UCLA Ed&IS: How did you get involved with UCLA Community School? 

QUEENA KIM: I was in the right spot at the right time. I was teaching at a nearby elementary school and heard about an idea for a UCLA Community School in partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District. I was drawn by the idea of working with UCLA because I earned my teaching credential and master’s degree in education there and believe deeply in the mission of urban education and making a change in the community. I was taking classes in the UCLA Principal Leadership Program [at the time] and Karen Quartz invited me to a planning meeting—they were open to the public—and I wound up joining the advisory committee.

Part of the design of the school was that it would be a teacher-led, teacher-driven school that would be centered around the community. The idea of the autonomy we would have around curriculum really spoke to me. It would be an opportunity for teachers to have a say in how they would teach and what they would teach, and how they would meet the needs of students and also validate their culture and language. There was a big focus on bilingual education. It was a simple vision, but I felt very compelled to be part of the whole thing. It seemed, honestly, like a dream. A dream project that fell into my lap. I realized I was very interested in becoming a lead teacher. I didn’t have to think about it twice. It was an immediate, automatic decision. I said, I want to be part of this. And that’s how it all started. It was the best decision I made. 

Ed&IS: How do you approach your work?

KIM: From a personal perspective, I’ve always approached this work as service to the community and in turn, servicing the outside world through that work. I use that as a mindset and a philosophy—serving the students, the parents, and the teachers. We all have gifts and abilities we can use towards the service of others and the common well-being. I hope I model that. I also try to be kind. Kindness and joy are a big part of this job. I also try to be very organized.

Ed&IS: Karen Hunter Quartz, the director of the UCLA Center for Community Schooling, says your school “leads from every chair.” What does that mean, and how do you do that?

KIM:That has been something we’ve done from the beginning. It starts with identity building. Because we started as a school with a vision to transform education and to have productive democratic spaces, we’ve been able to practice that and over time, been able to grow that leadership.

We talk about leader identity in every space. If you’re a teacher, you need to offer leadership, and we want them to say that to the students. A lot of the decisions we make, we make as a team. We strive for consensus, which means everyone needs to participate. And they are asked to participate. We’ve just really practiced that. You have to do a lot of leadership development. That’s something we try not to take for granted. We do retreats at the beginning of the school year. Every time we meet, we talk about identity, we look at our norms. There are practical things we do during meeting that I think show people that we do consider them as a leader, versus just saying, “You’re a leader,” and then not treating them as one. Our tagline is “Where We Grow Together.” It sounds corny, but it fits. We work hard to connect whatever we do to our core values and our mission. It’s part of our language. Relationships, collaboration, and connections are key.  

Ed&IS: Running a community school is a big challenge. Can you share some insight into the organizational leadership of the school? 

KIM: I think you have to be very organized and be able to leverage your organizational leadership and structure to manage information and communication. I think that is a strength of mine. A massive amount of information comes at us. You have to be able to respond to it, be able to synthesize it, and share it in a way that makes sense to all the people that you have to communicate with. That alone is a big job.

You need distributed leadership, you need clear roles, and you need a space where all that information is housed, where it’s accessible. You need a really good system of communicating where everyone knows where to go for everything, but that’s just on that informational level. You need to have opportunities to discuss it and make sense of it. You need sense-making spaces, those places where we can make sense of all of that and process and make it applicable to the school. We have a lot of meetings, and those meetings are comprised of groups of people with specific roles that come together for specific purposes. There is a lot of shared information and shared decision-making and you need to be able to see it from other points of view, to see it in a systemwide view. We have worked really hard on how to map out these systems.

Ed&IS: How do you help and support teachers? 

KIM: Our teachers are constantly looking to improve their practice, and they need tools, a process, and space to do that. Collaboration, meaningful professional development with actual feedback, and a space for reflection are key to the effort and are three areas that we are constantly working to strengthen. With collaboration, we have lead teachers who have regular meetings to determine what they want to work on around curriculum and instruction. I can pull resources, whether it’s time or materials to support that. With professional development, there’s a sense that we’re all improving and getting new information, or maybe we’re getting better strategies, and those professional development opportunities can be directly related to the classroom. That’s something we’ve done with writing and with math. 

The last is around reflection. This is one area I wish we had more time for. Some of it is informal, where a newer teacher can just go talk with other teachers and get ideas from them, or even just a thought partner to throw an idea at and get feedback right away. And we’ve built those relationships. The culture of the school we want is that teachers know that if there’s something they want to get feedback on, that is something we do. It’s part of our professional interactions and collaboration. Every teacher is part of a team and we give teachers time to plan together. We also have national board teachers who serve as mentors, and we have coaches, some of whom focus on our new teachers. My job has always been trying to bring it all together to connect the pieces. 

Ed&IS: How do you listen to and engage the voice of students and parents? 

KIM: I always want to see more student voice and parental engagement in ways that challenge what we have been doing and what we need to do. 

At our school, everyone is expected to be an active, critical participant. That’s one of our core competencies. That includes students and adults. We have formal spaces where kids sit in councils, and we have leadership councils. I know a lot of schools do that, but I think this is a little different, it just feels more part of the culture, and it’s more organic. I would hope that our students feel like they can always bring something up. I also think teachers value student voice, their culture, and their stories. That builds on this foundation that who they are is very much valued. Our teachers do an amazing job of validating their voices and asking them to share, maybe through a reflection or maybe a survey. 

Listening to parents has been a big part of our school since the beginning. If parents have ideas, we take them seriously and try to show we are supportive. If they want to get a group going, or if they’re curious about a certain activity or just want to know about something, we try to deliver for them, so they know that we are working to meet their needs. 

I always ask, is there something for parents? I think the parents love coming to school when they see their child doing something. That’s key. There’s got to be a reason why they’re coming, and it needs to be about their child. I think having inviting events for parents, having food and music, to be able to see their kid thriving, just makes people feel happy. You can utilize those moments.

I also think parents need to sense that the whole school, all the adults, not just the principal or just the teacher, but also the support staff who they may be interacting with, have [a] kind and inviting demeanor. And it’s important that parents see you and that you respond to them. If we separate ourselves from parents, then I think inadvertently, they will start distancing themselves from us. 

Ed&IS: Are there some universal principles for community school leadership?

KIM: I think, essentially, when it says community schooling, you have to know the community. You have to know the students, their parents, their families. There should be a lot of places where kids are telling stories, and teachers and community members are sharing their experiences and hearing from others. I think that’s vital.

Partnerships are also key. Partnerships with community organizations, or as in our case, the university, can heighten the level of thinking, coordination, and collaboration a community school needs to learn. They can also connect you to important resources.

Quality instruction is essential. It’s the bread and butter of a school. Teaching and learning for the adults and the students need to be central. Teachers need to be engaged in and lead instruction.

Ed&IS: Do you have specific advice for new community school principals?

KIM: They need a core team, and ideally, that starts with the teachers. Teachers are going to do the work in the classroom and may be the first person that the parent may interact with. Teachers need to be partners. It takes longer, but it’s vital. You have to work with the teachers because that’s where amazing ideas come from. You won’t be able to involve everyone if you don’t have the teachers.

Secondly, having the support of the school district is key. You can go a lot further if you have district support, especially with the operations and logistics and helping you to make things happen.