A presentation of the perspectives of teachers as leaders after Hurricane Harvey.

1. Teachers as
Leaders
during Disaster
Recovery
The Texas Gulf Coast after Harvey
Chad Whiteley
Doctoral Thesis Defense – August 10, 2020
John Wesley School of Leadership
chadwhiteley@sheldonisd.com

2. Researcher’s
Background
Chad Whiteley is a teacher at a public high
school in Houston, Texas. He holds an
undergraduate degree in Business
Administration and a Master’s in Theological
Studies.
In his second year of teaching, his school was
adversely impacted by Hurricane Harvey.
Coming to the problem as an inquirer in the
field of leadership, he realized the research
need in this area.

3. Chapter 1
Introduction

4. Topic Background
• Natural disasters are common.
• 2020 – Hurricane Isaias & maybe more!
• 2019 – Hurricane Dorian & Tropical
Storm Imelda
• 2018 – Hurricane Florence & Michael
• 2017 – Hurricane Harvey & Maria
• Teachers are on the front line as leaders
during a crisis.
• Very little research has looked at the
classroom as an experiment in leadership.
• A teacher may not even be aware of their
own leadership in the school.

5. Why this topic?
There are several problems that a teacher must face after a disaster that
highlight their leadership challenges in a profound way. The research is
limited on looking at teachers as leaders, especially when it comes to crisis
management
The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological analysis is to understand
and explain the perceptions of selected public-school teachers about
achieving the task of leading amid a natural disaster, specifically Hurricane
Harvey.

6. Importance of the Research
• Natural disasters will impact school communities.
• Understanding which leadership behaviors help to maintain
educational quality in such circumstances would help leaders.
• The experiences of teachers may be unique to each individual teacher
but understanding what some teachers endured may help educators
as they lead in similar circumstances.

7. Theoretical
Framework
The original theoretical framework was
built around the full-range leadership
model:
• Leaders should use different
leadership models depending on
the situation or context.
• Transactional
• Transformational
• Laissez-faire
• The stress of disaster recovery
might force leaders into a
leadership model in which they
previously felt uncomfortable.

8. Research Questions
• Main Research Question: How did teachers in the Texas Gulf Coast
perceive and make sense of their leadership roles amid recovery from
Hurricane Harvey?
• Research sub-questions:
• What types of support do teachers feel that they received from the
administrative leadership in their school district during the disaster recovery
process?
• Do teachers feel that leadership behaviors modeled by administrators
changed the leadership behaviors of teachers during disaster recovery?
• What leadership behaviors did teachers feel that they successfully utilized
during the disaster recovery process?

9. Chapter 2
Literature Review

10. Leadership Approaches
• The Trait Approach (Galton, 1869)
• The Behavioral Approach (House & Aditya, 1997)
• The Contingency Approach (Fielder, 1967)
• The Situational Approach (Hersey and Blanchard, 1969)
• Transformational and Transactional Approaches (Bass, 1985)
• Servant Approach (Greenleaf, 1977)
• Distributive Leadership (Abankwa & Kangaslahti, 2014)
• Full-range Leadership Model (Bass, 1985)

11. Leadership Qualities
in the School Setting
• History of Educational
Leadership
• Scientific Management
• Instructional Leadership
• Collaborative Leadership
• Administrative Leadership
• Principal Leadership

12. Teacher Leadership in the School Setting
• Classroom Leadership
• Relational Leadership
• Teacher Optimism

13. Leadership Challenges
in Public Schools
• Student Engagement
• Testing
• Funding
• Faculty Burnout

14. Phases of Disaster Recovery
• Pre-disaster
• Impact
• Heroic
• Honeymoon
• Disillusionment
• Reconstruction

15. Chapter 3
Research Design

16. Research Method and Design
• This study incorporated an interpretive phenomenological analysis
(IPA) design.
• This method was chosen because the lived experience of educators
was the focus of the study (Creswell, 2013).
• IPA requires a double hermeneutic in which the researcher is making
sense of the participant making sense of the phenomenon (Smith,
2008).

17. Participants
• Eight public high school teachers
• Three Texas school districts
impacted by Hurricane Harvey
• Purposive Sampling
Fish Mullins Herndon Foster Rice Smiley Eubank Larson
Age 37 31 35 29 78 59 28 30
Gender Male Female Female Female Female Female Female Male
Highest Level
of Ed.
Masters Masters Bachelors Bachelors Masters Bachelors Bachelors Masters
Ethnicity Hispanic Hispanic White White White White White Hispanic
Teaching
Experience
1 5 9 2 20 18 0 5
Content Area CTE English/ESL English History Comm. English English Math

18. Trustworthiness
• Researchers must maintain
accuracy and credibility in the
findings.
• The process begins while data is
being collected
• Member checks were used to
clarify any bias.
• Themes, thoughts, and categories
were presented to participants in
order to have them checked for
accuracy.

19. Data Collection
• Open-ended interview
questions were used to query
the participants.
• Interviews were conducted in a
semi-formal manner.
• Due to social distancing, 5 of
the 8 interviews were
conducted via Zoom.
• The interviewer recorded the
interviews and took notes.

20. Data Analysis
Step 5
A new analysis with information
from member checks was done.
Step 4
Each participant verified the
initial analysis.
Step 3
Transcript codes were noted,
and themes emerged.
Step 2
Initial noting and data
interpretation commenced.
Step 1
Researcher immersed himself in
the data.

21. Limitations
• The small sample size that comes from this IPA means that the data
cannot be generalized.
• Human language is an abstraction of experience (Willig, 2001).
• Length of time between the disaster and the interviews might have
changed the participants perceptions.
• The researcher himself is limited by his own intellect and research skills.
• Teachers that stayed in the profession may have a different view of
events than those who left and were unreachable.

22. Chapter 4
Results

23. Three Broad Categories of Themes
LEADERSHIP
CHALLENGES
HOW THE CHALLENGES
WERE HANDLED
POSITIVE OUTCOMES

24. Organizational Challenges01
03
04
Eight Themes in the Data
02
08
07
05
06Personal Challenges
Challenges with Students
Classroom Changes
Teamwork
Organizational Decisions
Student Outcomes
Teacher Outcomes

25. Organizational Challenges
LACK OF RESOURCES MEETING ORGANIZATIONAL
OBJECTIVES
LOST CLASSROOM TIME

26. Personal Challenges
• Personal Loss
• Displacement
• Permanent Loss of
Student Materials

27. Challenges with Students
• Meeting Students’ Basic Needs
• Student Displacement

28. Classroom
Management
Changes
• All teachers made significant changes
in their classroom management during
disaster recovery.
Building
Relationships Empathy
Better Time
Management Flexibility Discipline
Fish X X X X
Mullins X X X X
Herndon X X X X
Foster X X X
Rice X X X X X
Smiley X X X X
Eubank X X X X
Larson X X X X X

29. Teamwork
• More Assertive Leadership
Styles
• More Collaboration

30. Organizational Decisions
• Leniency
• Planning for the Next Disaster

31. Student Outcomes
• More Effort
• Renewed Sense of Place

32. Teacher Outcomes
• Stress Mitigation
• More Concern about Others
• More Optimistic

33. Chapter 5
Interpretation of Findings,
Recommendations,
& Conclusions

34. Leadership Challenges
• Themes under this broad category helped answer the research sub-
question: What types of support do teachers feel that they received from
the administrative leadership in their school district during the disaster
recovery process?
• Distributive leadership could help mitigate some of the stress of organizational
challenges (Bass, Avolio, Jung, & Berson, 2003; Devitt & Borodicz, 2008).
• Developing a sense of trust between administrators and teachers could help teachers
deal with their personal challenges (Bryk and Schneider, 2002; Forsyth et al., 2011;
Skaalvik and Skaalvik, 2014; Tschannen-Moran, 2009).
• Enhanced learning processes and monitoring activities could help students learn
effectively (Bru, Murberg, & Stephens, 2001; Doyle, 1986; Good & Brophy, 2007;
Roland, 1999; Thuen, 2007).

35. Reponses to Leadership Challenges
• The responses that were developed helped answer the second
research question: Do teachers feel that leadership behaviors
modeled by administrators changed the leadership behaviors of
teachers during disaster recovery?
• When teachers build positive relationships with their students, they develop
effective classrooms (Bru et al., 2001; Hughes, Cavell, & Jackson, 1999; Roland
& Galloway, 2004).
• Guiding coalitions can help an organization reach its goals more effectively
(DuFour & Reason, 2016; Song, 2013; Trust, Krutka, & Carpenter, 2016;
Vangrieken, et al., 2017).
• With proper preparation for potential catastrophic situations, schools can
respond effectively to emergencies once they have occurred (Clarke, Embury,
Jones, & Yssel, 2014).

36. Positive Outcomes
• Themes in this category helped answer the third question: What
leadership behaviors did teachers feel that they successfully utilized
during the disaster recovery process?
• Although literature suggested that students would have significant struggles
upon returning to the school (Terranova, et al., 2009, Madrid et al., 2008),
participants did not report a great deal of negative student behaviors.
• Teachers expressed that the most important skill they employed during
disaster recovery when handling student issues was relationship building,
confirming research that has postulated relationship building enhances
motivation and helps students learn and achieve their goals in the class (Birch
& Ladd, 1998; Chen, 2005).

37. Recommendations for Future Research
• A research study should be conducted that details the lived
experience of those teachers who left the profession in order to see a
more complete view of the challenges with disaster recovery.
• A study of the effects of optimism on teacher retention and
effectiveness after a crisis would help to develop an understanding of
this trait as it relates to stress management in education.
• A longitudinal study of challenges with student behavior over time
would help clarify the challenges in the classroom that were not
uncovered during this study.
• A study should be developed that compares the national pandemic
(COVID-19) with regional crises.

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41. Address:
2142 Little Cedar Dr
Kingwood, TX 77339
Email Address:
chadwhiteley@sheldonisd.com
Contact Number:
909-906-3087