In this article, we report findings from two cases of rural, high-needs elementary schools in the Southeastern United States that successfully improved learning outcomes for their students. As illustrated by our findings, a combination of effective teacher professional development, focused student learning initiatives, and enhanced community and family involvement contributed to the removal of the schools from priority and below average designations. In addition to illustrating the leadership practices that positively influenced improvement efforts in these two schools, and expanding the nascent body of scholarship on context-responsive leadership, our findings serve as a starting point for a larger project centered on the nexus of school leader agency in increasingly diverse cultural contexts.

This paper tells the story of resistance and efforts to work and mend within an anti-Black institution: higher education. Through a collaborative autoethnographic approach, seven Black academics connected to the Action Research Collective team (a group focused on supporting graduate students and cultivating equitable campus climates), explored how doing research as a team served as a mechanism for healing from the trauma of anti-Black racism. This paper illustrates how researching, learning, and healing can manifest within research teams by emphasizing visibility, shared experience, authenticity, and community.

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