Graduation Year

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ed.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Language, Literacy, ED.D., Exceptional Education, and Physical Education

Major Professor

Jennifer Jacobs, Ph.D.

Committee Member

David Allsopp, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Rebecca Burns, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Jose Castillo, Ph.D.

Keywords

Educational Equity, Relational Trust, Autoethnography, Systems Change, Leadership Identity, Collaborative Partnership

Abstract

Abstract

This qualitative autoethnographic inquiry explored how transformative and relational leadership were enacted and evolved during the creation, development, and sustainability of a community partnership school, and how these leadership experiences shaped my understanding of leadership and influenced my development and identity as a leader. Grounded in a constructivist paradigm and framed within a scholarly practitioner orientation, I critically examined my leadership experiences as assistant principal and principal of Havenwood: A Community Partnership School, the first community school in Rosewood County, Florida. Through reflective analysis of leadership practices, relationships, and decision-making processes, I illuminated how my leadership contributed to student outcomes, the development of a collaborative school culture, and meaningful engagement with families and community partners.

This inquiry was guided by two research questions. The first examined how my leadership practices evolved across key phases of developing and sustaining a community partnership school, with particular attention to how I enacted leadership through collaboration, partnerships, and responsiveness to the academic, social, and emotional needs of students. The second focused on how these leadership experiences shaped my understanding of leadership and contributed to my development and identity as a leader. Together, these questions allowed me to explore both the external enactment of leadership and the internal transformation that occurred through experience.

Guided by Transformative Leadership Theory (Shields, 2010, 2018) and Relational Leadership Theory (Komives et al., 2013), I came to conceptualize leadership as a moral, relational, and equity-driven practice grounded in trust, collaboration, and shared responsibility. These frameworks provided a lens for understanding how leadership extended beyond formal authority and was enacted through relationships, decision making, and daily interactions within the school and broader community.

Data sources included reflexive journal entries, critical incident records, analytic memos, and professional documents collected across multiple phases of my leadership experience. Several of the events in my timeline illustrated key moments of leadership growth, including instances where I navigated uncertainty, engaged community partners, facilitated shared decision making, and responded to institutional demands. I analyzed these data using Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022), which allowed me to identify patterns of meaning across my experiences while remaining grounded in reflection and interpretation.

Four themes emerged from this analysis: (1) opening the school to community partnerships, (2) collaborative leadership and shared decision making, (3) navigating institutional expectations, and (4) creating a culture of belonging. These themes reflect how my leadership evolved through practice and demonstrate the interconnected nature of relationships, structures, and context in sustaining a community partnership school.

The findings highlight leadership as relational, adaptive, and deeply human work that is shaped through experience, reflection, and engagement with others. Leadership was not something I simply enacted; it was something I continuously became through navigating challenges, building trust, and remaining grounded in my purpose. This work contributes practice-based insight for leaders engaged in community school implementation and offers implications for leadership practice, preparation, and policy, particularly for those seeking to create inclusive, collaborative, and community-centered educational environments.

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