Foundations in Student Services and Special Education Administration: A Pedagogical Process to Promote Leadership for Social Justice in K–12 Schools

Abstract

This article focuses from a critical perspective on the pedagogical foundations of a course on educational leadership of student services and special education administration. Additionally, it explores the ability of teaching the “practical application” of administering K–12 special education and student services using critical discourse through a deconstruct–reconstruct process. The course presented in this article examines how the changing role of student service directors and school principals encourages the development and implementation of integrated comprehensive services for all learners. The course employs a range of theoretical perspectives to address the political, structural, and functional constructs within the system that inhibit and promote comprehensive services for all learners. Students in this course complete a districtwide analysis and craft recommendations from a critical perspective to diminish, if not completely remove, practices that marginalize and elevate educational oppression and, in turn, societal oppression. In addition, students receive and generate practical information to assist in building the bridge from fragmented programs for students in need to the promotion of integrated comprehensive services for all learners.