Belonging Through Culturally Responsive Leadership
Belonging is the foundation for student success. In this theme, I explore how culturally responsive leadership creates school environments where students of color feel valued, seen, and supported.
This means recognizing and celebrating cultural identity, interrupting deficit narratives, and creating policies and practices that affirm students’ lived experiences. Throughout my internship, I saw how even well-intentioned institutions can fall short when cultural responsiveness is not embedded in leadership decisions.
As I reflect on this theme, I anchor myself in the work of Dr. Bettina Love and Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, whose research underscores the need for liberatory, asset-based educational practices.
Coaching & Faculty for Student Success
Students thrive when faculty thrive. In this theme, I examine how school leaders can coach and support teachers to cultivate classroom environments that affirm and uplift marginalized students.
Through observations, feedback cycles, and PD design, I learned that effective support goes beyond compliance. It requires trust, context, and shared purpose. I also confronted the challenge of coaching while also being an evaluator, especially when advocating for equitable and culturally responsive instruction.
This theme is grounded in the work of Elena Aguilar and Joe Feldman and includes highlights from my coaching relationship with a new teacher, where I applied reflective practice and equity-focused data analysis to move teaching forward.
Operational Leadership that Serves Students
Operations often feel like background work, but they shape every student’s daily experience. In this theme, I explore how budgeting, scheduling, and strategic planning can be student-centered.
I engaged with school operations at a deep level, from financial aid and development to facilities and technology. I saw how decisions made in back offices impact access, equity, and inclusion in tangible ways.
Informed by case studies and real-time strategic planning, this theme highlights how school leaders can use their operational levers to advance mission, improve student outcomes, and build more equitable systems.
Research & Practitioner Inquiry: The Hidden Curriculum
As a researcher and school leader, I believe in centering student voice to drive systemic change. In this theme, I explore how students from historically marginalized backgrounds navigate the hidden curriculum of private schools, those unspoken expectations, cultural codes, and norms that shape student success.
Through interviews, field observations, and data analysis, I investigated the experiences of 12th-grade students who entered private school without legacy ties or access program support. These “doubly disadvantaged” students often faced academic and social-emotional hurdles that their peers (whether connected by privilege or programs) did not.
My findings illuminated stark disparities in belonging, confidence, and institutional navigation. This research affirms that access is not enough; schools must also provide the tools, mentorship, and affirming spaces necessary for students to thrive within elite systems. Research, when rooted in justice and care, becomes a roadmap for more equitable leadership.
Social-Emotional Learning & Student Leadership Development
Leadership is not just about systems but rather, it’s about people. In this theme, I reflect on how intentional SEL and student leadership development can transform school culture and student outcomes.
During my internship, we embraced the idea that student success requires more than academic achievement. It demands the development of social-emotional competencies that empower students to act with agency. Rooted in CASEL’s framework, our initiatives focused on identity development, emotional literacy, and peer mentorship as gateways to deeper self-awareness and relationship skills.
By fostering a “yes, and how” mentality (the belief that challenges can be met with creativity and solutions) we helped students move from passive participation to active self-advocacy. Whether in advisory circles, trusted adult programs, or student leadership coaching, we watched students learn to articulate their needs, take ownership of their growth, and advocate for themselves and their peers.
Final Reflection
Looking back on this journey, I see how each experience, challenge, and success shaped my identity as a school leader. I have grown not only in skill but in clarity of purpose. My leadership is grounded in a vision of schools where students of color don’t have to shrink, conform, or translate who they are in order to succeed.
As I move forward, I carry with me the stories of the students I serve, the lessons of the mentors who challenged me, and the belief that transformational leadership is not about control—it’s about creating conditions for others to flourish. My portfolio is not just a record of what I’ve done. It’s a call to action for the kind of leader I strive to be.
— Martina McPhail
Assistant Director of Admissions, Church Farm School
M.S.Ed Candidate, School Leadership, University of Pennsylvania
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