Katherine Collier

Dr. Brereton
EDSL 506/509
6/10/2021
Culturally Responsive School Leadership Inquiry and Action Planning Project
Criteria
To begin our inquiry of culturally responsive school leadership, the members of Team 1 and I met
to discuss our criteria. We first thought about things like school climate, evaluation of teachers, being
trauma informed, and also considered the various stakeholders from students, families, staff,
administration, and the community. However, upon reflecting on the recommended reading, we decided
to use Khalifa’s (2018) definition of culturally responsive school leadership which states, “(a) Being
critically self-reflective; (b) developing and sustaining culturally responsive teachers and curricula; (c)
promoting inclusive, anti-oppressive school contexts; and (d) engaging students’ Indigenous (or local
neighborhood) community contexts” (p. 13). It is this definition that we used to then interview our three
chosen faculty members.
When considering who to interview at Baldi Middle School, I thought of three categories:
teachers, school leaders, and teacher-leaders. For teachers, I could think of one teacher from each grade
level who would be able to speak to moves they make in their classrooms to be culturally responsive. But,
when taking a deeper look at the syllabus, it notes that these should be staff members who have shown
leadership in moving towards making Baldi a culturally responsive educational environment for students.
So, I landed on interviewing three individuals: Dawn Adamoli who is our 6th grade ELL teacher, the
point person or director of the ELL programing, and 6th grade PLC Lead, Daniel Mina who is our 7th
grade Assistant Principal, and Kelsey Mislanovich who is our 8th grade ELA teacher and 8th grade PLC
Lead. I interviewed each one on one through Google Meet over Thursday, May 20 and Friday, May 21.
Each interview lasted approximately twenty to thirty minutes and we touched on this central inquiry
question that aligned with my team’s criteria: How is Baldi is moving towards being culturally responsive
in the development of teachers (instruction, assessment, curriculum, professional development), the
creation and fostering of an inclusive and supportive school climate, and engagement with students'
neighborhoods/communities?
Findings of the Inquiry
Each participant had similar and unique answers to one another in regards to the inquiry question.
Many responses are similar since each person is on the leadership team at Baldi. However, each was also
unique due to their positions outside of the leadership team.

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 Dawn Adamoli. Dawn chose to begin her answer with Baldi’s progress in engaging students’
neighborhoods and communities. She is very excited that our principal, Mr. Hostetter, won the Lindback
Award recently as he has said he plans to use the money for building an ELL Resource Center at Baldi..
Dawn cited that she thinks this will engage the ELL community at Baldi since they would have a place to
house the Bilingual Counselors and parents/families would feel more welcomed into this space. She also
has hopes that it could be used at night for offering adult ELL courses. As of Baldi’s current engagement,
we do have a Community Liaison, Mrs. Cherny, who organized pre-pandemic Multicultural Nights, each
of which featured food from a local restaurant in the Northeast, but hosted a speaker from sometimes
outside of the NE. Dawn commented that she thinks this practice could be changed by partnering with
speakers from the NE in the Baldi community who could demonstrate their expertise.
Turning next to professional development, Dawn stated that we are lacking professional
development for science, social studies, and math teachers around how to best teach ELL students. She
stated she feels more confident in the ELA teachers at Baldi, who she feels are accustomed to
differentiating and modifying instruction and student resources, compared to the other content areas. She
is hopeful that her position next year will be more released than it was this year so that she could take on
designing professional development for Baldi staff around ELL students. She also hopes to use the time to
be able to best roster ELL students with teachers. She also stated that in terms of staffing, she feels the
SDP policy is not culturally responsive in that schools are given ELL teachers based on the number of
beginners enrolled in the school building, a decision that is made in October. But at Baldi, a lot of our
beginner students enter in January and we have many ELL students who move from beginner to
intermediate or advanced. Both of these components combined mean that our school does not necessarily
have the correct amount of staff members for our ELL population, which is roughly 350 students all of
different cultures speaking many languages.
Lastly, in terms of school climate, she feels like sometimes beginner ELL students are seen as a
frustration to teachers, which she wishes they were not. This also stuck a cord with her in regards to the
positive behavior incentives that Baldi hosts. Some teachers hold the beginner ELL students back from
events since they do not participate (by raising their hands and speaking out loud). She feels this practice
is not culturally responsive and she often advocates on behalf of her students for them to attend. Another
comment she made was about her beginner ELL classes where she has had to hold spaces for
conversations about how societal norms are different in the USA than some students’ home countries. For
example, she’s had to teach some of her male ELL students that women in the USA are allowed and can
be truck drivers, something the students struggled to understand. She would be interested to rectify this
with instruction in the general education classrooms with a Community Meeting slideshow about other
cultures, a practice Baldi did this year for Black History Month and Women’s History Month. This

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brought us back full circle to professional development as she and I are both members of Need in Deed
and she feels this organization really allows students and teachers to push their learning in regards to
many and one focused social issues.
Daniel Mina. Daniel (Dan) Mina began our conversation talking from a systems perspective
since, as a school leader, he has had the privilege and power to make changes school wide. One of the
first things he addressed was rostering. When he first arrived at Baldi, 8th grade was rostered by students
who were tracked into Honors ELA and Algebra which were sections 801-803 and then the remaining
sections of students were rostered into regular ELA and regular Math. At the end of his first year, he
recalled a student stating that of course things looked this way because all the smart kids were in the first
sections and the less smart you were, then the lower your section number was. Essentially the student
implied that if you were in 814, you were, therefore, some of the least smart students in the entire 8th
grade. While this was the students’ perception, it was also their reality. So, one of the first actions that the
leadership team took the following year was to diversify the 8th grade classes, as this aligned with the
leaders’ values of equity, and now each student has their own schedule, which also prepares them for high
school. A student can be in Honors ELA and regular math, or regular ELA and Algebra, or any
combination of the two.
I also followed by asking about if this tracking to detracking decision affected the school climate.
He said absolutely; when 8th grade was tracked, he said one could stand at the corner of the two hallways,
look to the right and see all students in their Honors ELA/Algebra classrooms, and then look to the left
and see more activity and on occasion, chaos. Now, the school climate he feels has improved, but he
noted our next step as a school is to address the disproportionality of ELL and Afican American students
performing poorly in math classrooms and the disproportionality of especially African American, but also
Hispanic or Latinx students in our suspension data. I then asked about the role of coaching and peer
coaching. He said many conversations are had about creating more equity in terms of instruction, but he
hopes to move forward in creating safe, supportive, positive interactions between staff and the students
discussed above. In this way he hopes to coach for equity here in the school climate with coaches taking
low inference notes, identifying patterns, and having hard conversations with the people we coach.
In terms of engagement with students’ neighborhoods and communities, he was transparent that
he thinks this is an area of growth for us in that there are not yet systems to develop this area, but the
work has begun with Mrs. Cherny. He noted the diversity of parents/families in the NE in regards to
political beliefs and more specifically over this past year, conversations he has had with parents who have
disagreed with what is being taught in classrooms around anti-racism and the role of police. He is in favor
of bringing families of different perspectives in to engage in conversations, but stresses that there needs to
be a skilled facilitator of these conversations for fear of further dividing the community. Finally, he spoke

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to the hiring practice at Baldi and recognized that since Baldi’s families can be White and conservative,
that this is often a deterrent to teachers of color. He says Baldi has been and is intentional in actively
engaging teachers of color in the recruitment process. He also hopes to roster students of color who have
maybe never had a teacher of color in elementary school to a classroom with a teacher of color at Baldi.
Finally, he noted that this work to have Baldi become culturally responsive really aligns with his personal
values as he is raising his family in Philadelphia as opposed to the Main Line or Poconos (where his wife
and he are from respectively) and his experience in the Peace Corp in South Africa in his twenties.
Kelsey Mislanovich. Kelsey spoke first to professional development. At Baldi this year, one of
our school priorities was Equity and Anti-Racism and Kelsey recalled that we had a grade level PLC and
a meeting across grade levels to discuss our personal biases, but due to the chaos of this pandemic year,
we began the work strong, but it ended very abruptly at the start of the year. However, Kelsey noted that
she has heard of instances where teachers have been teaching with an anti-racism lens, faced parent
pushback, and Administration has supported the teachers, so she feels the priority is held up in that way.
From her experience as a teacher, she and two other White, female, young 8th grade ELA
teachers all start the year with an identity and cultural belonging unit in their curriculum. Students read
“Why Couldn't I have Been Named Ashley” by Imma Achilike, “My Favorite Chaperone” by Jean
DAvies Okimoto, and “The Danger of A Single Story” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Over the course
of the year, students make connections back to this unit, especially recently when they were reading “The
Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton. However, Kelsey noted that the two other 8th grade ELA teachers, who are
both White, male, and older, do not do this unit and instead do novel studies. She knew one of them
teaches “a Thousand Splendid Suns”, by Khaled Hosseini, “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, and
“Fahrenheit 451”, by Ray Bradbury, but she was unaware of the conversations students have surrounding
these texts. She did not know what the other teacher taught his students. She observed this speaks to the
great degree of teacher autonomy that is valued highly by staff, but she noted perhaps it does create a
disservice to students. She remarked also that state assessments, PSSA, and district assessments, STAR,
were both not culturally responsive, but she felt that the ELA teachers that she works with do design
assessments that allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding in creative ways.
As a teacher-leader, she spoke to the school climate issues surrounding disproportionality, but
addressed that she does not know to what extent teachers who are not leaders really understand this
information. Lastly, she noted that Baldi has room for growth in regards to students’ communities and
neighborhoods engagement, stating that she feels out of the loop on what Baldi is doing in this area, but
felt that pre-pandemic the Multicultural Nights were successful from what she heard from those teachers
who attended. She also feels like we could have professional development in trauma informed instruction

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and would be interested in spending professional development time touring the Baldi community, as she
has never really embarked into it.
After hearing from all three participants who were critically self-reflective of our school and their
role in it, that an area of growth for Baldi moving forward in creating a culturally responsive education
environment for students is engagement with students’ neighborhoods/communities, this entry action plan
will address this issue first.
Entry Action Plan
Dear staff,
I am honored and excited to be C.C.A. Baldi Middle School’s principal for this upcoming school
year. Although I am new in this role, I served as a 7th grade ELA and sometimes Social Studies teacher
over the past four years. I have been inspired by each of you over the years and I look forward to
continuing to learn together as a community.
As such, I know we are committed to ensuring that our students experience a culturally
responsive education environment. This spans from our development of teachers (instruction, assessment,
curriculum, professional development), the creation and fostering of an inclusive and supportive school
climate, and engagement with students' neighborhoods/communities. Being that this is my first year as
your school principal, over the summer I conducted an inquiry into our school’s progress towards these
three areas. I met and had conversations with teachers and leaders in our school building. The result of
these conversations is that a pressing area of growth for us all is our engagement with students’
neighborhoods/communities. At Baldi, we know one of our strengths is the diversity of our student
population, and so this Entry Plan serves as a tool for how I plan to address this area of growth in the
upcoming school year.
Goal. It is my goal to increase Baldi’s ability to be culturally responsive to the neighborhoods and
communities our students live in. To do so, we have a two pronged approach:
1. Engage staff members, teachers and leaders, in professional development around critical self
reflection, a book study, and the different cultures of our students in order to improve instruction.
2. Engage families and community members in conversations about their agenda for their
community and our school’s role within it.
I see the first goal as a focus of our already established Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). The
focus of each PLC will now revolve around this area of growth. PLCs will be guided by myself and our
Assistant Principals to begin with critical-self reflection and book study before the PLC will design their
own inquiries into the cultures of the students we serve in order to improve instruction. As part of these
inquiries, I pledge to support teachers on “field trip days” with resources like substitute teachers, so
teachers can spend time in the communities, and resources to support instruction, like intervention

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programming and ELL staff. I see the second goal to further the work we already do of bringing families
to Baldi. Now we will go to families and community members and this will be the work of our Leadership
Team, Community Liaison, and ELL department who will be venturing into the community to meet with
these stakeholders with the interests of the neighborhoods and communities at the forefront of our agenda.
Plan of action. The goal of this plan of action is to approach this work with a mindset that we as
staff are continuous learners and committed to placing students first. Much of this action plan is a
combination of this mindset, inquiry, action, and reflection.

Month Professional Development Actions Family and Community Engagement Actions

August 2021 Community building activities- each Community building activities- each teacher
teacher will share their “why” about will share their “why” about why this work is
why this work is important to them; important to them; Establish PLC norms created
Establish PLC norms created by by teachers: Norms Construction – A Process of
teachers: Norms Construction – A Negotiation – School Reform Initiative
Process of Negotiation – School
Reform Initiative With each focus of the month:
● Visit and talk with the members of
places of worship, restaurants, small
businesses, alumni, neighbors,
elementary schools, high schools, etc.
● Figure out what the communities’
agendas are; develops ways to advocate
for communities’ agendas in our school
building and city
*Please note these cultures were chosen as these
are the languages most spoken by our student
population and their families.

September 2021 Critical self-reflection activity Russian

surrounding identity: Social Identity
Wheel Handout Revised.pdf

October 2021 Critical self-reflection activity Uzbek

surrounding personal biases: Who, Me?
Biased?: Understanding Implicit Bias

November 2021 Book study- reading and discussion Ukranian

using the educator’s guide- Stamped:
Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix
of the National Book Award-winning
Stamped from the Beginning, Ibram X.
Kendi and Jason Reynolds; educator's
guide

December 2021 Book study- reading and discussion Chinese

using the educator’s guide- Stamped:
Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix

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 of the National Book Award-winning
Stamped from the Beginning, Ibram X.
Kendi and Jason Reynolds; educator's
guide

January 2022 Book study- reading and discussion Malayalam

using the educator’s guide- Stamped:
Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix
of the National Book Award-winning
Stamped from the Beginning, Ibram X.
Kendi and Jason Reynolds; educator's
guide

February 2022 Beginning of inquiry- development of Tajik

inquiry question

March 2022 Conduct research on their question as it Arabic

relates to current education and
sociological research in the field as
well as asking the school community
for their perspectives, both those heard
and unheard; Field trip #1

April 2022 Teachers design a culturally responsive Spanish

lesson or lessons coupled with
assessments using their research to
implement in the classroom in an
attempt to answer their question;
Teachers implement the lesson or
lessons and allow for their professional
peers to observe them and/or they
video tape the lesson; Field trip #2

May 2022 Teacher analyze the lesson or lessons Georgian

with their observations or video along
with student data gathered from shared
assessments through using protocols to
attempt to find an answer to their
question; Teachers respond to the
learning or lack of learning in the
students with school-wide timely,
systemic interventions; Field trip #3

June 2022 Reflection and celebration of growth; Reflection and celebration of growth; determine
determine goals and steps for following goals and steps for following school year
school year

Reflection

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 Personally, this inquiry and action planning project was incredibly thought provoking. With the
Team 1 discussion about our criteria, it was interesting to hear what everyone’s definitions of culturally
responsive education environments were as each aligned with their personal identities and career paths.
For example, one was interested in trauma informed practices due to the type of school she works at and
another person of color in our group was interested in hearing more about not just hiring diverse teachers,
but the retention of them.
With the interviews of Baldi leaders and teacher-leaders, similarly, each had their own focus and
perspective depending on their role. These experiences showed me the importance of building
relationships as a school leader and how it is truly real that when you become a school leader, individuals
will come to you with different interests in the hopes that you take action (Optional session with panel,
4/14/2021). However, it also showed me that it seems like these three individuals at least had a similar
pulse on the glows and grows that Baldi has.
The practice of writing an Entry Plan is valuable seeing as I have not experienced receiving one
from a school leader to staff members at Baldi. It was interesting to think about how the idea of taking an
inquiry stance as a new leader, in this case designing a PLC charged with creating a research question,
interviewing members of the staff, and designing a plan, was directly applicable from the theory of doing
it, which we study at Penn, to actually implementing it here (Brereton lecture, 1/10/2021). This is of great
interest to me as I was able to combine my Master’s thesis research into this project, which made it feel
real and something I could actually implement in the future. I also found it useful to create this action plan
with a backwards design mindset, thinking about what I wanted the focus and point of growth to be for
the school’s staff and leaders, then designing action steps that aligned with the goal.
Finally, this inquiry and action plan project showed me the importance of as a school leader,
keeping up with current research in the field of education. Without Khalifa’s 2018 “Culturally Responsive
School Leadership” text, my thinking never would have been stretched in this way.