Collective Hope: Expanding School Leader Capacity to Authentically Engage Families, Students, and Teachers through Healing-Centered Collaborative Leadership in School Governance Bodies

Abstract

Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) serves the beautifully diverse city of Oakland in California’s East Bay. The city, or “the Town” as Oakland natives might say, is steeped in community members’ dedication to fighting for equity, particularly in education. The decades-long history of organizing and activism, especially that of Black and Brown communities in Oakland, have shaped the city such that community engagement in schools is not an addition, it is foundational. One of the many results of Black and Brown organizers’ labor in Oakland is the decision made in partnership with the District to make OUSD a Full Service Community School district. A community school provides holistic support to students and families; one of the goals of community schools is deepening family and community engagement in decision-making processes. In OUSD, some of those decision-making processes happen in school-based governance spaces and are called School Site Councils. As a resident, I worked closely with members of the Office of Community Schools and Student Services, members of the Office of Equity, and various school sites to create toolkits for School Site Council facilitators and participants to more authentically share power and leadership. The toolkits contain concrete tools, practices, and protocols for facilitators and participants of School Site Councils. They could be used to build students’, families’, and teachers’ capacity for engagement by centering healing values with every tool; the use of each tool is meant to invite unique perspectives and ideas into the space. By acknowledging and honoring distinctive needs, values, and ideas, schools can produce thoughtful, creative solutions. In this capstone, I center the work of Dr. Shawn Ginwright, a giant in the field of Healing Centered Engagement and creator of the CARMA framework. Dr. Ginwright’s work details the foundational values that guided my process and helped me conceptualize the considerations necessary to create systemic change. I gathered preliminary information, wrote a first draft toolkit, and continuously iterated the toolkit based on feedback from various stakeholders. I close by providing recommendations to OUSD for how they can continue to deepen community engagement and how the learnings from my work might be applied throughout the sector. Families and communities are experts of their children, as are the children themselves. By practicing healing and collaboration, students, families, teachers, and school leaders across the sector can create school communities where children can thrive.