Embedded Files
Social Justice Leadership
Identity as a Social Justice Leader
Over the past year, my identity as a Leader for Social Justice has deepened in both clarity and conviction. I began this program with a strong sense of urgency to support individual students who were marginalized, especially foster youth, whose stories mirrored the injustices I witnessed daily. I focused on immediate interventions, how to advocate, how to support, how to protect. But through the Principal Leadership Institute, my perspective has grown from responding to isolated incidents to interrogating the systems that produce and perpetuate harm.
I now understand that these outcomes are not coincidental, they are by design. Systems of discipline, enrichment access, school mobility, and adult bias are structured in ways that consistently marginalize our most vulnerable students. As a result, I’ve shifted from just naming inequities to actively learning how to dismantle them. This means committing to systemic change in a way that is strategic, restorative, and deeply humanizing.
This work cannot be done alone. I’ve come to realize that transformative leadership is collective leadership. Carrying the responsibility as a lone soldier is not only unsustainable, it’s inequitable. Sustainable equity work must be distributed, co-led, and rooted in authentic relationships. As I move forward, I am committed to building spaces where all stakeholders, students, families, educators, have the power to co-create schools that center healing, belonging, and justice.
Evolution of C. Rosby
When I entered PLI, I already held strong instincts for equity and relational leadership. However, over the past year, those instincts have evolved into strategic, evidence-based practices. One of the most significant shifts in my leadership has been my ability to use the PDSA cycle (Plan, Do, Study, Act) with fidelity. Rather than rushing to solutions or relying on intuition alone, I’ve learned to lead through inquiry, co-constructing actions, collecting data, reflecting on outcomes, and adjusting in cycles. This improvement science model has allowed me to slow down and build capacity within teams, so change isn’t just reactive, it’s sustainable.
Additionally, my ability to navigate difficult conversations has deepened. Through the language and frameworks we’ve explored in this program, particularly those grounded in anti-racist, culturally responsive leadership, I’ve learned how to address harm or resistance in a way that invites collaboration, not defensiveness. I no longer approach tough conversations solely with the goal of solving a problem; I approach them with the goal of preserving dignity while disrupting inequity. This means being mindful not to retraumatize stakeholders, especially students and staff from historically marginalized backgrounds, and instead using language that fosters psychological safety, accountability, and healing.
These shifts have made me move is a more grounded, strategic, and compassionate leader much like that of Social Cultural theory.
Perspective on Leadership
One of the most impactful experiences I had in PLI was navigating the unexpected conflict between the Community School Coordinator and the school principal during our Reflection Learning Project (RLP). I initially entered the process assuming that both leaders were aligned in their vision for the school. However, I quickly realized my assumptions were incorrect. That experience revealed a hard truth: it is impossible to lead or transform a school, no matter how equity-centered the mission, without relational trust, transparent communication, and a shared vision among the leadership team.
What surprised me most this year was how easily systems of oppression can resurface, even within spaces committed to equity. I witnessed how discomfort, when not handled with care and courage, could lead teams to revert to silence, defensiveness, or hierarchy. These moments taught me that anti-racist leadership isn’t just about knowing the right language, it’s about how we show up when it matters most. It's about disrupting harmful dynamics in real time, especially when they threaten collaboration and inclusion.
Through fieldwork, lectures, and critical readings, particularly Sealey-Ruiz’s work on the "Archaeology of the Self", my understanding of leadership has shifted. I now see that advancing equity is not about quick fixes or individual heroism. It’s about creating the conditions for collective transformation. My leadership has evolved from asking, “What do I need to fix?” to asking, “How can I lead in ways that help people see themselves and each other more clearly, so we can grow together?”
Challenges and Successes
This year, one of my greatest leadership challenges, and successes, was learning how to give everyone a voice while still moving the work forward. In my early practice, I assumed that inviting input was enough. But through this program, and particularly during my work on chronic absenteeism and the equity-focused Root Cause Analysis (440C), I realized that voice without structure can lead to confusion or stalling. I learned to design spaces, like empathy interviews, co-facilitated data walks, and community listening sessions, where every stakeholder had the opportunity to share, reflect, and inform decisions. Giving voice meant not just listening, but acting on what we heard, especially from those who had been historically excluded, like foster youth and Spanish-speaking parents.
Another challenge I faced was learning to discern which hills to die on. In a system as complex as LAUSD, every decision is layered with politics, policy, and positional power. There were moments, particularly during my Reflection Learning Project and RLP planning, where I had to step back and ask: Is this a fight for justice, or is this ego? Through improvement science cycles and feedback from colleagues, I grew in my ability to prioritize long-term equity outcomes over short-term wins. As I wrote in my 448A paper, “Leadership rooted in equity doesn’t mean we push everything all at once, it means we make strategic, intentional moves that open doors for others to keep walking through.”
Finally, I’ve come to understand that clarity around our shared purpose, our North Star, is essential for any team working toward equity. In the 296G paper, I reflected on how easily teams can lose direction when they’re not aligned. That insight proved invaluable during moments of tension between site leaders, where assumptions and siloed efforts threatened the integrity of our work. I’ve learned that establishing shared values early on, checking in frequently, and using data to ground our decisions are crucial for sustaining transformational change. When we’re all pulling in the same direction, the work becomes lighter, and the impact deeper.
Next Steps
As I transition into the next phase of my leadership journey, my focus is on revamping my approach as a Community School Coordinator Coach to more deeply reflect the principles I’ve internalized through PLI. This means moving beyond technical support and compliance-based checklists toward a more transformational, equity-centered model of coaching.
One of the first shifts I plan to make is how I elicit information from the coordinators I support. PLI taught me that the questions we ask signal what we value. Instead of asking, “What events are planned?” or “Did you submit your needs assessment?”, I will ask, “What inequities are showing up most clearly in your site data?” or “Whose voices have not been heard in this process?” These shifts push the conversation from logistics to learning, and from compliance to co-creation.
I also plan to support coordinators in seeing the value of root cause analysis, not as a one-time planning tool, but as a continuous lens for inquiry. Many schools are quick to respond to surface-level problems without investigating the deeper systems and beliefs that produce those problems. As I wrote in my 443 paper, if we are serious about equity, we must be serious about the systems that sustain inequity. I want to coach coordinators in leading teams that don’t just put out fires, but ask what keeps starting them.
Another area of growth will be in helping coordinators build confidence and competence around leading equity conversations and facilitating new school visions with all stakeholders. Creating a community school is not about filling in boxes, it’s about bringing people together across lines of difference to ask, “What do we want this school to become?” That requires vulnerability, facilitation skill, and a deep understanding of power and positionality. I want to model and teach those skills so our coordinators become true site-based leaders for justice.
Finally, I will advocate for and help implement year-round listening projects, not just climate surveys or LCAP feedback sessions done for compliance, but intentional structures that elevate student, family, and staff voice as part of everyday practice. Listening is leadership. And in many of our schools, it is the one thing that marginalized students, like foster youth, rarely experience in full. That must change.
PLI has equipped me not just with a new toolkit, but with a new lens
Future Applications
I see my administrative credential not just as a qualification, but as a tool for liberatory leadership. In the future, I plan to use this credential to step into site-based or district-level leadership roles where I can directly influence school culture, adult learning, and student outcomes, especially for those historically pushed to the margins. Whether serving as a principal of a community school or in a senior leadership position shaping equity initiatives, I want to lead environments where listening is a norm, root cause analysis is embedded, and every student, especially foster youth, feels a sense of belonging and possibility.
Leadership Skills
As I continue to grow, I’d like more experience with leading through adaptive resistance, especially when equity-centered change is met with pushback from adults in power. PLI helped me begin to navigate this tension, but I want to deepen my skills in balancing truth-telling with relationship preservation, so that I can move work forward while also bringing people along.
I also want to further develop my skill in budgeting and resource allocation through an equity lens. I’ve seen how money is a reflection of values, and I want to be equipped to ensure that resources in any school or district I lead are directed toward student need, not adult comfort.
Finally, I want to grow in the disposition of courageous patience, the ability to persist when change is slow, when conflict arises, or when I am asked to choose between being liked and being just. This work takes endurance. And I want to keep sharpening the skills that will allow me to lead for the long haul, not just the spotlight moments.
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