How School and District Leaders Support Classroom Teachers' Work With English Language Learners

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Ana M. Elfers and Tom StritikusWork With English Language Learners

How School and District Leaders Support Classroom Teachers'

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Article

How School and District Leaders Support Classroom Teachers’ Work With English Language Learners

Ana M. Elfers1 and Tom Stritikus1

AbstractPurpose: This study examines the ways in which school and district leaders create systems of support for classroom teachers who work with linguistically diverse students. We attempt to uncover the intentional supports leaders put in place for classroom teachers and how this may be part of a broader teaching and learning effort. Research Design: Through a qualitative case study of four districts serving different populations of English Learner (EL) students, we examine school and district leadership actions aimed at helping teachers provide instruction that is responsive to EL learning needs. In each of the four districts, three schools were chosen for in-depth analysis. Through interviews, classroom observations, and document analyses, we highlight the efforts of school and district leaders to bring about instructional change. Findings: The findings from this study are organized around five central themes. These themes include (1) resolving fragmentation by focusing on high-quality instruction, (2) creating a productive blend of district- and school-level leadership initiatives, (3) communicating a compelling rationale, (4) differentiating support systems at elementary and secondary levels, and

1University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

Corresponding Author:Ana M. Elfers, Research Assistant Professor, College of Education, University of Washington, M213 Miller Hall, Box 353600, Seattle, WA 98195-3600, USA. Email: [email protected]

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306 Educational Administration Quarterly 50(2)

(5) using data for instructional improvement. This study extends research on the role of school and district leaders in supporting classroom teachers’ work with second language learners.

KeywordsEnglish language learners (ELL), school leadership, district leadership, classroom teachers, professional development

The call for strong leadership to improve educational outcomes for students is clear. Yet the challenges school and district leaders face in supporting instructional improvement to meet these goals is complex. Immigration in the last two decades has dramatically recast these issues for school and district leaders and their English Learner (EL) students. Immigrants constitute the fastest growing group of students in U.S. schools, and many demographers predict that by 2025 approximately 20% to 25% of students enrolled in ele-mentary and secondary schools will have limited proficiency in English (Suárez-Orozco, Suárez-Orozco, & Todorova, 2008). Unfortunately, the schools’ ability to respond to the social and academic needs of growing num-bers of culturally and linguistically diverse students has not been met, such that a significant gap exists between what is possible with immigrant children and what they currently achieve (Fry, 2007; García & Jensen, 2009; Rumberger & Gándara, 2004).

Inadequate teaching capacity along with other schooling conditions creates serious equity challenges for leaders as they attempt to provide direction and support for equitable and effective educational opportunities. English learners often do not have access to appropriate instructional curriculum and materials, yet attempts to address these issues may be structured in ways that inadver-tently deprive students of learning opportunities. For example, attempts to integrate students in structured English immersion classes1 without well-trained and well-supported teachers can rob them of the specialized help they need (deJong & Harper, 2005; Rumberger & Gándara, 2004). Unless schools can create contexts where students are able to access grade-level content and appropriate learning environments for language learning, their prospects for advanced schooling are extremely limited (Valdés, 1998). Furthermore, schools and districts typically lack appropriate assessment measures to gauge EL learning needs, or to hold systems accountable for students’ academic progress (Abedi, 2001). These and other factors are interrelated and cumula-tive: the net result is a large and growing achievement gap for EL students.



Elfers and Stritikus 307

In the last two decades, educational researchers and policy makers have focused on sources and possible solutions to this gap. A significant amount of attention has been paid to assessing the capacity and skills of the current and future teacher workforce to meet the needs of EL students (cf., Lucas & Grinberg, 2008; Lucas, Villegas, & Freedson-Gonzales, 2008). Other schol-ars have probed the impact of particular methodological or programmatic approaches for EL students (August & Hakuta, 1997; Slavin & Cheung, 2005). Another group has attempted to highlight the particular qualities of instructional practice that facilitate language and content learning for EL stu-dents (August & Shanahan, 2006). With the exception of a recent synthesis of empirical work on culturally and linguistically diverse students aimed at school leaders (Scanlan & Lopez, 2012), the role that leaders do or could play in the learning of EL students has been relatively absent from research con-versations on English language learners.

When the field of educational leadership has considered EL students, the focus often has been on broader questions of equity and social justice for diverse students (Frattura & Capper, 2007; Skrla, Scheurich, Garcia, & Nolly, 2004). While clearly important, such examinations less frequently document the specific learning and leadership challenges that educational leaders face in serving EL students (a recent piece by Theoharis & O’Toole, 2011, is an exception). The call for a focus on equity and social justice in leadership preparation programs (e.g., Brown, 2009) shows a similar tendency. While helping future leaders develop a critical eye to issues of race, class, gender, and even language in schooling, this line of scholarship stays broadly focused on inclusion, antiracism, confronting oppression, and similar topics. The needs of EL students are often cast in the same frame as other learners who struggle in schools, with the argument that by focusing on creating heteroge-neous and inclusive learning contexts, the needs of English learners can be met (McKenzie et al., 2008). These are important steps but not sufficient to fully understand the complexities of supporting the work of general educa-tion teachers2 with EL students.

Despite limited examinations of the needs of EL students in the leadership literature, there is much to build upon as the field comes to terms with shifting demographics in schools. First, the field is increasingly clear that leaders play a key role in shaping and improving learning. Questions remain about the size and nature of the effects of school leaders actions, but an empirical case has been made regarding the relationship between school leadership and instruc-tion (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, & Wahlstrom, 2004; Louis, Leithwood, Wahlstrom, & Anderson, 2010; Witziers, Bosker, & Kruger, 2003). Additionally, more sophisticated conceptual models have advanced our understanding of the role leaders can play in student learning (Copland & Knapp, 2006).




This study examines how leaders can create systems of support for class-room teachers who work with linguistically diverse students. Through a qual-itative case study of four school districts serving different populations of EL students, we examine school and district leadership actions aimed at helping general education teachers provide instruction that is responsive to EL learn-ing needs. Through interviews, classroom observations, and document analy-ses, we highlight the efforts of leaders in these districts to bring about high-quality instruction for these students. This work is grounded in what we know about teaching and learning for EL students and the role of teachers and leaders in improving learning. It further expands on a conceptualization of school and district “support systems” for serving EL students’ needs that we have advanced in other writings.

The Current State of Knowledge of the Problem

The existing knowledge base helps us to grasp both the leadership challenge and the specific teaching and learning challenges involved in serving EL stu-dents’ needs effectively.

The Leadership Challenge

Given a shortage of teachers with the capacity to meet the needs of EL learn-ers at all levels (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2002; Rumberger & Gándara, 2004), creating supportive and effective learning environments for EL students is a complex undertaking that has significant implications for the work of school and district leaders. This study is situated in recent scholarship on educational leadership with a focus on student learn-ing, and provides a powerful lens through which to view “leadership acts” (Copland, 2003) as a tool for supporting the teaching and learning of EL students.

Recent shifts in both the scholarship and practice of educational leader-ship point to the need for leaders to be squarely focused on learning. A variety of terms have been used to describe this imperative, including “learning-cen-tered leadership” (DuFour, 2002), “leadership for learning” (Copland & Knapp, 2006), or “learning-focused leadership” (Earl & Katz, 2002; Resnick & Glennan, 2002). This emphasis is based on increasing scholarship about the ways in which leadership is linked to improved student learning (Hallinger & Heck, 2009; Leithwood & Riel, 2005; Louis et al., 2010). This conceptual shift in the role of school leaders has been buoyed by growing empirical evi-dence that the actions of a principal can impact teaching practice. A study by Supovitz, Sirinides, and May (2010) suggests a link between the principal’s




influence on teachers’ practices and instructional change that can impact stu-dent learning. While research is still unclear about the exact types of actions and the academic subjects in which principals can most impact practice, the emerging picture suggests that direct and indirect principal actions do shape teacher practice in real and measurable ways (Waters, Marzano, & McNulty, 2003; Witziers et al., 2003). The search for an association between principal actions and student learning has shown that principals who focus on instruc-tion, foster community and trust, and clearly communicate school mission and goals can change instructional practice, but few of the studies mentioned have examined instructional change in the context of work with EL students. Thus, important questions remain: What does it mean for school and district leaders to support classroom teachers who serve second language learners? What intentional supports can educational leaders put in place for classroom teachers in their work with linguistically diverse learners, and how might this be part of a more comprehensive teaching and learning effort?

Our understanding of learning-focused leadership implies a broad view encompassing the full range of activities school-wide and across levels of the system, carried out by a variety of educators that offer classroom teachers ideas, guidance, or support specifically directed at instruction (Knapp, Copland, Plecki, & Portin, 2006). Thus, leadership focused on learning is inherently distributed among different staff in the building and across levels of the system—that is, more than one kind of individual or unit are influenc-ing teachers’ work, whether or not they recognize and coordinate their respec-tive efforts. The ultimate concern is to delineate how leaders and leadership teams at all levels of the system participate in the work of supporting class-room teachers, and how their participation can be focused and enhanced to better support improved learning outcomes (Plecki et al., 2009). This orienta-tion regarding the work of educational leaders has direct implications for supporting classroom teachers who work with EL students. In order to more fully understand the leadership challenge, we now turn to the teaching and learning challenges faced by teachers of EL students.

The Teaching and Learning Challenge

Research to date has assembled a detailed picture of the EL student popula-tion and documented some optimum learning conditions. These conditions underscore a role for school leaders in facilitating instructional change through teacher learning, and begin to carve out roles that leaders can play in supporting teachers’ work with EL students. Our knowledge of how lead-ers at school and district levels craft and provide opportunities to support teachers in their work with EL students, however, is limited. Compounding




this challenge are areas within the field of EL teaching and learning that are less clearly defined—how to work with older students, providing engaging content in high schools, and how to teach literacy skills beyond basic levels to EL students—that create additional ambiguity for school leaders. In order to understand how the leadership challenge intersects with the teaching and learning challenge, we turn to the state of the field regarding EL teaching and learning.

The dynamics of the EL student population. A significant body of research has detailed the diversity of the EL student population. EL students come to school with a wide range of native language and English language literacy habits and skills, uneven content-area backgrounds, and vastly different fam-ily and schooling experiences (Suárez-Orozco et al., 2008; Walqui, 2000). Because of the sheer diversity of this population, teachers of English learners often are dealing with students from widely differing cultural backgrounds and levels of language proficiency. Two enduring issues stand out from the scholarship on instruction for this student population: the challenge of advanced academic achievement and attention to the sociocultural dimen-sions of the schooling experience.

The challenge of advanced levels of academic achievement. Recent large-scale examinations of achievement data of EL students have revealed a curious pattern. Not surprisingly, achievement gaps in reading and math remain large for these students. However, former EL students, that is stu-dents who are no longer classified as English Language Learners (ELLs) or receiving language services, are performing at levels equal to their native-English-speaking peers in the lower grades. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shows a closing of the gap in math and read-ing for students in the fourth grade. This progress quickly disappears in the later grades, with both current and former EL students having a wide gap in math and reading (Fry, 2007). Other examinations of EL achieve-ment have borne out this same phenomena—EL students might be achiev-ing on basic levels, but advanced and deep level learning is still an evasive issue, especially as EL and former EL students advance in grades (García & Jensen, 2009).

While there are likely multiple sources for the nature of these gaps, under-standing two fundamental concepts—academic language development and the long-term nature of language learning—for the teaching and learning of EL students help deepen our understanding of the challenge of advanced aca-demic achievement for EL students. Language occupies a predominant place in learning (Lucas et al., 2008), and a significant body of research has devoted




attention to the study of academic language development (Cummins, 1981, 2000; Hakuta, Butler, & Witt, 2000). Consequently, language is an important part of the instructional challenge as teachers of EL students and school and district leaders must be knowledgeable about language development and lan-guage acquisition.

Research in second language learning has documented that academic English proficiency is a long process, even under the best circumstances (Cummins, 1981; Hakuta et al., 2000). In a rigorous study of high- and low-performing districts, Hakuta et al. (2000) found that in high-performing districts, EL students needed between 3 and 5 years to develop oral profi-ciency and 4 to 7 years to develop academic proficiency. Because learning English transcends the work of one individual teacher or even one school, a system-wide coordinated approach to these issues may be important to learning outcomes.

While the rate and success of acquiring a second language can be influ-enced by many factors, it is important for leaders to understand the role of second language development. In particular, several large-scale studies have highlighted that students who are literate or have deep content knowl-edge in their first language tend to outperform students who do not have these skills (August & Hakuta, 1997; Collier, 1987). Thus, language learn-ing should be seen as a long-term process involving both acquisition of the language and content learning. The current achievement gaps between cur-rent EL and former EL and their native English-speaking peers illustrate that schools often struggle to provide the long-term and deep support that EL students need.

Attention to sociocultural needs. In addition to the more technical aspects of language learning, EL learners have sociocultural needs that are frequently unmet by schools (Olsen, 1997; Suárez-Orozco et al., 2008; Valdés, 1998; Valenzuela, 1999). Studies have documented the segregation that linguisti-cally diverse students experience in the overall school context. Often these students are placed in low academic tracks with inexperienced teachers, and many experience pressure to forgo defining elements of their culture and lan-guage. Recent immigrant students often face challenges related to institu-tional racism in schools and social marginalization by teachers and students (Suárez-Orozco et al., 2008; Valdés, 1998). Furthermore, studies have shown the intense process of identity formation and shift that occurs for culturally and linguistically diverse students. Large sociological studies of immigrant adjustment have documented that these social and political tensions surface in the manner in which culturally and linguistically diverse students relate to and are treated by schools (Portes & Rumbaut, 1996, 2001).




Supporting learning for teachers and students. A comprehensive review of opti-mal learning conditions for linguistically and culturally diverse student popu-lations identifies the following as leading to high academic performance:

A supportive school-wide climate, school leadership, a customized learning environment, articulation and coordination within and between schools, use of native language and culture in instruction, a balanced curriculum that includes both basic and higher-order skills, explicit skill instruction, opportunities for student-directed instruction, use of instructional strategies that enhance understanding, opportunities for practice, systematic student assessment, staff development, and home and parent involvement. (August & Hakuta, 1997, p. 171)

A number of studies have identified the nature of the workplace environ-ment and leadership support as making a difference in teachers’ ability to work effectively with all students (Leithwood, 1994; Louis & Kruse, 1995; Rosenholtz, 1989). Besides opportunities for professional development, teachers identify particular features of the school as a support to their teach-ing: a collegial school community, teacher collaboration, effective school leadership, and access to appropriate curriculum and materials (Berry, Smylie, & Fuller, 2008; Ingersoll, 2003; Johnson & Birkeland, 2003). Additionally, the clear articulation and coordination of English language and bilingual services within a school can lead to a more cohesive educa-tion for EL students (August & Hakuta, 1997; Miramontes, Nadeau, & Commins, 1997), and leaders clearly play a role in fostering these practices.

A growing body of work paints a clear picture of the conditions and activi-ties that can support the ongoing learning of practicing teachers. This work highlights the value of professional learning experiences that focus on high learning standards aligned with reform initiatives, building pedagogical con-tent knowledge, modeling preferred practices in or near school sites, building school-based collegial environments for professional learning, and offering repeated learning opportunities over time (Knapp, 2003).

Case studies of exemplary schools throughout the United States serving highly diverse and low-income student populations (e.g., Berman, Minicucci, McLaughlin, Nelson, & Woodworth, 1995; Corallo & McDonald, 2002; Lucas, Henze, & Donato, 1990; McLeod, 1994) support many of the attri-butes advanced by August and Hakuta and highlight three additional key features:

•• Delivering grade-level content. In these schools, challenging work in the academic disciplines was conceived as integrally connected with the goals of English language learning: teachers organized lessons to




deliver grade-level content instruction through a variety of native lan-guage and English language development activities.

•• Organizing instruction in innovative ways. Examples of innovations included (a) “schools-within-schools” to more responsively deal with the diverse language needs of the students and (b) “continuum classes” in which teachers remained with their students for 2 to 3 years, helping teachers become more familiar with and respond to the diversity in the students.

•• Protecting and extending instructional time for students. Through afterschool programs, supportive computer-based instruction, and vol-untary Saturday schools and summer academies, and by using both classroom teachers and trained tutors, these schools multiplied the opportunities for students to engage in academic learning.

Orientation and Framing for the Study

Taken together, emerging research on leadership, and the teaching and learning of EL students begins to carve out specific actions and roles that school and district leaders can take to support general education teachers. This article draws from a larger qualitative study that sought to develop a new model for under-standing how “systems of support” can assist general education teachers3 in their work with EL students. Our earlier qualitative analyses allowed us to iden-tify five dimensions that can constitute a “system of support” for teachers who serve EL students. A system of support refers to a set of intention and differenti-ated efforts focused on the continuous improvement of teacher and student learning.4 This conceptual framework has been presented in other published work (Elfers, Lucero, Stritikus, & Knapp, 2013), but for this article we have chosen to focus specifically on those aspects that relate to school and district leadership actions in supporting classroom teachers in their work with EL stu-dents. The five dimensions of a system of support include the following:

•• Opportunities for classroom-focused professional learning that target the adaptation of instruction for diverse linguistic learning needs (Gebhard & Willett, 2008).

•• Specialized EL-related staff support within, or connected to, general education teachers’ classrooms (e.g., paraprofessionals in the class-room, push-in or pull-out services for particular EL students’ learning needs, bilingual programs aligned to work in mainstream programs) (Arkoudis, 2006).

•• Availability and appropriateness of instructional materials and other resources that address specific EL-related instructional concerns and




provide a meaningful connection to curriculum across grades (Williams, Hakuta, Haertel et al., 2007).

•• Collective focus on EL learning needs that reflects a more generalized collaborative culture within the school and district (August & Hakuta, 1997).

•• School and district leadership actions that prioritize effective service to EL students, offer a vision for effective EL instruction, invest neces-sary resources, and strive for coherence and alignment of instructional goals (Theoharis & O’Toole, 2011).

These supports can go a long way toward building teachers’ confidence and encouraging ongoing learning, thus enabling educators to do their best work in guiding the learning of EL students (Elfers et al., 2013). The streams of supporting activities and the coherence among them are in large measure a function of leadership actions that serve as the focus for this article (Youngs & King, 2002).

Systems of support external to schools and districts also impact teach-ers’ work. Teachers’ work, student learning, and the array of potentially supportive conditions that are traceable to local and state leadership or policy actions sit in a multilevel context that shapes what is possible and ultimately transpires in teaching and learning (Holdaway & Alba, 2009). In this context, there are many constraints and enabling conditions that lie beyond the reach of policy. They reflect the nature of the communities served by schools and districts, the state of the economy, demographic trends, and political developments of all kinds. All have identifiable impli-cations for what happens in classrooms, either directly (e.g., through what students or teachers bring with them to teaching and learning) or indirectly (e.g., by creating a climate of expectations, possibilities, and limitations that affect what happens in classrooms). These framework dimensions give clues regarding where to look when asking what can be done to support classroom teachers’ work with second language learners and the role of school and district leaders.

Study Design and Methodology

This research utilized a qualitative case study design with a strategic sam-ple of four school districts in Washington state. A qualitative design enabled us to examine the nature of support as experienced by general education teachers and others working with EL students in specific school and district contexts (Merriam, 2009). The utilization of four districts allowed for cross-case examination by factors such as district size, regional




location, and the linguistic diversity of students served. In each of the four districts, three schools were chosen for in-depth study. Overall, the 12 school sites included seven elementary, three middle, and two high schools. At each study site, a research team comprised of university faculty and graduate students conducted semistructured interviews and classroom observations, and collected relevant school and district documents. Multiple site visits were conducted over a 4-month period during fall and winter of the 2008-2009 school year.

Study Samples

Given the purpose of the study, a strategic sample of districts and schools was necessary to attend to key factors at multiple levels of the system. We hypothesized that a support system for general education teachers might reflect policies, leadership actions, and conditions at classroom, school, and district levels (Patton, 2003). A multistage sampling design began with the identification of sample districts that met three main criteria: (1) dis-tricts were engaged in deliberate and carefully considered practices for serving EL students,5 (2) districts were located in geographically diverse areas of the state, and (3) districts varied in the languages spoken by their EL students. We identified districts whose proportion of EL students was equal to or exceeded the state average of 7.9% at the time of the study. A series of matrices was created to categorize districts by size, concentration of EL students, number and diversity of language groups, and region in which the district was located. We also examined trends in the perfor-mance of EL students in each district. As a final step, we sought recom-mendations from superintendents, principals, and a network of National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) in the state. As accomplished teachers, the NBCTs provided another perspective to identify potential school and district sites. Of the four districts selected, two were located in a heavily populated and linguistically diverse area of the state and served multilin-gual student populations. The other two districts were considerably smaller and served primarily Spanish-speaking immigrant and migrant children. A description of the case study districts and their EL students is provided in Table 1.

School sites were selected in collaboration with district and school lead-ers in a purposive fashion based on the following criteria: the concentration of EL students (schools with relatively large EL populations), the level of schooling (to reflect differences in EL-related instructional challenges across levels), and the configuration of school-based resources and struc-tures aimed at supporting general education teachers.6




Data Collection and Analysis

The research team visited each school site at least twice on separate occa-sions. The time lag between visits, usually between 4 and 6 weeks, was delib-erate and allowed the team to review data that were collected, reflect on and discuss preliminary findings, and prepare more targeted and in-depth ques-tions for subsequent visits. Nearly 200 semistructured interviews were con-ducted with classroom teachers who had EL students in their regular classrooms, EL specialists, school and district support staff, administrators, and parents. We chose to interview school and district leaders who were in recognized leadership roles, as well as those individuals identified as leaders in their work with second language learners regardless of formal position. For the leadership portion of this study, we conducted 18 interviews with district-level leaders (e.g., superintendents, assistant superintendents, direc-tors of federal and state programs, ESL managers and specialists, chief aca-demic officers) and 37 interviews with school-level leaders (e.g., principals, assistant principals, teacher leaders, ELL, literacy and math coaches/special-ists). District and school leaders were typically interviewed twice, with inter-views lasting from 45 minutes to an hour and a half.

Coding and classification of the data took place in the initial stages of analysis. The codes were generated from the theoretical framework, research questions, and literature (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Examples of sample

Table 1. Characteristics of Case Study Districts.

Regional location District sizePercent free or

reduced price lunchPercent EL studentsa

Major languages served

District A Western WA metro area

20,000 students 32% 9% EL students Over 50 languages: Spanish 39%, Russian 15%, Ukrainian 15%

District B Western WA metro area

25,000 students 36% 8% EL students Over 50 languages: Russian 35%, Spanish 24%, Ukrainian 15%

District C Eastern WA, rural agriculturally based

3,500 students 80% 28% EL students; 13% migrant

Spanish

District D Eastern WA, rural agriculturally based

6,000 students 53% 12% EL students

Spanish

a. Washington state policy governing the provision of services for EL students is defined by the state’s Transitional Bilingual Instructional Program (TBIP) and is used to determine state and federal funding levels. A TBIP is a program that uses two languages, one of which is English as the means of instruction while students acquire English language skills.




codes for the leadership aspects of the study included decision-making authority, leadership actions, school/district leadership initiative, official and actual teaching practices, professional development, school collaboration, and resource allocation. Each author independently applied the initial set of codes to a random section of the data. We then convened to refine the codes. The different patterns and themes that emerged from the data were inter-preted within the broader social and cultural contexts of the school (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2002). It is important to note that while safeguards were taken to maximize the trustworthiness and reliability of our findings, we acknowledge that care must be taken in the interpretation and implications for educational practice of those other than the actual study participants.

Case Study Districts

District A serves nearly 20,000 students, with approximately 9% enrolled in the state’s TBIP. The district offers EL push-in services at all levels, as well as some sheltered instruction classes at the secondary level. Students speak over 50 different languages, the most prevalent being Spanish (39%), Russian, and Ukrainian (both at 15%).

District B serves approximately 25,000 students, 8% of whom are served by the state’s TBIP. Approximately 50 languages are represented with the largest groups being Russian (35%), Spanish (24%), and Ukrainian (15%). At the elementary level, schools are encouraged to cluster their EL students with specifically designated and trained teachers (four to six students per class) with paraeducators providing push-in support. At the secondary level, the district offers some sheltered instruction classes taught by ESL-trained teach-ers for the most highly impacted EL students.

District C serves about 3,500 primarily Spanish-speaking students in an agricultural community. Nearly 80% of students receive free or reduced price lunch, and 28% are enrolled in the state’s TBIP. Support for second language learners includes one- and two-way dual language programs at the elemen-tary and middle school levels. Other EL programs include push-in services at all levels, and some sheltered instruction classes at the middle and high schools.

District D serves about 6,000 students in a small farming community. Spanish-speaking students comprise nearly 35% of all students. Twelve per-cent of students receive TBIP services. At the elementary level, the district offers a combination of early-exit transitional bilingual education, a dual immersion two-way enrichment program, and ESL pull-out models. The sec-ondary schools offer sheltered ESL classes in some content areas, in addition to push-in support.




Study Findings—Leadership Challenges and Responses

Leadership at both school and district levels plays a crucial role in creating and sustaining systems of support for classroom teachers working with EL students. In the four case study districts, change was driven in part by neces-sity, given growing numbers of EL students, their lack of academic achieve-ment, and concerns about equity. The overall move to serve EL students within the context of the general education classroom meant that teachers needed to adapt their instructional practices and work more closely with sup-port staff. As a deputy superintendent in an urban district that had recently experienced a rapid increase in the number of immigrant students in the dis-trict explained, the first step was awareness. “There is a good growing aware-ness on the part of people in buildings from principals to teachers about the need to be knowledgeable about serving ELLs. There is a growing commit-ment and awareness on the part of district leadership that this is an area that we need to pay attention to.” She went on to describe how initially the dis-trict, as well as the community, had been slow to respond to conversations around issues of immigration and equity.

For school and district leaders in the study, developing supports for gen-eral education teachers within this shift in roles and responsibilities produced some challenges. The findings from this study are organized around five cen-tral themes concerning the role of school and district leadership in supporting classroom teachers’ work with EL students. These themes, summarized in Table 2 below, include (1) resolving fragmentation by focusing on high-qual-ity instruction, (2) creating a productive blend of district- and school-level leadership initiatives, (3) communicating a compelling rationale, (4) differ-entiating support systems at elementary and secondary levels, and (5) using data for instructional improvement. We begin by examining the potential fragmentation of supports and services for EL students and the role of school and district leaders in seeking to resolve this issue.

Resolving Fragmentation by Focusing on High-Quality Instruction

A commitment to high-quality instruction for EL students implies attention to effective teaching practices and contexts for learning (August & Hakuta, 1997). Without attention to this issue, leadership efforts to serve a segment of the student population can easily become compartmentalized, typically left to the ELL/Bilingual coordinator or director of state or federal categorical pro-grams. With increasing numbers of EL students in general-education class-rooms, district leaders in the study agreed that changes were needed to




support teachers in delivering high-quality instruction for EL students. Leaders acknowledged, however, that not everyone was fully engaged. A dis-trict leader who herself was a former high school ESL teacher described the challenge: “I just don’t think there was a deep understanding on the part of leadership at the district office, and a lack of understanding translates into lack of action or inaction.”

The leadership at the central office played a prominent role in how each district in the study organized supports for classroom teachers. In the case study districts in which the ELL program was placed under the umbrella of “special programs” and was not included in general decisions regarding cur-riculum and instruction, district leaders found it more difficult to develop comprehensive systems of support that could impact the general education classroom. In the words of one urban district administrator, “our ELL depart-ment at the district level is not at the same table with general ed and curricu-lum. ... I think there is a direct correlation between how we are structured at the top and how the work we do throughout the system is or isn’t what we say

Table 2. School and District Leadership Actions That Support Classroom Teachers’ Work With EL Students.

Focus on high-quality instruction Leaders directly engage in teaching and learning initiatives Professional development targets classroom teachers Instructional decisions take into account the teachers of EL students Leaders align, integrate, and coordinate supports for teachersBlend district- and school-level initiatives Focus on district workforce development practices Create opportunities for staff to work collaboratively Leverage local expertise in schools and communities to serve EL students Engage in strong two-way communication between school and district leadersCommunicate a compelling rationale Make instruction of EL students a priority Encourage staff responsibility to serve EL students Focus on instructional practices to serve diverse learnersDifferentiate support systems at elementary and secondary levels Prioritize supports for those serving the largest number of EL students Value students’ language and culture in instruction Model ways that instructional leaders can serve EL studentsUse data for instructional improvement Support data-based discussions of individual student progress Use data to identify areas for improvement, shape professional development, and

support a culture of learning




we want it to be.” District leaders who championed these issues expressed frustration with the structure because of the marginalization it caused in deci-sions regarding program structure, funding, and professional development. One district leader described the fragmentation in terms of silos: “We have functioned … and I think to a great degree, continue to function in silos … while I think we can talk about the fact that it’s about all kids, we still are structured in a way that we’re not about all kids.”

A key way leaders in these districts worked to resolve fragmentation was by moving beyond simply talking about programs to being closely involved with teaching and learning at the ground level. All four districts used nation-ally recognized professional development packages to support teachers working with second language learners. Two common programs included the Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD) and Sheltered Observation Instructional Protocol (SIOP).7 In one of the rural districts, GLAD changed from a professional development tool to a mechanism to unify instruction around the broader initiative of improving services for EL students. GLAD and the professional development surrounding it became a significant way to address fragmentation. One mechanism was through monthly “refresh and review” sessions where teachers from across the district met to review strate-gies, discuss what they had implemented, and create new materials. These sessions were an example of a district taking action to support practice. The district’s bilingual/migrant coordinator was a former bilingual ESL teacher who had worked for 25 years in rural, remote agricultural areas of the state. She explained how GLAD was used to support teachers:

… you learned about something. Then your colleague came in and monitored to see whether you did it, kept track, telling things, and like wait time and those things and so there was some accountability for that. … GLAD won’t work unless you do have accountability. You have to be into those classrooms, knowing that the teachers are using it and encouraging them. It’s so big that there’s a lot to forget. Unless you have those monthly, we call them monthly R&Rs, refresh and review, that you’re going to forget too much because it’s just too big. Because GLAD is just everything rolled into one, not everything, but almost rolled into one ... we latched onto it.

Central office leaders in this district viewed their bilingual and ELL pro-grams as an integral part of their overall instruction. Thus, decisions that affected classroom teachers routinely took into account the issues that affected the instruction of EL students. In addition to GLAD, the Response to Intervention (RTI) model was used as an umbrella to focus on the needs of all students. This approach allowed leaders to develop a comprehensive support system for classroom teachers that included professional development for




improving instructional practices, access to additional interventions, and opportunities for building teacher capacity to work with culturally and lin-guistically diverse students. According to one district leader, “I’m trying to break down the silos, and RTI is the common denominator across every class-room, every kid, every level.” While the case study districts did not use the term system of supports to describe the ways in which they provided assis-tance to classroom teachers working with this population, school and district leaders could clearly articulate the efforts they had undertaken and their long-term goals.

The other rural district with predominantly Spanish-speaking EL students changed its approach at the elementary and middle school level by focusing on the implementation of a dual language program. The assistant superinten-dent, who herself had grown up as a second language learner, recounted: “We used to focus, not unlike many other districts, on ESL pull-out program, and really our mainstream teachers were not receiving the professional develop-ment that they also needed, not only for second language learners but stu-dents generally—families of poverty come in with low vocabulary. And so providing them with the professional development that they need to build on that background knowledge and vocabulary.” This district chose to invest time and energy in staffing considerations, particularly in hiring and profes-sional development decisions. Professional development focused on building teachers’ background knowledge of the developmental stages of language acquisition, and instructional strategies that could be embedded in class-rooms. “We do a lot of job-embedded professional development and we have instructional coaches that help support the work for all of our teachers whether it’s in sheltered instruction, SIOP or GLAD strategies, but also with Spanish academic professional development that’s needed.”

Ensuring high-quality instruction for EL students also figured prominently in the responsibilities of key district personnel. For example, the supervision of categorical programs was part of a larger set of responsibilities held by one assistant superintendent, including supervisions of principals. This former principal had led her school from a pull-out model to a transitional bilingual program and now had oversight for dual immersion programs in two schools. In this case, the supervision of principals and teachers seemed to coalesce around specific types of issues at the pupil learning level that leaders were interested in supporting.

I get to supervise principals, so responsibility for school improvement and AYP and testing results from WASL [Washington Assessment of Student Learning] on down to classroom-based assessments for all kids, are under my umbrella. … So we meet weekly for a couple of hours and we do hot topics and then we dig a little




deeper and look at systems issues and that’s where kind of the major, more long-term problems … if it’s a teacher voice and a concern for kids coming from three out of the four buildings, then we know we better pay attention to it and we prioritize how we might support that question. And that’s where I think we generate the list of, you know in a perfect world we’d like to see this, or in a perfect world we just need to acknowledge there’s some discrepancies because we’ve chosen to do dual immersion and transitional, and … when the frustrations get beyond what teachers feel like they can handle.

In this sense, leaders seemed to balance overall needs of students, look for frustrations or tensions faced by teachers, and track the manner in which larger program issues intersected with realities on the ground. Because sev-eral levels of responsibility sat in one office, the district leadership was able to drill down to meet the needs of EL students. The position and the authority of the district leader in this case seemed to serve the critical function of keep-ing the supports focused on teaching and learning.

Because we meet as a group though, meaning Title 1, Special Ed, myself representing Basic Ed, our assessment person and the RTI person, as we’ve got that whole group in the room we really look at our Response to Intervention as our umbrella. And so while there’s a student that we can identify and label because of the way the funding comes down, we might talk about that, but it’s more subliminal as opposed to what can we do for the district or the school or the classroom because its Response to Intervention, not because they’re ELL or not because they’re Title 1 … so we could have some kids struggling with phonemic awareness and they’re not ELL learners, yet they would need some of the same instruction.

Overall these districts used a more integrated and comprehensive approach to support the teaching and learning of all students, including second lan-guage learners, and recognized the need for coordinated leadership.

Creating a Productive Blend of District- and School-Level Leadership Initiatives

A second issue for leaders to address in creating a support system for teachers serving EL students was to engage district- and school-level leaders in a mutual and reinforcing blending of efforts that set direction and mobilized resources. In the case study sites, we found examples of changes in the sup-ports for teachers initiated at the district office as well as those originating from individual schools. In these initiatives, both the locus of decision mak-ing and communication between district and school personnel were key to the effectiveness and degree of ownership of the supports and services.




All four districts thought deliberately and carefully about the capacity of their existing teacher workforce. In taking that a step further, they sought to ensure that those hired would have some capacity to meet the needs of their EL students. Above and beyond the state credentialing process, the two rural districts had developed their own systems for screening personnel to test bilingual abilities to determine if newly hired staff could meet the demands of their dual language programs. One district developed an elaborate assess-ment, both oral and written, for certificated teachers, but also for paraeduca-tors. The evaluation of written and oral Spanish skills was deemed important to ensure that individuals were not put into instructional situations in which they weren’t fully fluent or couldn’t write well themselves in the language of instruction.

One urban and one rural district embraced the notion of local pipelines to certification or grow your own programs, while others did not. The urban district developed an extensive system for training paraeducators and encour-aged them to pursue teacher certification. Given the challenging teaching assignments and innovative programing in the case study schools, adminis-trators were clear about the kind of applicants they were looking to hire. Both districts worked in collaboration with local universities to offer current teach-ers classes for ESL endorsement at district locations and negotiated funding assistance with state agencies.

A long-term strategy to maximize district capacity was to invest in exist-ing staff. Most of the case study districts had decided to train their own staff to deliver the ELL professional development packages they were committed to using long term. One of the districts serving a multilingual population provided an extensive training program for paraeducators working in ELL programs, many of whom spoke the languages of their students. Newly hired paraeducators were required to participate in a series of trainings, and all paraeducators met monthly for follow-up and professional development activities. Paraeducators, some of whom were immigrants themselves, often had an insiders’ perspective of what the kids needed and were going through, and how to connect with their parents. They were viewed as an important resource to teachers and were part of the instructional team at the school. Another indication of the schools’ priorities was found in the administrators’ willingness to move or reassign staff to better support EL students. A bilin-gual coordinator explained, “We try harder in the regular classrooms and so we have a lot more paras and instructional Title I, LAP [Learning Assistance Program] people working right in the classroom in providing that small group instruction before they [students] are ever pulled out for something.”

All four districts pursued any human resources that could be leveraged for the improvement of student learning. Communication and outreach within




the community became an important part of these efforts. Several schools reached out to AmeriCorps volunteers and used extra funds to support coaches. At the school level, initiatives revolved around undertaking specific types of work that were necessary for programmatic success. Several build-ing principals identified helping EL families to feel welcome in the school as an important endeavor. An urban elementary principal explained, “We’re try-ing to be real proactive and providing opportunities for families to come in and feel safe. I think a lot of our families, based on their experiences in their own cultures with government and with structures of school, you [parents] didn’t go to school for good things. You didn’t go to school because you were going to hear good news.” This building principal tried to bring families into the school through a variety of activities from family potlucks to English classes and computer labs for adults. In several schools, parents and staff emphasized the importance of bilingual school secretaries and other staff in welcoming parents. The leadership story in these schools includes examples of community outreach and partnerships that resulted in increased parent par-ticipation and engagement within schools.

Other examples of school-level initiatives included ensuring that the right types of materials got in the hands of teachers and the proper assignment of students. Principals encouraged their bilingual teachers to have a hand in the development of curriculum and selection of materials, clearly empowering teachers to take ownership and responsibility for the quality of instruction. The establishment of professional learning communities and space for staff to scrutinize and support one another’s work with EL students was a type of support that blended school and district efforts. An assistant superintendent who had worked for years with state education officials and other districts on these issues described the blending of efforts and expertise in professional learning community conversations across the district, within schools, and more broadly.

In my professional learning community world with my coaches and our staff developers and our principals, we have a conversation around where are students at, what does the data demonstrate that they need, what can be glean from this expertise—perhaps this coach over here has that level of expertise that can be shared out with school number two. So really that’s how our learning occurs through our own professional learning community conversations. We do, of course, attend some workshops and conferences from experts out in the field throughout our state and outside of our state, and we do attend as many of those as possible. But our expertise is right in here, here locally.

School and district leaders also quit doing things that no longer seemed productive. For example, one district stopped offering an elementary summer




school program because the classes proved to be expensive and fragmented, the district wasn’t able to hire highly qualified staff, and the curriculum didn’t have a strong connection with what was happening during the regular school year. The administrator explained, “It wasn’t having much of an impact in student achievement for where we wanted them to be in the fall. So we pulled those resources and we’re using them smarter and better during the school year, and most of the resources that we have we’re using in the realm of pro-fessional development. So we’re investing a lot more in PD for our staff.”

One pattern for blending district and school leadership efforts was that while the overall initiative might lie at the central office, it engaged and ener-gized initiatives within individual schools. In a district with a high degree of centralization in decision-making, school leaders believed that district resources were distributed equitably because of this structure. A principal of a highly impacted school in this multilingual district explained the merits of this approach:

You need to understand that a number of years ago we were all site-based and every building did its own thing. Then we had a new superintendent and his belief was that we needed to be providing equitable opportunities across the district and that we have a lot of movement from building to building within the district, and so it’s better for our students if every building is doing the same. ...

This principal was a knowledgeable advocate for EL students and a strong instructional leader within her own building. Mediating this centralized approach was responsiveness on the part of district administrators to the needs of particular schools, and the prioritization of resources and support based on those differences. In describing this process, the principal explained how the school made an appeal to the central office when it needed additional resources, and the central office was able to hire an ELL coach. She attributed much of the school’s success with EL students to having an ELL coach in the building to support the staff. In a district with a more de-centralized decision-making process, district leaders were able to respond to the needs of indi-vidual schools by establishing strong relationships with school leaders and facilitating their participation in developing support systems from the bottom up. These central office leaders had managed to work within the constraints of a compartmentalized program by providing a vision and creating opportu-nities for schools to be engaged in the efforts. Although some decisions such as funding and staffing levels were set at the district level, schools in this district had more autonomy to provide services deemed appropriate, with school-level leadership playing a central role in creating and developing con-text-specific supports for their teachers. This was very effective in schools with strong leaders who understood issues of second language learners but




was less consistent across the district. Recognizing this dilemma, one district leader explained the direction she hoped to see in the future:

The only way to really effect systemic change is to create improvement initiatives that are district-driven but building-owned. So the district is driving it. They’re saying, “Here’s where we’re headed, guys, here are the goals.” But there’s enough flexibility for the buildings to tailor it to meet the needs of their kids and their teachers. And that’s really critical because that’s the only way you’re going to get system-wide buy-in.

Providing a vision for effective EL instruction was key for district-level leaders, but equally important was the ownership at the building level. In one of the rural districts, strong district-level leadership was evident in setting a clear direction for the design of the bilingual program and support systems for classroom teachers, but teacher buy-in at the school level varied. Although some teachers were appreciative of the support they received, teachers’ receptiveness to these supports was uneven and seemed to be closely linked to the extent of communication they had experienced around various district initiatives to support EL students.

Clearly the nature of the relationships between individual schools and dis-trict leaders can have a profound effect on the degree to which support sys-tems influence the instruction of EL students. The best-case scenario in these examples came from a combination of integrated leadership in which the ELL department was a key player in decision-making that included strong two-way communication, allowing schools to have a voice and take owner-ship of these initiatives. These two conditions set the stage for the successful development of support systems for teachers that could impact instruction for second language learners.

Communicating a Compelling Rationale

Alongside efforts to move beyond a fragmented approach to serving EL stu-dents, district and school leaders sought to communicate to all stakeholders that supporting teachers’ efforts to serve EL students was central to their goals and connected to other reform activities. Regardless of where the ELL department resided, districts in this study were focused on improving instruc-tion that would meet the needs of “each and every” student. District and school leaders often used rhetorical devices to maintain a focus on the district vision and goals, and to facilitate buy-in from teachers as they initiated changes. Many of these communication strategies were designed to help teachers see EL students as part of the regular student population and to take responsibility for their learning.




“Serving each and every student.” Although reluctant to employ the overused rhetoric of “no child left behind,” district leaders communicated the essence of this idea through similar phrases. A district leader explained, “I don’t care where you are in the district—if you’re a para, a teacher, a superintendent, a principal, a curriculum leader—whatever your role, all needs to mean all, so everything you do has to take into account the needs of all students.” Often school leaders downplayed a particular emphasis on EL students, and chose instead to use the rhetoric of “each and every student,” thereby allowing them to develop buy-in for supports that would help classroom teachers in working with EL students, along with other students who might need differentiated instructional strategies to be successful.

“It’s good for all kids.” In a similar way, leaders emphasized the broader pay-off of developing instructional practices that worked particularly well for EL students. At a time when classroom teachers were already feeling overloaded by the demands of increased accountability, ever-changing curriculum, and a growing EL student population, it was difficult for school leaders to rally teachers to attend additional professional development workshops or put in extra time to change their instructional practices for their EL students. How-ever, when EL strategies were framed as being helpful for all students, lead-ers indicated that general education teachers were more likely to engage with these supports. District and school leaders, aware of the need for improved instructional practices, employed this strategy to align instruction with dis-trict goals to bring reluctant teachers on board, and to facilitate coaching, follow-up training, and peer collaboration. In describing an upcoming profes-sional development series for secondary teachers, one district leader explained, “We’re not calling it ELL specifically because we want to get buy-in from everybody, so we’re framing it as cross-curricular best practices for English language development, which ultimately, when you think about our population, that really is all of our students because we have a high level of poverty here in our community.” An administrator in another district explained it this way: “… these are best practices for all of our kids so that we get away from the thinking that these strategies are only for those kids.”

While the school and district leaders we spoke with acknowledged com-peting notions of education for second language learners among their staff, they dismissed a deficit model. Rather, they sought to shift the conversation to providing a rich environment that valued all students and the languages and cultures they represented (Hawkins, 2004). Some would argue this posi-tion didn’t go far enough, and that a more universalist approach minimized the specialized needs and contributions of second language learners (Stritikus & Nguyen, 2010). Nevertheless, developing a more complex understanding




of the needs and abilities of EL students appeared to be part of a longer term strategy for growing staff capacity.

Dialogue around disaggregated student data was one way of brokering the attention of the school board, district leaders, and staff. In several districts, leaders encouraged professional learning communities to focus on data and student work, and sought to ensure that a critical mass of teachers in every school received training to work with EL students. A major obstacle was that staff had to realize they needed help. In a multilingual district, an ELL coor-dinator who had extensive cross-cultural experience in the United States and abroad described what turned around one building in terms of working with EL students:

They see their need for support. … They see their limits in understanding how to work with this population. … They see their limits in their own teaching. The numbers get so big that they realize they can’t ignore these kids anymore—that they have to figure out how to help them and they don’t have a clue. How I help this kid, I don’t speak Russian? So they overcome their intimidation and fear and they ask for help and that’s when stuff can start happening. … For instance, at [elementary school] last year, I’d been in there before and the teachers weren’t really interested. … Well then, last year, they get all these data on their kids and they’re like, oh my gosh, how do we help our ELL kids? Teachers started asking this question. The leadership team starts asking this question. So suddenly, “Let’s have [ELL coordinator] come in and do a series of trainings with us.” And it’s a whole different story. The whole response, the feeling, the looks on their faces are different, the interest level is different. Now they want it and now they’re hungry for it, they have a need for it.

It was apparent that leaders were seeking to initiate conversations about serving EL students at all levels of the system. One promising approach in a predominantly Spanish-speaking district was the use of community service projects for Latino students as a way to encourage publicity about “good things” going on in the district. In this sense, districts leaders were able to shift the discourse about what was possible. The leadership in one middle school seemed to take head-on the challenges surrounding cultural and social issues. In particular, the leadership team was aware of the broad array of social issues that arise when working with EL students and demonstrated this in a number of activities from outreach to families, to scripts for teachers to call home. The actions of these school leaders are examples of attention to the language and sociocultural concerns of students and their families (Lucas et al., 1990).

Comments by an urban district leader illustrate these patterns of commu-nication, “We’ll never be phenomenal until we’re really paying attention to




all kids, and not just giving lip-service to it but truly shifting how we do busi-ness so that all students are being met at the place where they need to be met … a lot of people can talk it, but we’re not walking it yet and that’s where we need to get to. So the ELL piece definitely falls square in the middle of all this conversation around equity, around access, around all kids.”

Differentiating Support Systems at Elementary and Secondary Levels

In the case study districts, supports for teachers worked in direct relation to the way the ELL program model was configured. Developing supports that were responsive to different programmatic needs at elementary and second-ary levels proved to be a challenge, even in districts that were paying atten-tion to these issues. Consideration of supports for teachers within various program models raised the question of how leaders respond equitably to staff and students as the EL population fluctuates—often midyear in high-mobility districts—and as programs are implemented or adjusted.

Access to support systems at the elementary level. School leaders in the case study districts generally agreed that elementary students in the districts’ ELL programs were best served in general education classrooms, either taught bilingually when feasible, or in English using strategies to make the language and learning comprehensible for EL students. The nature of an elementary setting lends itself more easily to support that can be distributed across class-rooms. If all classrooms include some EL students, then all classroom teach-ers needed direct access to supports. The overall pattern in the case study schools was that where EL students were spread fairly evenly among class-rooms, the support system for teachers (e.g., through professional develop-ment or coaching) was also evenly spread; where EL students were clustered, teacher support efforts were targeted to those teachers who worked with the greatest number of students. However, EL students weren’t equally distrib-uted across schools in three of the four districts, often due to the location of affordable housing and the movement of immigrant groups from one district to another. An awareness of changes in immigrant communities and their impact on student enrollment as a result of housing and school boundaries meant school and district leaders needed to pay attention to staffing plans and the alignment of bilingual staff with EL students throughout the school year. Here we see the value placed on students’ languages and cultures as leaders sought to make the education of these students a priority.

In some districts, the distribution of EL students was influenced by the school’s diversity of languages, which made it difficult to cluster students in




meaningful ways. In other cases, EL students were clustered in classrooms by language group so that bilingual paraeducators could support students in their native languages. The principal at an urban elementary school also sought to support teachers by clustering EL and special education students in separate classrooms, reasoning that all teachers share the load in some way:

We’ve tried to cluster kids so that they have some supports, and when we’ve clustered, if we could match some languages we tried to do that, and we tried to match those kids who are maybe a little further down the road in their English with kids who maybe were just getting started so that they could have somebody that could help them understand some of the things.

When the distribution of EL students was organized around a bilingual or transitional bilingual program, supports for teachers meant greater assistance for those most heavily impacted and bilingual teachers in need of specialized training. In a rural school with a transitional bilingual model, all of the Spanish-speaking students remained in the same class together from kinder-garten through third grade. While school leaders indicated that this might not be an ideal arrangement, and steps had been taken to ensure students were integrated with native English speakers for some subjects each year, this placement allowed them to provide meaningful instruction in the native lan-guage. The same held true for teachers in dual language schools in which bilingual students were placed into a classroom with 50% EL students from one language group (often Spanish) and 50% native English speakers. Teachers in these schools clearly pointed out that those serving in the bilin-gual settings had greater access to supports such as professional development and staff assistance in their classrooms. This posed a challenge for school leaders who had to explain and justify a differential distribution of resources based on the areas of greatest need:

Principals are getting really good at placing support where the kids need it. … Five or six years ago, an elementary school might have 20 hours of para-pro time and you have 10 teachers, so everybody gets 2 hours. … Now when I get master schedules and talk with principals, they’re looking at where the need is. … So that’s a paradigm shift.

Leaders also identified the strategic placement of teachers in bilingual programs, allowing both for self-selection and selection by the principal of those most likely to take advantage of training opportunities. An elementary principal who earlier in her teaching career had decided to figure out how to serve EL students by taking every available workshop and ESL training explained her selection process in starting a dual language program: “As I




looked at people, at that time we didn’t have the GLAD strategies, but what I tried to do is evaluate how much teachers had taken from the different train-ings we’d done, and interest and enthusiasm because we let them know up front, the first couple years at each grade level was going to be more work. You’re now teaching second language learners all day long.” According to some district-level leaders, you “go with the goers” and prioritize training for those most likely to take up the strategies in their classrooms.

School leaders were in a particularly good position to continue to monitor and ensure appropriate supports for students who had formally left the ELL program but still needed support to succeed academically. In a rural district with a predominantly Spanish-speaking population, the assistant superinten-dent explained that while a third of the current student population were EL students, a majority had been in the state’s transitional bilingual program at one time. In this district, leaders recognized the language continuum and unique needs of EL students and staff support needed to serve them system-wide, across schools over time.

Access to support systems at the secondary level. At the secondary level, the fundamental challenge for leaders remained the same—helping teachers assume responsibility for the learning needs of their EL students and to take steps to develop appropriate strategies and skills—but the challenge was inherently more difficult to address. A larger number of teachers are typically involved in any individual EL student’s program of study, the nature of most EL programs in secondary schools provides fewer opportunities for collab-orative engagement for teachers, and it is more difficult to find a balance between academic rigor and students’ language development. As is the case in many middle and high schools around the country, EL students have been served primarily through a combination of sheltered English classes in which students work with an ESL teacher in a separate classroom (often in language arts and history), and inclusion in regular education classes (often math, sci-ence, and electives). When students have an intermediate to advanced lan-guage proficiency, they may be mainstreamed for all subjects, with additional support from paraeducators who “pushed in” to their general education classes to assist and monitor progress.

In the case study schools, the range of preparation and support for second-ary teachers who served EL students varied widely. In secondary settings, where teachers view teaching and learning through the lens of subject-matter expertise, they were more likely to see ESL as separate from their instruction (Arkoudis, 2006). This posed a particular challenge for district and school leaders in designing supports for classroom teachers to work effectively with students. Even when classroom teachers were interested in professional




development on ELL strategies, opportunities to participate were often lim-ited. One high school administrator mentioned conflicts with other depart-ment trainings or time for collaboration as an issue. Others suggested that limited resources within the district were often funneled to the places with the highest need or where they believed training would have the most impact, which often meant the elementary level. In these cases, elementary teachers had priority for professional development opportunities since the number of EL students was often greatest in the early grades.

School leaders were also aware of the strengths and weaknesses of their teachers. One high school principal explained: “We’ve philosophically tried to disperse them and you get what you get, so that teachers don’t become known as the teacher who doesn’t have to deal with those kids.” This posed a real conundrum as school leaders weighed the benefits of placing EL students with the most qualified teachers versus placing EL students equally and encouraging all teachers to rise to the challenge of serving them. Limitations on available paraeducator time to support classroom teachers also impacted these decisions.

While the struggle to create learning spaces for both secondary EL stu-dents and their teachers was apparent, in a rural middle school it was clear that the leadership team was committed to the idea of instructional leadership in this area. School leaders shared this commitment and framed one of their major tasks as leading adult learners to change practice. An investment in professional development seemed to complement a leadership stance in which taking the moral high ground meant that all teachers had to meet the needs of EL students. In particular, they adopted GLAD strategies at staff meetings and attempted to model what they were seeking in the classroom. For the leadership at this school, the key was creating a system in which the distributed expertise of teachers could be accessed by other teachers. The leadership team saw this as part of “breaking the mold” of leadership and focusing directly on instruction:

Leadership need to just create the system that allows the teachers to access their peers, to talk about instruction and just sit back and facilitate, and sit back and brag and go look at what’s going on. That stuff is happening all over the building. The math teachers are working as a group on the GLAD strategies and they have been working with the social studies teacher. I mean it’s amazing the work that they’re doing and they’ve come up with it on their own, and as a leader you don’t have the time and energy to think of all these things that could happen or that could impact, it’s just that we’ve really impacted the culture of our building with instruction being the number one thing that we can control instruction—that’s it. We can’t control the kids, you can’t control the mood, you can’t control anything else, but we can create the system that gives them the money and the resources




and the time to do those pieces. We’re not perfect but I mean we’re growing and it’s amazing when they share out and then they get excited that they’re making a difference, and it’s cool.

Along with this emphasis on instruction, school leadership seemed intent on establishing “student first” type programs that focused on building rela-tionships and valuing students. Overall, leaders across the case study districts sought an integrated and coordinated approach for assisting classroom teach-ers and aligned supports for teachers in relation to their specific ELL pro-grams at elementary and secondary levels. As elsewhere in the country, much work remains to be done to solve the problem of effectively serving EL stu-dents at the secondary level.

Using Data for Instructional Improvement

Leaders in the case study districts were strong advocates of the use of disag-gregated data to identify areas for improvement, shape training and profes-sional development, and support a culture of learning. Monitoring of student progress through formal and informal assessments was designed to provide feedback for possible modifications to determine where further assistance or training was needed. In a rural elementary school, a learning specialist kept a “data wall” in her office that the staff used to track the progress of every student in the school. Students’ individual cards were moved across the wall as their assessment data showed them progressing toward meeting or exceed-ing grade-level expectations in reading and math. No EL student could remain invisible in this setting. Another district used the three-tiered RTI model to look at the type of instructional support and interventions needed to meet the needs of every child. Teachers in this district met with a team of specialists and administrators at least three times each year to discuss the progress of each child and determine if the current supports were adequate. Site-based professional development such as planning time and assistance from coaches was mentioned frequently as an important venue for discuss-ing assessments, especially in elementary schools. However, the paucity of assessment instruments for EL students was problematic, especially at the secondary level.

In one of the rural districts, school-wide trainings were used to highlight assessment issues. An interactive presentation with de-identified student data was used as a conversation starter to discuss the needs of particular groups of students, from the school, to the classroom, to the individual student level. Having multiple sources of assessment and background data was helpful to assess accurately the needs of EL students. In this district, the director of




assessment spoke of moving to a growth model with regard to the progress of the district’s second language learners.

Despite complaints about the negative consequences of NCLB and the sanctions imposed when schools do not make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), school leaders in the case study districts generally agreed that disag-gregating the data for EL students had brought these students into the lime-light and fueled their cause in advocating for more resources, and stronger supports for teachers. Not making AYP was a wakeup call for some schools, as they began to discover which groups of students weren’t reaching stan-dards on state assessments. Several district leaders described how this opened doors to work with schools in examining instructional practices and supports for EL students. A district leader in one of the urban districts described how the initial announcement of several schools not meeting AYP moved from “hand-wringing” to frank discussions about the instructional needs of special populations:

… it does force us to look more carefully at our data. So we’re now really having explicit conversations around equity. The superintendent has made disaggregated data part of the district work plan. That wasn’t happening a couple of years ago. … So I think only good can come of that with respect to our ELL program because you can’t fix it unless you know about it, and you can’t know about it until you look at the data.

In short, the case study districts and schools used data and assessment to inform the conversation about student learning and to drive home the mes-sage for change in instructional practice. Use of data was one strategy employed by school and district leaders to create and sustain supports for teachers working with second language learners.

Discussion and Implications

The findings from this study offer potential implications for leaders at vari-ous levels of the system. To begin with, the learning needs of EL students pose new instructional challenges to an ever-growing proportion of teachers. Many classroom teachers are currently not well equipped to fully meet those challenges, and therefore can benefit from a variety of supports that provide explicit assistance and a chance to learn about effective, appropriately dif-ferentiated instruction for EL students. Different district and school contexts, however, reveal the complex interaction of organizational, structural, instruc-tional, and staffing issues necessary to support the learning of EL students (August & Hakuta, 1997; Holdaway & Alba, 2009).




Evidence from this study suggests that many of the leaders in the case study districts embraced the challenge of trying to create high-quality learn-ing environments for EL students. In so doing, they created support systems that were EL-specific, and as such, they help us begin to visualize what such a system might mean in practical terms. They set the direction and attempted to leverage resources necessary to support the work of their staff in meeting students’ needs. Across the case study sites, we found school and district leaders who were knowledgeable about EL students. In most of the districts, top-level administrators had significant training, background, and experience in working with this population. They also acknowledged that some of their colleagues did not share their experience or commitment to serving EL stu-dents, and in some cases, this limited their ability to provide effective sup-ports for teachers and students.8 While there was considerable expertise at the district level, principals and other building-level leaders in the study sites also deeply understood the tensions and actively sought to build staff capac-ity in working with EL students. What was evident throughout this study was the strong connection between school and district leadership and a focus on teaching and learning (Knapp et al., 2006). Our findings suggest with some clarity that leaders in all four districts worked to organize themselves around student learning conversations and established a clear focus on high-quality instruction for EL students (Knapp, Copland, Honig, Plecki, & Portin, 2010).

From this analysis, we see that supports for classroom teachers are best integrated holistically into the overall school program to create productive learning environments for both teachers and students, rather than a system of separate services for a category of the student population (Drago-Severson, 2012; Waters et al., 2003; Youngs & King, 2002). This was evident in leaders’ efforts to resolve fragmentation in support and services for students and staff. A key way that leaders worked to resolve this fragmentation was by being closely involved in specific teaching and learning initiatives in the schools. Both district and school leaders recognized the local expertise of their teach-ers, coaches, and paraeducators, and broadly invested in professional devel-opment and training of existing staff. Because these leaders viewed the bilingual and ELL programs as an integral part of overall instruction, deci-sions routinely took into account the issues that affected the instruction of EL students (Ladson-Billings, 2011).

Findings from this inquiry suggest the value of a blended approach to district- and school-level leadership initiatives, one that maximizes the joint efforts of both district and school leaders. School and district leaders in the study illustrate engagement in mutually reinforcing efforts that can provide direction and mobilize resources to support teachers working with EL stu-dents. Leaders at both school and district levels recognized the organizational




complexities and that initiatives would require engagement at multiple levels of the system and with a broad array of staff. This was apparent in initiatives to support teachers originating from the district office as well as individual schools. While the districts and schools in the study leveraged what they could from existing internal and external systems of support, they moved beyond them to create their own supports when necessary. Staffing was an acute issue, particularly in districts offering transitional bilingual or dual lan-guage instructional programs, and for schools seeking to support students with culturally diverse staff. Attention to hiring practices (including addi-tional screening mechanisms), credentialing, and community engagement were ways in which the districts demonstrated their commitment to staff and students (Darling-Hammond, 2006). Proactive efforts to welcome families and community members in the schools were considered a necessary part of supporting improved outcomes for EL students. As other researchers have found, when schools capitalize on the linguistic and cultural resources that EL students and their families bring, both students and staff benefit (Perez Carreon, Drake, & Calabrese Barton, 2005).

Our analysis helps to visualize how particular kinds of leadership actions can serve the goal of building and maintaining a strong support system for serving EL student needs. For example, targeted messaging by district and school leaders helped to moderate and keep a focus on EL students and their learning outcomes. District and school leaders communicated a consistent and compelling rationale for serving EL students and articulated instructional strategies in a way that enabled EL issues to be integrated into district-wide improvement efforts. School leaders in all four districts agreed that the EL instructional strategies they were seeking to implement were “good for all kids.” Nevertheless, there was a recognition that a more complex view of diverse student learners was needed in order to fully address their needs (Hawkins, 2004). As a bilingual coordinator explained regarding the use of GLAD as a professional development approach, “we think it’s a good starter … but no, it’s not enough.” In this regard, districts took the long view of growing staff capacity.

Leaders’ actions also responded to the differing local conditions in dis-tricts and schools in the study, which reflected the continuum of types of EL programs found nationally at elementary and secondary levels. In the case study districts, leaders sought to develop and shift resources and supports for EL students and their teachers within the confines of a variety of ELL and bilingual programs, taking into account other reform initiatives and policies in place, and ensuring that state ESL and bilingual program requirements were met. With limited resources, difficult decisions had to be made about the distribution of supports for teachers. Most notably all of the districts




invested heavily in professional learning and were not hesitant to reallocate staff to better serve the EL populations. At the elementary level, creating regular opportunities for collaborative work around ELL issues enabled teachers to consider how they might better serve the students in their class-rooms (Knapp, 2003). The need to provide academic rigor while supporting students’ language development and access to content-specific curriculum and materials appropriate to students’ language ability remained an ongoing challenge, particularly at the secondary level (Callahan, 2005; Stritikus & Nguyen, 2010). The conceptual and logistical challenges for leaders in sec-ondary schools require renewed attention and potentially different solutions.

Leaders made particular use of data and evidence, as well, in their efforts to focus their systems on EL student needs. For example, the four case study districts reflect strong parallels in their use of data for instructional improve-ment. In all of the districts, leaders organized and presented data in a way that could be accessed and understood by staff. A strength found in these case study districts was the vertical and horizontal collaboration among staff at district and school levels to interpret and respond in ways that led to action. Marsh (2012) describes how these kinds of data activities can help educators move from knowledge to action in helping to shape educational interven-tions. Teachers benefit from the use of data to track the progress of students and inform their instruction if data are accessible, timely, and aligned with other instructional initiatives (Kerr, Marsh, & Ikemoto, 2006; Williams et al., 2007). In this regard, many of the teachers in the case study schools were provided necessary supports to better understand the progress of their EL students.

These themes underscore the critical role that leadership plays in fashion-ing and maintaining a system of supports for serving EL students. In particu-lar, our analysis demonstrates ways in which school and district leaders understood in specific, practical terms the challenge facing classroom teach-ers serving EL students and illustrated by their actions how they chose to invest in teaching and learning (Copland, 2003). The leaders interviewed for this study spent time in schools responding to issues of professional prac-tice, helping teachers make connections between their EL students and instructional practice, offering staff support, providing greater access to appropriate curriculum and materials, and opportunities for collaboration. The findings are consistent with Lucas et al.’s 1990 study with regard to ways school leaders can support teachers of EL students, though our study focuses a bit more on coherence in the system of supports for teachers, and the use of student data for instructional improvement. What is perhaps most striking is how little has changed in the last 20 years with regard to leaders attending to these issues.




If, as this study suggests, school and district leadership is crucial in creating and sustaining systems of support for classroom teachers to work effectively with EL students, it raises a question for leadership preparation programs in terms of preparing leaders to address these issues. Here, the field will need to move beyond the broad equity focus emerging in many leadership preparation programs, noted earlier in this article, to help a new generation of leaders build specific and practical images of how this growing segment of the student popu-lation can be educated successfully. This study is grounded in the belief that high-quality instruction for EL students can take place when school and district leaders intentionally, purposefully, and knowledgeably create environments that support the work and learning of teachers to address the needs of EL students. As leaders continue to wrestle with increasing numbers of EL students and establishing supports for the classroom teachers who serve them, the schools and districts in this study provide positive examples of the possible strides for-ward in supporting quality education for second language learners. Those strides can start from the moment educators begin to imagine themselves assuming leadership roles.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession, a nonprofit organization in Washington state.

Notes

1. By structured English immersion classes, we mean classes in which nearly all instruction is provided in English, but the instruction and curriculum are designed to support students who are learning English. Structured English immersion classrooms may vary in the amount of time dedicated to English lan-guage instruction and the grouping of students by language proficiency.

2. We use the terms general education teacher and classroom teacher interchange-ably to refer to elementary and secondary teachers whose primary assignment is teaching a range of students within a regular education classroom. Some general education or classroom teachers work in bilingual or dual language classrooms yet need support in their instruction of English learners.

3. While students may work with a specialist for a portion of each day, it is likely that the bulk of the student’s time is spent with regular education teachers.




4. For this study, we focus primarily on supports provided at school and district lev-els. The bilingual or ESL program model used by a school or district may provide assistance to general education teachers, but for the purposes of this study, the model was considered only one part of a broader framework of supports.

5. In an effort to select districts that were engaged in practices to support teach-ers serving EL students, we sought evidence from a variety of sources. These included recommendations from knowledgeable state-level educators, evidence of district participation in state conversations around ELL issues, and district pursuit of additional sources of funding to support the teaching of second lan-guage learners.

6. Fewer secondary schools were selected as we were unable to identify sites with supports and structures in place. We acknowledge this is a weakness of the study and an area that deserves greater attention.

7. GLAD is a model of professional development designed to promote English lan-guage acquisition, academic achievement, and cross-cultural skills. GLAD pur-ports to train teachers to develop instructional strategies effective for the learning of EL students, along with the theory and research behind the model. SIOP, another national model of ESL professional development, focuses on teaching English language development through the content areas and, as such, was used more frequently with middle and high school teachers in the four case study districts.

8. Our interviews with teachers revealed greater variation in their understanding, support, and commitment to working with second language learners than we found among school and district leaders. This was due in part to the purposive sampling and site selection process, but also was a potential limitation in that we weren’t directed to speak with many leaders who had substantially different perspectives.

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Author Biographies

Ana M. Elfers is a research assistant professor in educational leadership and policy studies in the College of Education at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her research and teaching focus on education policy and issues of teaching quality, leader-ship, and the teacher workforce.

Tom Stritikus is dean and professor at the College of Education at University of Washington. His research examines the political, social, and cultural contexts that shape the education of culturally and linguistically diverse students.

Documents

How School and District Leaders Support Classroom Teachers' Work With English Language Learners