
story by Claire Miller
In 2014, less than 26 percent of third grade students at Pinecrest Academy* scored at or above proficiency on the statewide reading assessment.
By 2019, that percentage had risen to more than 55 percent.
In an article published in the Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, College of Education & Human Development alum Lisa D. Thompson (Ed.D. ’21) and Associate Professor Kristina Brezicha outline how the school’s leadership enacted literacy-focused school improvement plans each year from 2014-2019 and how those plans impacted students’ literacy skills over time.
Effective school improvement plans will state a clear goal the school wants to achieve, assess what the school needs to address, encourage stakeholders to be involved in the planning process, and create a list of measurable steps to make the main goal possible. In this case, Pinecrest Academy’s principal and the school improvement team developed school improvement plans with an emphasis on literacy, with new literacy initiatives added each year.
Principal Joanna Howard built on her relationships with the local community to get parents, families and community members involved in school literacy nights, a virtual weekly bedtime story delivered by a mystery reader, and workshops at Pinecrest.
Teachers implemented more reading interventions for struggling students, had more access to culturally relevant books and resources, and attended school- and district-level professional development sessions on culturally responsive teaching practices.
With these and other literacy-focused initiatives, the school’s leadership encouraged students, teachers, families and community members to be part of a shared vision to improve students’ literacy skills.
These efforts were made more challenging at times by staff who didn’t buy into the vision, academic challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic presented and state-level curriculum changes. However, Thompson and Brezicha note how Pinecrest’s school improvement plans – led by their principal and school leadership team – made a significant impact on students’ literacy skills.
“Howard led Pinecrest Academy to a 58.1 percent reading proficiency among third-grade students in 2019,” the authors wrote. “Moving forward, she must continue to balance her strong focus on supporting students’ literacy growth with her deep knowledge of her community and the impact of these factors when formulating future school improvement plans.”
*Pinecrest Academy is a pseudonym for the school at the center of this research study. It is located in the southeastern U.S.
About the Researchers
Kristina Brezicha
Department of Educational Policy Studies
Kristina Brezicha is an associate professor of educational leadership in the College of Education & Human Development’s Department of Educational Policy Studies. Her research interests focus on how education supports individuals’ abilities to equitably participate in the democratic processes at both the local and national levels. Specifically, she has studied how immigrant students’ experiences of in/exclusion in their schools has shaped their knowledge, attitudes, habits and dispositions towards the political process in the U.S. and Canada. She has presented her work at conferences such as the American Educational Research Association annual meeting, the University Council for Educational Administration Convention and the Comparative and International Education Society Conference.
Lisa D. Thompson (Ed.D. ’21)
Lisa D. Thompson (Ed.D. ’21) is a former K-12 administrator with 22 years of secondary education experience. Her research centers on literacy leadership and educational equity. Thompson is the 2021 recipient of the Georgia Educational Research Association Distinguished Paper Award, a state affiliate of the American Educational Research Association. She is a part-time instructor in the College of Education & Human Development’s Department of Educational Policy Studies, where she earned her doctorate in 2021. She is also a disciplinary literacy coach at SOAR Academy in Macon, Ga.
Citation
Thompson, L. D., and Brezicha, K. (2022). “Under Pressure: Leadership for Literacy and Cultural Responsiveness.” Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 25(4), 352–363. https://doi.org/10.1177/15554589221119406