Creating and maintaining student diversity: strategies and challenges for school leaders

The purpose of this paper was to explore how school leaders can create and maintain student diversity in charter schools. Based on a case study of two racially balanced schools in New York City, this study identifies three strategies that the schools’ leaders took to create more student diversity: (1) develop curriculum-centred missions, (2) implement targeted student recruitment and (3) more inclusively interpret state charter enrolment guidelines. This paper also documents the challenges they faced in maintaining diversity over time. As exceptions to the racial segregation so prevalent in many urban charter schools, these schools highlight successful leadership approaches for creating more diverse student compositions in other schools.