Regrounding School Accountability in Shared Responsibility: A Case Study of Culturally Responsive District Leadership

School accountability has been a part of public education conversations since the development of No Child Left Beyond (NCLB) in 2001. These accountability policies were developed with a core mission of holding schools, districts, and states accountable to the academic growth and achievement of all students and all student groups, and for the last twenty years, schools and districts have adjusted their priorities to align to the mandates of the state and federal accountability policies. These policies have stirred a great deal of criticism in their limited scales of defining student and school success as well as the authoritative leadership approaches that have been used to implement these policies, and more importantly the notion that these policies have been implemented in a way that have moved public schools further away from the end goal of equitable opportunities for all students. Much of the criticism has been around the lack of inclusivity around these policies. This study reviewed school accountability through a culturally responsive lens, and attempts to define the notions of accountability and shared responsibility. This study also used tenets of Culturally Responsive School Leadership (CRSL) and developed a case for a Culturally Responsive District Leadership (CRDL) model. This research used a case study design. Through semi-structured interviews, participant Q-sort survey, and a document review, the study revealed that the district community values a district leadership that is committed to supporting schools around continuous improvement and building partnerships with the district community. The study also found the definitive difference in the conceptions of accountability and shared responsibility, and applied these conceptions to a mindset shift for a Culturally Responsive District Leadership model