Leading from the strawberry fields :
TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP IN SANTA MARIA
Interacting with field-worker parents in their workplace helped develop a deeper understanding of school leadership ’ s role in working across constituencies to support equitable educational opportunities for their children .
18 Leadership
Goal No . 2 of the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District ’ s Local Control and Accountability Plan speaks specifically to the issues of cultural proficiency and parent engagement . “ Using supplemental and concentration funding , our district is working to ‘ create a culture of respect and caring that supports positive relationships among stakeholders ’ – as identified in our goal ,” said Santa Maria JUHSD Superintendent Mark Richardson .
As parents , community members and educators from across the Santa Maria community have engaged in school-community talks focused on recent increases in gangrelated violence plaguing the community , a partnership among Santa Maria High School , Santa Maria Joint Union High School District , Santa Maria-Bonita School District and the Santa Maria Police Department took the advice of one community member , leading to an unintended positive consequence .
Arnulfo Romero , a prominent member of the community , suggested a positive step forward might be to have stakeholders visit parents at their work settings , since many of the parents ’ work schedules do not conform to traditional parent meeting times . Romero thought the joint action by the school district and police department could lead to
building stronger community ties , thereby developing trust .
He felt that if change was ever going to happen it would require an organic and new approach , such as visiting parents at their work sites . In the case of Santa Maria , near the Southern California coast , the parents work in the local strawberry fields . School personnel did not often visit homes , and certainly never the workplaces of migrant workers .
The authors of this article have been engaged with colleagues studying the Tools of Cultural Proficiency as a means to narrow and close access and academic achievement gaps experienced by far too many of our students . Our study has led us to immerse ourselves into the leadership work of researcher Carolyn Shields .
We have learned it is important to differentiate transactional exchange processes and transformational internal improvement processes from internal / external transformative processes that involve the community in substantive ways . In doing so , we learned that it is important to recognize , value and utilize the assets possessed by the parents
By Peter Flores III and Joseph Domingues