WHOLE-CHILD DESIGN

Diverse, Representative and Inclusive Teaming

A school’s primary leadership team is inclusive and representative in some ways (e.g., includes leaders from the school’s mental health team, various academic departments, or school culture leaders), but not in other ways (e.g., there may be no pathway for student, family or caregiver voices, no involvement of people outside of formal leadership roles, or individuals on the team may not reflect the diversity of the school community in terms of race, ethnicity and gender).

As a result, the leadership team may miss critical voices, struggle to consider multiple perspectives, and fail to meaningfully engage others as partners in school goals and initiatives.

Shared Responsibility

Leadership responsibilities are distributed across some representative teams (e.g., grade-level teams, department teams, school culture teams, parent action teams, and student advisory councils), but teams may be unclear about how their work connects to others or back the larger, schoolwide priorities.

The teams may function in isolation or operate in a hierarchy where some are considered more important or powerful than others (e.g., the primary leadership team may “own” an initiative and simply direct other teams on what to do, or a school culture team may be asked to contribute in less substantial ways than a department team).

Without a clear understanding of how they function together, the various teams may struggle to collaborate, solve problems and share responsibility of holistic schoolwide goals.

Responsive and Empowering Decision Making

Leaders approach decision making from a top-down, one-directional perspective (e.g., a group of leaders decide something, and then other staff members are informed and expected to execute). When leaders attempt to be inclusive, responsive or empowering in their decision making, it is usually reactive (e.g., after someone has advocated for more power, a bigger say, or more inclusion).

Alternatively, leaders may attempt to be inclusive but may struggle to find ways to include more than just a few people (e.g., overly relying on the qualitative experiences of a few vocal staff members, only including those with whom they have the best relationships, only inviting those with the most seniority to contribute to an idea, failing to consider how their own implicit or explicit bias may be influencing who they choose to include or empower).

A school struggling to empower others in decision making may experience stakeholders becoming increasingly disengaged because their voices have not mattered or been included in important matters.

Equitable Listening and Communication Practices

Leaders communicate in some accessible ways but may not have consistent practices established. As a result, staff are sometimes unclear about how or when different communications will be prioritized. For example, at certain times of the year, leaders might be available for listening and clearly communicate with staff (e.g., at the beginning of the year, during evaluations, near parent conferences, or in quarterly meetings).

However, other times, leaders are inaccessible or invisible, or large amounts of time pass without communication. Leaders may listen to some people but be dismissive of others, or may offer information to some people but not all. These inconsistencies may also fall along lines of difference as a result of unexamined implicit or explicit bias. Many communication practices happen reactively when people ask for updates or when people complain leaders are not listening.

Diverse, Representative and Inclusive Teaming

A school’s primary leadership team is inclusive and representative of all stakeholders and reflects the school community, but some may not be valued as full, contributing members (e.g., members are invited to only some meetings, members are able to weigh in on only certain items, or members are asked to provide perfunctory feedback at the end of a decision-making process).

As a result, some members are fully engaged in making proposals, offering meaningful feedback, and making decisions, while others view their role as limited to symbolic or superficial participation.

Shared Responsibility

Leadership responsibilities are distributed across various representative teams. In addition, teams understand how their work connects to others and the larger, schoolwide priorities.

However, the teams may not yet have systems, structures and practices that facilitate effective collaboration across teams (e.g., regular communication systems for information sharing, larger cross-functional teaming structures that support integration, clear pathways for providing multidirectional feedback, or norms that support collaborative decision making).

As a result, teams may take some shared responsibility (e.g., when their work clearly overlaps or collaborating is easy), but at other times, they may default to waiting for directions from other teams or competing against each other for control.

Responsive and Empowering Decision Making

Leaders sometimes approach decision making in responsive, empowering ways by using inclusive processes and protocols (e.g., processes for collecting input, shared protocols for providing feedback, or frameworks for making proposals).

However, these inclusive efforts may be limited to only certain kinds of decisions (e.g., individuals may be empowered to make decisions for their own classroom but are not included in decisions being made for the whole school), or they may be experienced inconsistently (e.g., one time, a staff member may be praised for trying something innovative in their classroom, and another time, a staff member may be disciplined for trying something without explicit permission).

Because of the inconsistent experiences, a school may find some stakeholders reporting they feel included in decision making and empowered in their own roles, while others do not (e.g., these inconsistencies may fall along the lines of race, ethnicity or gender, as leaders’ implicit or explicit bias influences who is or is not included).

Equitable Listening and Communication Practices

Leaders communicate in accessible and consistent ways. This is most evident in proactive listening and communication systems, structures and practices (e.g., systems for raising concerns or questions, structures for providing updates, and norms that support challenging discussions). These proactive lines of communication are ongoing and do not depend on specific, time-bound invitations for listening and sharing.

In their communication, leaders focus on empathetic and active listening and offer the same communication opportunities to all staff, regardless of their roles, responsibilities or power within the organization. For example, a leader would engage in open dialogue about ongoing strategy development with any staff member, not just other leaders.