Numéro 200, 2022 Special Issue - Pivotal Leadership During a Pandemic: Impacts on Educational Administration Policy in Canada Sous la direction de Patricia Briscoe, Nyasha Nyereyemhuka et Pamela Osmond-Johnson

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Decolonization and Indigenization of k-12 schooling is pressing and important and must move forward within the significant challenges and unique circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper I share what I learned in partnership with school leaders about leading Indigenization in a global pandemic. Through findings from a design-based study I present the needs and challenges of school leaders and chronicle what school leadership looked like towards decolonization and Indigenization. I conclude with questions intended to inspire critical reflection and open up possibilities for educators, policy makers, and educational researchers leading this work in the ongoing pandemic and beyond.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly changed the practice of school leadership, requiring greater flexibility, creativity, and innovation. Guided by institutional theory, this paper suggests that leadership adaptations are influenced by environmental pressures such as coercive (e.g., from governmental or regulatory agencies), mimetic (e.g., attempts to emulate best practices from other schools), and normative pressures (e.g., professional standards endorsed by professional societies or unions). By using a qualitative co-constructed autoethnographic approach (See Kempster & Iszatt-White, 2012), the paper presents the Covid-19 timeline in Manitoba, identifying stakeholders and associated environmental pressures. It also features the personal leadership adaptations experienced by a school principal (Susan). The findings suggest that coercive pressures are mostly associated with creativity and inventive leadership practices. Mimetic pressures may lead to copying behaviours, and normative pressures are associated with enhanced foundational knowledges, all depending on contextual factors. The findings also highlight the significant emotional and physical toll the pandemic has taken on school principals.

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This study involved interviewing Canadian principals (N = 37) to determine how they responded to students with special education needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yamamoto et al.’s (2014) concept of critical incidents and Heine et al.’s (2006) meaning maintenance model were used to evaluate the transformational power of principals’ pandemic experiences in order to reimagine inclusive education. Findings revealed that these critical incidents broadly fell into four categories: 1) family support and the complications associated with partnering with parents virtually, 2) meeting students’ needs in new and often innovative ways, 3) disparities in student experiences as a result of virtual schooling and 4) responses required in light of logistical and technical challenges.

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In this article, we combine theories of teacher leadership, policy leadership, street-level leadership, and policy enactment to inform our novel conceptualization of teachers’ policy leadership. We draw on data collected through a series of 3 focus group interviews with 31 secondary school teachers in Ontario between July 2020 and February 2021 to show how the dynamism of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted this aspect of their work. Specifically, our findings show the influence of administrative support and the shifting external, situated, and spatial contexts on teachers’ policy leadership. The findings also highlight the role of refusal and creative reinterpretation of educators who prioritized student well-being during the pandemic as schooling transitioned from more flexible emergency remote learning to a less flexible “business as usual” approach.

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This mixed methods research design focuses on post-secondary institutions in Saskatchewan, Canada, its employees’ experiences of working remotely, and the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on school leadership. Presented are the perceived challenges as well as the benefits of the new workplace since the COVID-19 crisis. Administrative and instructional leadership had changed dramatically. Most identified their quality of work as better or the same because of having fewer distractions, interruptions, and less wasted time at the workplace. The participants’ interviews and survey responses describe the necessary adaptation, flexibility, mental health and wellness, accountability, workload intensification, and future expectations of the workplace and leadership once the pandemic is over.

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This article is a case study describing the University College of the North’s (UCN) response to the COVID-19 pandemic, outlining pandemic planning and management processes at UCN from March 11, 2020, to September 30, 2021. UCN’s planning processes evolved from a top-down approach led by administration to an approach that saw greater shared leadership in the crisis. Shared leadership included senior leaders, middle management, faculty, and staff who both addressed the immediate crisis and engaged in post-pandemic planning. Lessons learned may help post-secondary institutions gain greater resiliency and sustainability as the post-COVID environment emerges.

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The myriad of social, financial, material health, and educational inequities that continue to plague Indigenous communities was exacerbated by COVID-19. In order to place on spotlight on them, this case follows Star, an Indigenous Student Success Coordinator, as she navigated the policies and practices couched in the rhetoric of supporting the success, health and wellness of students and families during a global pandemic. The case and teaching notes that follow illustrate the limitations that Westernized models of health and wellness create for Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators when it comes to maintaining their students’ and own well-being. As an alternative to the dominant Westernized models, the teaching notes offer a more holistic and integrated model of Indigenous health and wellness. The elements of the model situate health and wellness as encompassing all aspects of an individual’s life by connecting them relationally to their families and communities, nations, and the land.

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COVID-19 has led many to question how education and schooling are supposed to continue in a world of uncertainty. This case follows the journey of Mariam, an Ontario elementary school principal, as she pivoted her leadership while transitioning between in-person and virtual schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic. The case narrative describes the events that turned Mariam’s leadership upside-down and required her to adapt to meet the needs of the school community; in the process, however, she forgot about her own needs. Crisis leadership forced her to learn, unlearn, and relearn her beliefs about her leadership choices and purpose. The case includes teaching notes and two activities: (a) using a crisis leadership framework for reflecting on the learning, unlearning, and relearning of education, schooling, and the purpose of educational leadership during a pandemic, and (b) strategies to help leaders refocus from the outside in using self-care. Instructors can use this case in graduate-level leadership courses and for professional development.

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This case explores experiences of practicing care-centered leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. The case narrative is the author’s anonymized account of responding with care ethics to specific challenges encountered during the pandemic and the complexities of transitioning into a new leadership role in 2020. The teaching notes and activities invite readers to consider the ways in which care-centered leadership practices might continue beyond pandemic times by asking: In what ways might pandemic-enabled compassion for students be sustained post-pandemic; in what ways might flexibility for teaching and learning modalities persist; and how has this crisis offered an opportunity to critically examine the ways in which we lead in educational settings?