream remains, in the words of Langston Hughes (1951), a “dream deferred.” If education is to be a gateway to success for all, then those of us leading schools must determine how to best meet the academic and personal needs of our country’s diverse learners.

My district’s grow-your-own principal pipeline prepares equity-centered school leaders. We use six critical dispositions that are significant to cultivating equity-centered leaders and integrate these dispositions into the recruitment, preparation, and induction of aspiring and novice school leaders in the district.