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promoting a learning environment that embraces cultural diversity must be a vision of all
educators. It must be a conscious and all-encompassing effort.
Moving Beyond Compliance—
At non-diverse campuses, principals and teachers found
themselves struggling to adjust and adapt to the changing demographics of their students. As a
result, many instructional programs and initiatives implemented for school improvement were
met with minimal compliance and apathy. Secondary principals at diverse schools however, wear
multiple “hats” and play multiple roles in their schools and communities. Principals in these
campuses are compelled to incorporate and execute leadership characteristics and practices
derived from transformational leadership theory to move beyond compliance in closing the
achievement gaps for all students.
Implications for Secondary School Leadership
Secondary public schools in the twenty-first century continue to face increased
challenges in accountability, standardized testing, and ensuring all students perform at a national
standard. Educational leadership must progress being inclusive and harness the whole
educational community to increase student, teacher and school leadership performance.
Secondary public schools are faced with changing demographics of student populations, which
requires cultural sensitivity to a more diversified school population in terms of ethnicity, culture,
and language. Leadership and teaching practices must transcend from a practice of isolation to a
more collaborative practice with growth and rubric evidence oriented feedback in the educational
process. The intertwining and combination of data in this study provided deeper analysis in
creating the findings, which emerged from the quantitative and qualitative data sets of this study:
1). Twenty- first century secondary school leaders must have a holistic and inclusive
understanding, promoting genuine relationship with the students they are serving.
2). Twenty- first century secondary school leaders must guide the school community to
resist isolation and transform school culture into a collaborative one that strives to share
effective practices.
3). Twenty-first century secondary school leaders must emphasize, equip, and train
all
secondary teachers in literacy and numeracy best practices. Literacy and numeracy
will close the English and math educational gap for historically struggling African
American and Hispanic students.
Conclusion
Carolyn Shields (2013) advocates for equitable change in schools by urging educational
leaders to effect deep and equitable change, deconstruct and reconstruct knowledge frameworks
that perpetuate inequity and injustice and focus on democracy, equity and justice. Several
conclusions can be drawn from this mixed method study that deserve consideration with respect
to secondary leadership and teaching practices within diverse school settings. Collaborative
learning and work is a key component to student success and teacher improvement. Isolation
results in surface teaching and status quo leadership. Outdated roles of secondary principals need
change; the current result is an existing and widening achievement gap for both educators and
students. Educators in the building must gain a continuous understanding of the diverse
populations they are serving, if they are to have a grasp of culture and student knowledge, which
will impact their education. To truly become the transformational change agents needed today,