In this episode of In the Lead with UCEA, Executive Director Dr. Mónica Byrne-Jiménez talks with Dr. Rotunda Floyd-Cooper, Vice President of Education Leadership at The Wallace Foundation, about The Wallace Foundation’s Equity Centered Pipeline Initiative (ECPI), which aims to develop equity-oriented school principals across eight diverse school districts in the U.S. 

The discussion explores the initiative's impact on educational leadership and practices, the critical role of community and university partnerships, and the unique, context-specific approaches to defining and implementing equity in education. Rotunda also shares insights into the continuous improvement processes and upcoming research findings that are expected in the future.

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In the Lead with UCEA is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

How ECPI districts and their university partners ensure high-quality, equity-centered principal preparation programs.

12:36: [Mónica Byrne-Jiménez] How are the ECPI districts working with their university partners to make sure that their principal preparation is high-quality, equity-centered, and, sort of, building on strengths of the community?

12:52: [Rotunda Floyd-Cooper] Yeah, that’s a great question. What's been fantastic to see in these partnerships with districts and these institutions of higher education is, just as we know that the districts want pools of principal candidates who are well-prepared to meet the real-world demands of the role. We also know that the university partners strive to offer the highest quality and most relevant principal preparation programs to attract candidates and to meet the needs of the districts that they serve. That's the reason that the partnerships between the universities and the local school communities are so essential. Each district is either developing or revising leader standards and then working closely with their university partners to ensure that those standards will guide the pre-service work and preparation that the university partner offers. And in some cases, for example, in Columbus City Schools, in partnership with the Ohio State University, there's even collaboration on the development and support of in-service principals. These partnerships, in some cases, even result in more strategic approaches to preparation for assistant principals within the district.

The Wallace Foundation recognizes each district’s unique definition of equity.

07:59: [Rotunda Floyd-Cooper] While we do, at Wallace, think about equity in a very specific way, The Wallace Foundation is not imposing a singular definition of equity on the districts that we are partnering with. Each district has actually defined its own vision for equity with input from the community. And they are designing their pipelines with the vision for equity embedded that they have collaborated with their communities around. And what's really exciting about the work is that, in partnership with the stakeholders that I mentioned previously, they are iterating on what they learn over time about the needs of principals, along with the interests of their communities, and they leverage the deep knowledge of some of the other partners, like state agencies, as well as members of higher ed communities, to engage in this continuous improvement process.

08:51: [Mónica Byrne-Jiménez] And just hearing you say that now also makes me think that, actually, part of the approach, if that's the right word of the foundation, is to recognize that issues of equity have to be locally driven. And so, that's actually part of the equity definition, right? It's not something that can't be imposed, but rather locally driven, locally addressed in local leadership.

[Rotunda Floyd-Cooper] Yeah. I think that's a fantastic point.

Rotunda shares insights and hopes for sustaining Wallace leadership initiatives

19:10 Through a series of independent research studies, we're hoping to learn whether large districts, in partnership with all of the stakeholders that we've spent this time talking about, can create principal pipelines that are capable of producing and supporting leaders who can advance equity within their districts. We're also hoping, though, to be able to understand how local history and district culture shape approaches to equity. And more specifically, the researchers who are engaged in this component of a study will be able to document the cultural, historical, and organizational factors that district partnership teams have to grapple with as they develop visions, goals, and plans for equity-centered principal pipelines.

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

• ​​​​Equity-Centered Pipeline Initiative (ECPI)

Guest Profile:

• Wallace Foundation Profile
• LinkedIn