Educational Leadership in Medium and Small Urban Districts Serving the New Mainstream

Abstract

Abstract Demographic changes across the United States have led to dramatic shifts in the composition of public school enrollments. While these shifts are manifest across multiple dimensions of diversity, the influx of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students is particularly pronounced. As the numbers of CLD students rapidly grow across all geographic regions, from rural to suburban to urban, school leaders face the daunting responsibility of responding to ensure that these students receive equitable opportunities to learn. Some guiding principles for accomplishing this generalize across settings, yet ultimately this leadership needs to be context-specific. In this chapter we discuss these guiding principles and apply them narrowly to the context of medium and small urban districts. We argue that school leadership – particularly district and school administration – plays a crucial role in supporting the design and delivery of supports for CLD students and their families, who constitute a “new mainstream” in many of these settings.