District Leadership Practices in Disrupted Contexts of Reception: Supporting Immigrant Communities in Times of Crisis

Purpose: Immigrant-origin youth are placed at risk by large-scale upheavals that affect their contexts of reception, including disruptions to education caused by public health and natural disasters, as well as other crises. Here we examine how immigrant-serving districts were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and district leaders’ responses. Methods: Drawing from a longitudinal study conducted in six immigrant-serving districts across the United States, we focus on a set of qualitative data from partner meetings with district leaders during the pandemic. We analyzed 10 recurring Zoom meeting transcripts, spanning the start of school closures in the spring of 2020 to the fall of 2021. In these meetings, we engaged in ongoing discussions to support planning and inform district leaders’ policy making. Through matrices and memoing, we generated and applied both thematic and open codes that we used to generate results. Findings: We show how the context of reception was fundamentally altered by pandemic disruptions and the variations across districts shaping district leaders’ responses. In particular, geographic location, existing infrastructure relevant to pandemic response, and local policy making differentially affected these contexts of reception. As they navigated these disruptions, district leaders employed sustaining, adaptive, and innovative practices to address the needs of immigrant-origin students and families during the pandemic. Implications: Understanding how district leaders respond and support immigrant-origin youth through crises continues to be relevant in our volatile world. We show how leaders addressed disruption and argue that understanding district leadership for immigrant-origin youth is important given the upheavals we anticipate in the years ahead.