Tag: recovery

Leading school recovery

We have begun thinking about the implications of the research we have been doing on school leaders’ work and wellbeing. One of the resources we have consulted are the literatures on leading during and after natural disasters.

Tornadoes, floods, earthquakes and fires are not directly analogous to the pandemic as they tend to be short-lived and catastrophic. This is not our current situation, which is a very extended period of difficulty with peaks of crisis. However, there may be some lessons to be drawn for thinking about the recovery period. We have therefore been going to published research to see what might be instructive. Other UK researchers have also been looking at this literature – Sinead Harney and Gemma Moss have looked at disaster recovery in New Orleans and elsewhere in terms of impact on student learning – we are looking at it in terms of impact on schools and school leadership.

We are particularly interested in the literatures about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The devastation caused by ferocious winds and flooding wiped out an enormous swathe of the city, and its schools. It was an opportunity for the newly named Recovery School District  to completely rethink its school provision. Their solution was a new mix of public and private via the introduction of charter schools – schools funded by the taxpayer but operated by private organisations. Some 60% of schools in the district are now charter schools, making it something like the mix of academy, free and local authority schools that now exists in England. 

One study ( Beabout, 2014) which looked at post-Katrina school leaders in New Orleans (n=10, interviewed over 3 years) noted the considerable autonomy this new configuration of schools afforded. However, despite significant local differences, there were common principles that underpinned the post disaster change processes the leaders used:

Collaboration – the importance of establishing meaningful collaborative practices within the school after the disruption – distributed responsibilities and devolved decision-making were key to rebuilding staff cohesion and commitment to their common endeavour. There was an inevitable tension between the need to get going quickly and meet re-imposed accountability and the necessarily slower pace of addressing wellbeing and morale. 

Community connections – school leaders in the study saw connections with parents and community organisations as an essential part of rebuilding community, accessing expertise and support, (re)generating a positive school reputation and ensuring local solutions for local needs. 

Generating public support – linked to the need for re-establishing strong local bonds was a need to address the poor reputation of pre-hurricane urban schools. This required collective political action on school boards and in the state legislature, as well as in media.

Meeting student needs – because of the terrible damage done to homes and health, school leaders saw the non-academic needs of their students as crucial. Addressing trauma and regaining a sense of belonging and wellbeing were seen as vital accompaniments to improvements in learning.

Setting goals and meeting them – the leaders in the study had very different approaches to planning, but all paid serious attention to the management of staff, time, space and resources. Getting the infrastructure working to support other aspects of change was a key part of leaders’ work.

Improving instruction – the post-hurricane period created an opportunity to revisit previously taken for granted teaching and learning practices, to support and resource carefully staged and supported instructional innovation. 

Much of this particular study resonates with the results of our research. English school leaders told us about the importance of within school collaboration, the benefits of community connections, the need to address wider public support for schooling, particularly from the very top, and the importance of attending to the whole student – their emotional, social, physical, aesthetic and intellectual development.

As English schools have not been closed, as was the case in New Orleans, the heads in our study had not stopped being concerned about management of resources or instruction. But they were looking forward to a time when they could spend more of their time focused on learning, and less on the continued reinvention of everyday managerial requirements. 

However, the question in England is what systemic support leaders need in order to move most effectively into the recovery phase.

Our full results will be published in late November. Stay tuned! 

Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash

Trust and the local school

During the pandemic, the initial bump in levels of public trust in the national government rapidly fell away. However, it seems that trust at the local level may have actually increased and been maintained. A study commissioned by the British Academy (March 2021) reported that 

Through December to January, 60% of the UK population continued to doubt the UK government’s competence in tackling the pandemic. Only 25-27% thought the government was competent. In contrast, only 24-28% thought their local councils lacked competence and 43-38% believed they were competent. By March 2021 when 30% of the population had been vaccinated and a timetable announced for unlocking, 54% still doubted the government’s competence whereas only 21% doubted their local councils’ competence. (p.4) 

The BA study also examined public perceptions of social unity and division at both the national and local levels. The report states that people see more division at national than the local level. The increased level of unity and cohesion at the local level is important, the report says, as social cohesion is an important driver of national growth and stability. In a separate report, the British Academy argues that building a more cohesive society means focusing, capitalising on and building up from local structures. It says 

We must also look closely at the critical role of communities in rebuilding trust and cohesion after the crisis, ensuring the right infrastructure is in place to strengthen trust both within and between different groups and communities, which in turn builds social capital and underpins wider recovery demands for greater economic productivity and resilience. (p.8) 

 The British Academy follows a long line of sociological and political research which suggests that civic institutions have a key role to play in building the bonds which are the basis of trust and social cohesion ( e.g. Bandari and Yosanobu, 2009; Gannon and Roberts 2020; Muringani et al, 2021). Social institutions are integral to growing “bonding” (local), “bridging” (local to national) and “linking”(norms of respect and recognition) capitals; all three are important in the production and reproduction of the high levels of trust needed for national recovery (Fuzer et al, 2020). The local cannot be ignored; nor can it be seen as the only site that matters.

Schools are important local civic institutions. They connect children and their families socially through both formal and informal practices. They are also variously important in local economies through their employment and purchasing practices. And through educational networks, they can strengthen place based provision as well as cconnect different parts of the region and the country together.

There is already a literature on schools and social capital (e.g. Dika and Singh, 2002; Flint, 2011; Murray et al, 2020). During the pandemic there has been  some social capital related research which examines the trust that parents have in their children’s school. In the USA,  an Ed Week Research Centre survey suggested that just over half of the parent body thought that schools would keep their children safe, and only 20% thought the reverse. Parental feelings of trust in their school varied with race, ethnicity, education levels and political affiliation being important differentiators. Black parents in particular had less faith in their children’s school.

In England, ParentPing conducted a large survey investigating parents’ views on schooling during lockdown. Parent Ping concluded that 

Parents think schools did a great job (but this didn’t really affect how successful parents thought home learning had been). Some families found it harder than others (but not a lot). Families were challenged when they didn’t have enough access to laptops etc., when it was difficult to combine home learning with other commitments, and when they didn’t understand the work set by schools.

While this lockdown research on schooling does not directly address how trust in local schools is linked to questions of wider local trust, it does broadly support the view that schools are one of the social assets in communities which can support post-pandemic social rebuilding.

The Brookings Institute in the US argues that “powered up” local schools could be the centre of local learning “eco-systems”. While the Brookings agenda for change may not suit everyone, their case for inclusive and equitable local schools as a significant component of recovery sits well with the British Academy vision of civic renewal based in both national and local institutions.

The research on parents and their local schools does suggest that there are good grounds for thinking that schools could be an integral part of a post-pandemic public policy agenda. However, as we have noted, trust and thus bridging and linking capitals between school leaders and the national government have been weakened during the pandemic. Any agenda for change thus needs to take not only the local but also the national into account.

And in order for a social capital based renewal agenda involving schools to actually work, school leaders need to be personally and professionally in a position to take on new challenges. But are they? 

In our next holiday post, we examine some of the pre-pandemic research on school leaders’ work and their recruitment and retention. This next post paves the way for a further report from our survey on school leaders’ career intentions. 

Photo by Isabella and Zsa Fischer on Unsplash