The Social–Emotional Well-Being of Students and Staff: How District Leaders Conceptualize and Enact Care

Purpose: Care is of concern for educators, but little is known about the way that district-level leaders conceptualize and enact care within a district central office. This study explores the research question: How do district leaders conceptualize and strive to enact care? Design and Evidence: We draw on qualitative interviews with district central office leaders and employ a grounded theory approach to analyze our data and elucidate themes. Findings: District leaders described care as (a) complex and multifarious; (b) relational; (c) requiring partnership, political moves, and connections; (d) embodied; and (e) needs-driven and responsive. Implications: Central office leaders have varying conceptions of what constitutes care. Few districts had defined the boundaries of district care. This implies that leaders would be well served to spend resources on defining and aligning policy with care as it connects to their own school communities. We found that district leaders conceptualize care as being needs-driven and responsive to individual needs within the school community, yet there is a disconnect between our study and equity-oriented leadership practices. An implication is to consider how equity initiatives can be a key part of caring district leadership. Another persistent theme was the outsized role that external agencies and partnerships play in building the architecture of care. Much more so than with instructional reforms, how and to what extent political capital is needed to navigate and nurture this constellation of care is unknown. A fruitful area for future research might be at the nexus of community and district care.