In many ways, our story started with a book.
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![A man’s hand with dark skin tone holds a pen and writes in a notebook in the foreground of the image. In the background his other hand holds the Culturally Responsive School Leadership book open.](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/64b691ab42f5698b2785ba59-public/5411d082ea2d1e3ef2d7b59120bf1f62.jpg)
What’s inside.
- First, that a full-fledged and nuanced understanding of “cultural responsiveness” is essential to successful school leadership.
- Second, that cultural responsiveness will not flourish and succeed in schools without sustained efforts by school leaders to define and promote it.
- Finally, that culturally responsive school leadership comprises a number of crucial leadership behaviors, which include critical self-reflection; the development of culturally responsive teachers; the promotion of inclusive, anti-oppressive school environments; and engagement with students’ indigenous community contexts.
![A woman with dark skin tone is smiling broadly while she reads a book.](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/64b691ab42f5698b2785ba59-public/028e946fe0af0753e6ec286e1d911beb.png)
School administrators, district-level administrators and other school leaders are all crucial to the process of humanization in schools. School leaders must be students of the histories of the communities they serve, including the traditional barriers to education that communities have faced. School leaders must also understand the historical context of the institutions they represent to these communities. But they shouldn’t stop there. They must, then, be able to translate this knowledge into effective leadership practices in their schools and districts. Until now, researchers and practitioners have not been able to translate histories of oppression (for example, knowledge of racism and marginalization of ELL students) into viable and sustainable, educational leadership practice. Here at CRSLI, we help school leaders and staff accomplish this.
“Khalifa draws on his own experience as an educator in Detroit to provide others who choose to take on this difficult but important work with insights that are invaluable and not typically learned in graduate school. For educational leaders who genuinely seek to make a difference this book will be an invaluable resource.”
—Pedro A. Noguera, is the Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education
The big takeaway.
Culturally Responsive School Leadership pairs real-world examples of systemic marginalization with specific strategies for how leaders can truly learn to interrupt systems that work only for some.
“It was a pleasure to attend one of the workshops led by Dr. Muhammad Khalifa as he and his team engaged School District of Philadelphia leaders in effective leadership. We know that effective leadership is inseparable from culturally proficient leadership and to understand the context in which we lead our schools and districts, we must understand the context we are in. Dr. Khalifa’s adroit ability to engage participants in this deep, intellectually rigorous work will undoubtedly lead to accelerated student outcomes.”
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Sharif El Meki - Chief Executive Officer - The Center for Black Educator Development
![A group of four professionally dressed women with medium to medium dark skin tone are having a discussion and standing in a circle in the middle of a large classroom.](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/64b691ab42f5698b2785ba59-public/e5a2db79a87ebfa21ed0884932a77e96.jpg)
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info@crsli.org
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Dr. Muhammad Khalifa is a professor of educational administration and Executive Director for Urban Education Initiatives at the Ohio State University. Before coming to OSU, Dr. Khalifa held the Robert Beck Endowed Professorship in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Having worked as a public school teacher and administrator in Detroit, Dr. Khalifa's research examines how urban school leaders enact culturally responsive leadership practices. His latest book, Culturally Responsive School Leadership (2018) was published by Harvard Education Press. He has led equity audits in U.S. schools as a way to reduce achievement and discipline gaps, and he is the first to develop and use online Equity Audits for schools. In addition to his urban work in the U.S., Dr. Khalifa has engaged in school leadership reform in African and Asian countries, including a recent U.N. project in East Africa.
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Darlinda Anderson serves as the senior vice president of Ajusted Equity Solutions/CRSLI. Her role within the organization is to charter leadership, organizational objectives, sustainable strategy, and advantageous expansion. For the last twenty years, she has worked in human resource management, K–12 education, and process-led project management. Overall, Darlinda’s passion for balance and equity in the service of societal disparities—especially those in disadvantaged groups and professions—was the start of her overarching search for finding and supporting an organization that creates long-term sustainable opportunity for disadvantaged minorities.
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Jessica Schrody, born and raised in Los Angeles, California, is a professional with a passion for digital storytelling and online marketing since 2017. Focused on social media, she crafts engaging narratives that captivate audiences and drive business success.
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Dr. Katie Pekel, is the Principal in Residence for the University of Minnesota. In this role Dr. Pekel serves as the department’s direct connection between the fields of research and practice in PK-12 education. She leads the Minnesota Principals Academy, co-directs the Urban Leadership Academy, developed the University’s District Leadership Academy with Dr. Kim Gibbons and the Culturally Responsive School Leadership Academy with colleague Dr. Muhammad Khalifa. Dr. Pekel also serves as a graduate coordinator or the Educational Policy and Leadership track within the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development. She teaches courses for aspiring school principals and doctoral students and coordinates the Executive PhD cohort for educational leaders. Dr. Pekel has also worked with the University’s College Readiness Consortium guiding school principals and leadership teams from over 150 schools across Minnesota on their implementation of Ramp-Up to Readiness™, the University’s school-wide college readiness program for students in grades 6-12. Dr. Pekel has served at all levels of K-12 education first as a high school English teacher, as an elementary principal and most recently as a middle school principal for six years in Austin, MN.
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Maggie Smith-Peterson is the Director of Instructional Design & Learning for the Culturally Responsive School Leadership Institute and leads projects focused on the creation and expansion of learning experiences, services and tools for developing socially just and racially equitable leaders and school systems. Maggie has served as an elementary classroom teacher, specialist/coach, adjunct professor, district program facilitator, and professional learning designer in a variety of school systems and organizations, including New York City Public Schools, St. Paul Public Schools, Minneapolis Public Schools, the University of Minnesota, and the University of St. Thomas. Maggie holds an M.S. and an M.A. in education, and received her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Minnesota. As a scholar, she studies social justice issues in gifted education and advanced academics with a particular focus on the history of scientific racism and its implications for structural reproduction. As a designer, Maggie specializes in visual and multimedia design, UX/LX research and design, and learning technologies.
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Noor Doukmak is the Director of Operations & Community Partnerships at the Culturally Responsive School Leadership Institute. She channels her passion for educational equity and excellence into creating research-based content for practitioners, collaborating with school and district leaders to support their equity initiatives, and facilitating smooth operations across CRSLI’s projects.