BIO

Hi, I'm Ben Kelly, and I'm super excited to be presenting at the Symposium in April. I'm a sophomore from McLean, Virginia; studying Social Science Education. The project I'm working on focuses on seeing how school administrators view the challenges they face as leaders of school communities.

Public School Leadership in Times of Uncertainty: A Rendering of the Influence of Education Policy on Leadership Practice in Florida Schools

Abstract

There have been increasing efforts in the United States to draw back Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs in public education. In response, educational leadership is dealing with the consequences of attempting to create equitable environments for all students within schools while appealing to the politics of their state. Current research has looked at political atmospheres and teacher attitudes but has not identified any solutions for how educational leaders should respond. We hope to discover how educational leaders feel in response to these initiatives and how we, as educational leadership trainers, can adapt our training methods to help leaders prepare to handle politically charged school environments. For the purpose of this study, we decided to look at 2 counties in Florida (referred to as River County and Forest County). We solely focused on K-12 public schools. To discover the attitudes of educational leaders, we conducted 30-minute semi-structured interviews with 5 principals. After conducting the interviews, we developed transcripts and completed a data analysis. The results of this study indicate difficulties in educational leadership experience managing teachers and faculty in implementing culturally responsive education. We were interested to discover that in majority-minority schools, administrators experience an atypical protection from state mandates and, as a result, feel that they do not need to comply with anti-DEI legislation.

Keywords: principal, DEI, schools