School Leadership and Student Engagement in Core French

This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) examines the problem of lack of student engagement in core French classes and how school leadership, defined as the school administration and core French teachers, can lead to improved student engagement in core French. Student engagement is described as students’ attitudes to a course, readiness to exact themselves to task, and willingness to participate in class and complete assignments. The OIP further discusses in greater detail what engagement looks and feels like in the junior and intermediate grades of a K-8 elementary school in Ontario, Resilience Junior Middle School (RJMS). With the understanding that lack of student engagement is a serious issue in the teaching and learning of core French in Ontario’s elementary schools, the OIP analyzes school leadership approaches to address the problem of practice. Informed by a liberal world view and a belief that every student can succeed to a high extent, the OIP uses the culturally responsive leadership approach as framework to analyze three possible solutions to address the problem. With the Change Path Model for change process to guide the implementation, three strategies based directly on the possible solutions to address the problem are designed to implement the OIP. Attention is paid to monitoring and evaluating the implementation to ensure that the desired goals are achieved. A communication plan is also developed as part of the implementation in three phases. The phases are preapproval, midstream change, and milestone communication, confirming and celebrating the change success. Next steps are discussed as ways to ensure sustainability of the change