Re-Imagining Education for English Language Learners: How Educational Leaders Meet Diverse Students' Needs

English Language Learners are the fastest growing group of students in the U.S. School leaders understanding and decisions influence the programs or services provided to ELL’s (Mavrogordato & White, 2020; DeMatthews, & Tarlau, 2019). Educators and educational leader’s attitudes, perceptions, and understandings of these students impact their learning (Murphy & Torff, 2018; & Garcia et al., 2019). The purpose of this narrative qualitative research study (Riessman, 2008; Arnault & Sinko, 2021) is to examine and understand educational leadership decisions as it pertains to English Language Learners. The research setting and context for the study are education, educational leaders, elementary schools, and ELL students. This study will explore, observe, and try to understand experiences through the words of the participants, documentation, and observations frequently used in qualitative studies. This study uses educational leaders for social justice and culturally relevant pedagogy as theoretical frameworks to understand better how educational leaders implement practices for social justice and culturally relevant pedagogy as it pertains to ELL’s (Ladson-Billings, 2006; Bogotch, 2014). This study seeks an answer to the question: How do school and instructional leaders address academic, cultural, and social and emotional needs of their ELL population?