The Courage to Lead: When We Disrupt, We Deliver
What happens when courageous leadership challenges privilege—and creates space for everyone to belong.
Last week at the ACSA Lead Loudly Conference, I was reminded (again) why leadership is as much heart work as it is hard work.
One of the most powerful moments came during the Resilient Leadership Panel, when Dr. Cherina Betters, Ed.D., shared her wisdom. If you’ve ever heard her speak, you know she radiates warmth, joy, and conviction in equal measure.
She offered words that have lingered with me since:
“Everything that’s worth fighting for is going to have controversy around it.”
“Every time you take a step, you disturb something. Tell yourself, ‘What I’m doing isn’t just for today—it’s leaving a legacy for tomorrow.’”
“We do this work not because it’s easy, but because we value other people’s children.”
Her words perfectly capture the tension—and the beauty—of educational leadership today. True leadership disturbs. It disrupts. It moves. It’s the quiet conviction to keep showing up even when systems resist change, when politics distort purpose, and when courage costs more than comfort.
“We lead loudly not to be heard, but to ensure others are seen.”
That same spirit of courageous leadership is at the heart of my recently accepted AERA 2026 paper, Community as Curriculum: A Case Study in Courageous Leadership and the Politics of Equity.
Grounded in California’s Community Schools Framework, this case study follows one rural principal who dared to reimagine what family engagement could look like—by turning a simple field trip into a community-driven act of access, equity, and inclusion.
Instead of limiting attendance to a select few—typically the same familiar faces from the PTA—every family member was invited to join: parents, grandparents, stepparents, and even siblings. What unfolded was extraordinary.
Nearly 200 family members joined 130 students for two full days of joyful, inquiry-based learning. But beyond the numbers, what stood out most was who showed up: Fathers who had rarely been seen on campus, stepparents who often felt peripheral, and families once isolated by childcare responsibilities—finally able to learn alongside their children.
It was, in every sense, an act of radical inclusion—A disruption of privilege that challenged the unspoken norms about who “gets” to belong in our school community. Teachers who had once been hesitant witnessed something transformative: Connected families, engaged children, and a shared sense of belonging that transcended.
And yet, what followed was equally revealing—district resistance, political tension, and the painful reminder that leading for equity often means standing firm against systems that prefer compliance over courage.
As Dr. Betters said, everything worth fighting for will have controversy around it.
So we keep leading loudly—not to be heard, but to ensure others are seen.
We fight not for ease, but for equity and access.
And we keep stepping forward—disturbing, disrupting, and dreaming—because the next generation is watching.
