Latina Administration

1. Latinas in Administration
Ruby Barajas

2. Despite the many race and gender-related challenges faced by Latinas in the
K-12 public school administrator field, how did Latinas identify themselves
in this study? How do you know?
According to Dr. Lisandra Tayloe, she noted that Latinas in the oublic school administrator field identified
as “highly-successful in their careers”and that being from a hispanic background helped improve their
methods. Because they could relate the students that struggle from a deeper level, they would be able to
use that to an advantage to use ideas and styles that they know would affect and work with the students
more. The study explicitly states how latina administrators felt about their job.
● For example, often times students have other responsibilities that their family relies on them to do,
and keeping this in mind maybe the students would get extra time to complete their assignments
instead of getting it marked down for being late.

3. Please describe the methods in this study.
The study utilized mixed methods that “included 30 survey responses and 4 interviews with two public
school principals and two assistant principals in the state of Florida”, and “Latina administrators of varied
ethnicities, including Puerto Rican, Guatemalan, and Venezuelan of ages ranging from 29-62 years, and
1-26 years of educational leadership experience.”
The use of mixed methods would provide a less bias response, because the interviews would balance out
the survey responses. When there’s a survey, it’s usually people who feel confident in the subject that will
take it, because it’s not something that’s optional. The range of ages and years in being the profession
also provide different views in their current image of themselves, so that helped make the study better,
because there was a wide range of random samples,

4. What were the barriers noted in this study?
The barriers that were noted in this study included:
“1) discrimination on the basis of race during the screening, selection, and interview process;
(2) negative perceptions by colleagues due to the already low numbers of Latinas in administrative
positions; and
(3) a perceived teacher, administrator, and community preference for white administrators, for instance.”
The barriers that were found in this study were confirming the concerns latinas had. Before latinas even
got an interview they were already losing potential careers through race screening and selection. The
people who were going to be their colleagues already had negative ideas of them because there wasn’t a
lot of Latina administrators. Instead they wanted the “safe” option of white administrators, people they
were comfortable with.

5. What were the conclusions?
Dr. Lisandra Tayloe confirmed that there was a bias in hiring latinas in higher positions in the education
districts. After her discoveries, she made a “call to action for human resources personnel and search [for]
committees to establish policy and practice to safeguard against the permeation of racial and gender
biases during screening and interviewing”. This would ensure that everyone gets a fair chance and that
those that are hiring do not discriminate against minorities. Latinas are purposely being kept away from
these positions for no better reason other than being women from a hispanic descent.

6. What would you suggest as a remedy to the challenges faced by these
women?
A remedy I would suggest to the women that are facing these challenges is to make sure they follow up
after the interview, and even if they don’t get the job to ask for feedback to help them in their next
interview. This isn’t about having the applicant do more work, but it’s about having the interviewer review
their actions and face their bias. This would make it so they are made aware of their discrimination against
the applicant.

7. Increasing the Ranks of Minority
Jafeth E. Sanchez, Bill Thornton and Janet Usinger authors of the article Increasing the Ranks of Minority
principals explain how it is actually more beneficial to students to have personnel in higher positions of
education to relate to them. Overtime the school’s demographics have changed, the percentage of
students from minorities has increased in public schools, but the staff hasn’t changed to reflect the
student's needs. Staff that relates more the students can motivate them more to do better. If students feel
like they can relate to the their teachers, principals, and administrators they will be able to be more
understanding, and those in charge could figure out better methods to reach them.

8. Increasing the Ranks of Minority
An example that demonstrated how beneficial it would be in the article was about an Native American
Indian principle noticed that many of the Native American students hadn’t turned in their permission forms
for a field trip. He realized that they didn’t so so because it has been a custom to not stray from reserves,
and that parents felt uneasy about letting them go. So he called each parent and reassured them about
their children’s safety. Having that extra personal phone call made a difference and the students turned in
their signed permission slips. Because of that connection, the students didn’t miss out on this learning
opportunity.

9. Works Cited
Works Cited
Sanchez, Jafeth, Bill Thornton, and Janet Usinger. "Increasing the Ranks of Minority Principals." Educational Leadership:Developing
School Leaders:Increasing the Ranks of Minority Principals. ASCD, n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2017.
<http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct09/vol67/num02/Increasing-the-Ranks-of-Minority-
Principals.aspx>.
Tayloe, Lisandra. "Hablando De Ellas: Experiences of Latina K-12 Public School Administrators with Race and Gender." MUJERES
TALK. N.p., 18 Feb. 2017. Web. 07 Apr. 2017. <https://library.osu.edu/blogs/mujerestalk/2017/03/07/hablando-de-ellas-
experiences-of-latina-k-12-public-school-administrators-with-race-and-gender/#more-3796>.