CeBIEL is training and supporting educational leaders who will make a difference

CeBIEL is training and supporting educational leaders who will make a difference

Raising the test scores and making public schools more effective are driving forces behind recent changes to New Mexico’s educational system, including changes in the pay structure for public school teachers. But training and keeping good principals also is critical and cannot be overlooked, said María Luisa González, a Regents Professor in the Educational Management and Development Department in NMSU’s College of Education.

González and colleague Christine Milyard direct the Center for Border and Indigenous Educational Leadership (CeBIEL) at NMSU to improve education throughout New Mexico, highlighting border and rural areas and areas serving indigenous populations, through the preparation and development of educational leaders.

“Principals are critical,” González said. “If you do not have a good principal, it will be difficult for good teachers – good teachers will burn out more quickly and move to different schools.

“New Mexico educational leaders face challenges not present anywhere else in the country, so we can learn from other models, but we need to adapt them or develop our own because our dynamics are different,” she said.

One dynamic facing New Mexico principals is the isolation they face when located in rural districts, Milyard said. Of New Mexico’s 89 school districts, 48 are identified as rural, which means they are relatively isolated and have fewer than 1,000 students.

Poverty is another challenge. New Mexico has the second highest percentage of school-age students living in poverty in the country. Further, New Mexico also has a 53 percent Hispanic population and an 11 percent Native American population in its schools, which require culturally responsive educational leaders, Milyard said.

“It is more than just sympathizing with the students. An educational leader needs to really be prepared and understand how to work with culturally and linguistically unique children,” González said.

When forming CeBIEL, NMSU’s Educational Management and Development Department drew on past successes and models and incorporated several state and federally-funded programs and initiatives aimed at educational leadership preparation. They include:

The Hispanic Border Leadership Institute, a $13 million, four-university collaborative aimed at increasing the number of Hispanic students obtaining doctoral degrees.
Project SILTS – Supporting Innovative Leaders in Today’s Schools – aimed at increasing expertise of school administrators in the needs of students, preparing bilingual teachers for administrative licensure and sharing best practices with colleagues.
Leadership in Border and Rural Areas (LIBRA) and Preparing Leaders Together (PLT), a collaborative principal preparation program, involving teachers from Las Cruces Public Schools, focused on preparing educational leaders to address the needs of students along the U.S.-Mexico border by addressing issues of poverty, culture and language diversity.
The Model of American Indian School Administration (MAISA) project gives American Indian teachers the opportunity to receive master’s degrees in educational administration to meet the needs of American Indian students. Program administrators want to double the number of American Indian administrators in New Mexico.

González said that by drawing on these programs CeBIEL cannot only prepare leaders but must begin the collaborative effort to ensure continuing support for New Mexico principals.

González said the center’s development became even more focused when the state approached her department and requested the establishment of a Leadership Academy to conduct continuing professional development for New Mexico principals. In the past year CeBIEL has held leadership academies and trainings across the state, supported a community
speaker series and developed continuing professional development training modules.

Future CeBIEL goals include developing a statewide principals’ evaluation system, supporting administrative interns
in districts across the state, supporting principals serving indigenous populations and implementing research studies to determine successes and needs of public school leaders. With new funding the program also could begin preparing another group of students for education leadership.

“This state is facing a real challenge in the next five years because a large number of principals are reaching retirement,” González said.

Milyard said, “We want those positions filled with principals trained to meet the unique needs of the state.”

“If we don’t graduate people for administration positions that support and understand what teachers are doing and what students need, we are not going to succeed,” González said.

Julie M. Hughes