Message from the LSI SIG Chair Fall 2023

On behalf of the Leadership for School Improvement SIG Executive Committee, we welcome you to the academic year. The LSI SIG continues to emphasize the necessity of community building and growth through community. We are so fortunate to count reflective, equity-focused scholars and practitioners among our members, but we also hope to model improvement through welcoming and embracing new voices and ways of knowing and learning. Whether through scholarly contributions to the 2023 UCEA Annual Convention or 2024 AERA Annual Meeting, our continued emphasis on supporting our emerging scholars through the Researcher Development Program which pairs mentor research faculty with graduate students to engage in impactful research projects in a learning-by-doing model, or through opportunities to engage in deep leadership for school improvement work through member-edited volumes in our LSI book series with IAP, we seek to provide a valuable community for our members regardless of career stage. Our LSI SIG members are innovators in both scholarship and practice.

We hope you will join us!

The LSI SIG continues to have meaningful connection with UCEA, and our members have made insightful contributions to A Call to Action: Imagining A Hard Reset in Educational Leadership. We also view UCEA as a vehicle and opportunity to build our community. We are hosting our third annual LSI lunch event where our members reconnect, build new connections and exchange ideas that strengthen our SIG. We will also continue to build community with other SIGs who have aligned missions, visions and values for educational leadership. We will host our second co-reception with the Educational Change and Organizational Theory SIGs at the 2024 AERA Annual Meeting.

All of our programming is focused on a four-question framework that is informed by our values for school improvement and the research that hopes to inform school improvement practices:

1. How can we diversify the membership and leadership of our LSI SIG?
2. How can we welcome diverse conceptualizations of LSI research in our LSI SIG?
3. How can we support each other in exploring how LSI research can advance social justice and equity?
4. How can we involve graduate students and attend to their needs through the Research Development Program?

To all our current members, we thank you for your continued support and contributions to advancing the work of the LSI SIG through your research and practice. To our LSI SIG fans and seekers, please take advantage of our many networking opportunities to get to know us and become part of our community—we need you to continue to expand the work and reach of justice focused school improvement.

Your LSI SIG Chair

Meredith Wronowski