Latino Leader, White Expectations

Latino candidates are often hired as school leaders in an effort to improve outcomes for Latino students yet they quickly get the message that they should tone down their Latino ways and show up White. Consider the story of Leticia at Lincoln Elementary School.

Leticia was the new Assistant Principal working under a White, male principal.? Lincoln Elementary had been growing in enrollment ever since they had become the hub for the district’s bilingual program.? The program was new and was placed at Lincoln in part because it had space given that it had been losing enrollment ever since a private school opened up nearby three years prior.?

Now that enrollment was back on the rise, the school district had added the position of AP for the first time so the principal had hired Leticia to attend to the Latino community’s requests for an administrator who spoke Spanish.? The school had two separate programs, one was traditional, English-only for neighborhood students and the other was a bilingual program filled with native Spanish speakers from the surrounding neighborhoods.? Students in the English only program were of much higher socioeconomic backgrounds than those attending the bilingual program.??

Leticia was put in charge of the Student Intervention Team which had previously been led by the Counselor. ? The team gathered weekly to review the progress of referred students and advise teachers on possible interventions to carry out in their classrooms.? Sometimes, students were referred for a special education evaluation or referred for interventions from the Reading Specialists, but usually teachers were sent back with additional strategies to use to help the student catch up.??

When Leticia joined the team, she shared with them that she wanted to learn about their practices and support they needed.? The team was glad that she wasn’t looking to make changes right away given that they felt the team functioned very well.? Leticia learned that at the end of each term, homeroom teachers were given time at a staff meeting and required to refer at least two students of concern. ? This arrangement had been a compromise reached after teachers complained that they didn’t have time to refer students during their contractual day and should be paid extra to do so outside of their contract time. ?The Counselor and School Psychologist would meet each week to review which homeroom teachers had not yet had a student come up for discussion by the team and would do their best to balance the schedule so that each homeroom teacher would get an equal amount of time at the meetings throughout the year.? Occasionally a parent would bring up a concern for their own student.? These requests were prioritized in the name of parent involvement.? These were almost exclusively White students from the English-only program.

After sitting through three weeks of meetings discussing marginally behind White students, Leticia asked for a list of students who had been referred but had not yet come up for a discussion.? It took the Counselor three weeks to produce the list.? When Leticia looked over it, she noticed that there was a disproportionate number of Latino students in the lower grades.? When she asked the team about this, they explained that they had a very fair way of scheduling students. They told her that their practice was objective because they didn’t consider a student’s race.? They met with the principal to share their concern about her combative style. The principal then met with Leticia and advised her to slow down and soften her approach.

Relationships between administration and staff were transactional even before Leticia got there as evidenced by their process for referring students with requirements and contractual language.? Her questions generated defensiveness and accusations that she wasn’t adhering to social norms of professionalism.? The Counselor’s delay in providing the requested artifact is a form of power hoarding.? The team was satisfied with their objective approach to scheduling and blind to how it perpetuated Latino students’ lack of access to interventions. ? Her principal, the person who was supposed to mentor her in the new role,? was unlikely to prioritize student outcomes over maintaining peace.? All together, this environment is primed for Leticia’s failure–a sort of setup. What is Leticia to do??

Step 1: Learn to notice the values that are driving behavior

The first step is for Leticia to see what is happening below the surface and name the cultural aspects that are at play, at least to herself.? The teachers were no less aware of the discrepant outcomes for Latino students than Leticia but they made different meanings from it.? The White staff figured it was evidence of some deficiency with Latino students and families but Leticia assumed that there must be some sort of systemic barrier that could be removed. ? Through their own perspectives they looked at the same situation and came up with very different explanations.? Her observations helped her see what needed to change in the scheduling process, but she was not yet skilled at noticing what needed to change at a much deeper level.? She had not fully considered the cultural values, beliefs and norms that were driving their behavior.? At every turn, she underestimated their commitment to the status quo and was surprised by the personal attacks.?

How did it get to this? Many aspects of school culture entered the schoolhouse long before Leticia was born as organized education was intentionally designed to maintain the social order that kept Whites in control and people of color subservient to them. These cultural values are affirmed by the unconscious belief that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds and therefore it is fitting for them to dominate politically, economically, and socially.?

? As a form of historical racism, harboring the culture of White supremacy differs from other forms of racism that are intentional and made up of individual, often violent, acts perpetrated against people of color. While Latino leaders should be prepared to face both unconscious and intentional racism, it is the unconscious, unexamined culture that can be harder to track and interrupt.?

Leticia expected the micro-aggressions but she had thought that if she was thick-skinned and in a position of power,? she could change things for students. Unfortunately without her staff lowering their defenses, learning new ways of working together and buying into her personally, they would never consider her ideas.? Their unquestioned commitment to the existing and unexamined school culture would continue to sabotage her change efforts.? Leticia will need to learn to notice and name the values that drive staff behavior-objectivity, tension avoidance, defensiveness, etc.- only then will she be able to reflect and imagine ways of shifting them.

Step 2: Understand the change that is needed

With help, Leticia could realize that the school is steeped in a culture of power hoarding, individualism, avoidance of conflict, defensiveness, martyrdom, and objectivity.? The staff’s value for independence has left them isolated even from each other and without the grit to endure uncomfortable tensions from disagreements. Questions feel like disrespect. Their sense of entitlement to praise for their positive intentions and hard work will keep them from being able to hold themselves responsible for any unintended outcomes.? Offering that praise could feel inauthentic and toxic to Leticia.?

Before this staff would be willing to inspect their role in the persistent failure of Latino students, they would need support to reconsider their beliefs. They would need to realize that their current values are antithetical to the qualities necessary for educators to do their best problem solving: collaboration, curiosity, humility, perspective taking, truth telling and comfort with paradox.

Leticia would have to identify pathways to move them from valuing power to valuing community, from certainty to humility.? They would need to get comfortable with conflict and get curious about other perspectives.? They would have to shift from a norm of objectivity to a norm of intentionality and move from valuing contracts to holding themselves accountable to the unspoken covenant relationship that exists between educators and the communities they serve.? Really, a total about face.

Asking people to question their long held beliefs is dangerous work.? Leticia’s principal gave her terrible advice yet it is the type of advice that Latino administrators, especially women, get all too often.? “Soften your approach,” “slow down,” “don’t be so direct,” “make more friends," “smile more.” That’s not what Leticia needs to do.? Leticia will need to tool up and engage in new learning.? She will need to secure a new mentor to help her through this process.? Someone from her cultural background who has worked in a similar context and can guide her in identifying strategies to communicate hard things.

Step 3: Add scaffolds?

Instead of adjusting her communication style, she needs to add scaffolds to attend to their lagging emotional intelligence.? Just like a good teacher doesn’t water down the curriculum for students who are below grade level, Leticia needs to do the equivalent of scaffolding instruction so her “students” can access “grade level content”.?

She needs to lead with gratitude and consistently acknowledge and appreciate their good intentions in ways that feel authentic to her.? Acknowledging their positive intentions will create the context to help them look at their impact.? In every conversation where she might create tension, she’ll have to skillfully give a gentle heads up to the discomfort she is about to cause and ask for permission before proceeding.? She’ll need to communicate genuine care for the staff and highlight the places where they do, in fact, agree.? She’ll have to be transparent about her own intentions and clearly articulate her objectives using their language.? She’ll have to constantly help them process their mixed feelings by asking about them and reflecting them back.? She’ll have to express genuine belief in their ability to reflect on their own practice and shift for the good of students.??

In every interaction, she’ll have to name and model the values of community, humility, intentionality, perspective taking, curiosity, kindness, and love.? Yes, love.? Only then will she create the space where she could clearly name what she sees by saying things like “It looks to me like this team’s scheduling practices are systematically keeping Latino students from accessing early interventions and are a likely root cause of Latino students’ discrepant outcomes.”???

It's the kind of thing that a White male principal could probably say and be met with nods of agreement.? The thing is, a White man wouldn’t necessarily see it.? Who would see it?? Leticia saw it. Latino leaders are well positioned to change outcomes for students of color.? Their familiarity with the systemic barriers that keep Latino students from succeeding and their ability to tap into the cultural assets that can be leveraged to accelerate academic success uniquely equip them to serve communities from their own racial background.??

School systems that recognize that the same forces that keep their students of color from finding success are likely to keep administrators of color from doing likewise will be better positioned to imagine new ways of supporting them.?

If you are a Latino leader, please know that you can show up authentically and thrive in White contexts. To learn more about how to add scaffolds for emotional intelligence and how to shift school culture visit inspire3m.com