Meet Ashlee Saddler - CLDE Director for Aurora Public Schools in Colorado, Home to 163 Different Languages
Ashlee, what is your personal narrative? What key moments in your life led you to where you are?
Education is my second career but one that has blended seamlessly with my first. The two terms that have shaped my career path have been advocacy and voice. My drive has been connected to advocating for and giving voice to those who are not able to advocate or speak for themselves. Both of my parents are highly educated and I was able to see the impact of education play out in both their lives and careers.
I earned my first Master’s in Social Work with a mental health focus and worked with impacted students and families in formal and informal therapeutic settings. The desire to work with students in the settings where they spend a majority of their time prompted me to transition into schools. I attended middle and high school in Aurora, and my parents still own my childhood home there, so my roots run deep in the city and the district.
Throughout my time working with students with disabilities and in the Exceptional Student Services (ESS) department, administrators tapped into my leadership skills and helped build that capacity. I returned to school and earned a Master’s of Education and my administrative license, served as an assistant principal, then as principal at Clyde Miller P-8 in Aurora. I also had the incredible opportunity to be part of the school turnaround work at the University of Virginia’s Partnership for Leaders in Education program. My work at Clyde Miller centered around building systems and structures, focusing on data literacy, giving teachers, staff, students, and parents a voice, and infusing equitable practices throughout all aspects of the school community. Significant growth was observed among students with disabilities, our multilingual learners, and our dually identified students.
Following the work at Clyde Miller, in 2018 the Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education (CLDE) department asked me to become their director. While in a different capacity, I continue to be dedicated to advocacy and helping others find and develop their voice to advocate for themselves.
As the CLDE Director in Aurora Public Schools, how are you using your role to create more inclusive learning communities?
In Aurora Public Schools, we have an incredibly diverse community of learners. Our students speak 163 different languages and come from 130 different countries. We are fortunate to have an abundance of rich linguistic and cultural diversity. Part of creating inclusive learning communities is understanding what strengths, skills, tools, and resources students and families already possess. An aspect of my work is leveraging those strengths and skills and helping educators recognize the amount of capital our students engage with on a regular basis. I often reference Yosso’s (2005) work around cultural capital to further understand student assets including social, linguistic, and navigational capital.
Most recently, I worked alongside an external educational agency to engage multiple stakeholder groups to create definitions of diversity, equity, and inclusion for our entire community. The process elevated the need to ensure our students see themselves represented in their respective spaces and understand that they matter. One way that this has to be actualized is in how we interact with our multilingual and multicultural families. In our quarterly meetings with our multilingual parents, I challenged the team to make the communication multidirectional so that we could also hear from our families.
How has the GlobalMindED community supported you in your equity efforts?
My first introduction to the GlobalMindED community was during my moderation of the Colorado Workforce Forum. The goal of the forum was to understand the current state of education and loop in the business community to the challenges being faced by schools and educational entities. GlobalMindED leveraged an opportunity to take this conversation a step further by providing time, space, and opportunity to provide a spotlight on the current state of education from the lens of how to recruit and retain educators of color. This is a crucial issue that needs to be highlighted. Students benefit greatly from a diverse community of educators who support, empower, and pour into them so that those students can grow, develop, and maximize their potential.
What professional and personal benefits did you gain by attending the GlobalMindED 2022 Conference?
The GlobalMindED 2022 conference featured some incredible powerhouses. I serve as an adjunct faculty member for the Community College of Aurora and I was thoroughly inspired to hear from the panel of college presidents and their perspectives connected to diversifying the higher education landscape. Listening to Dr. Angie Paccione, Dr. Miles Davis, Dr. Marielena DeSanctis, Dr. Lynn Perry Wooten, and Dr. Michael Torrence pushed my thinking around my voice as an instructor and the systems and structures I embody as a faculty member. I questioned the practices I have enacted that need to be examined and adjusted.
Also during the 2022 conference, I had the opportunity to reconnect with colleagues I had not seen in person in years and make new connections. The networking opportunities were outstanding and the conference truly embodied diversity of thought, talent, and approach.
What hopes do you have for your future partnership and work with GlobalMindED?
The energy surrounding the 2022 conference was palpable and I am eager to engage in the 2023 GlobalMindED conference. I look forward to the opportunity to offer a session proposal connected to the development of school leaders to support their self-efficacy and agency as a leader. While I love presenting, I equally love the energy harnessed from being able to learn alongside others. I place tremendous value on interactive sessions where I can facilitate the learning becoming visible. I learned quickly that the GlobalMindED community is strong and in the field of education, having a supportive village is needed for longevity. I am incredibly fortunate to have GlobalMindED included in my village.
What advice would you give to future Inclusive Inspirational Leaders?
I have spent several years engaged in various forms of leadership development. Understanding how to grow as a leader fills my bucket. I am currently in the final stretch of my doctoral studies with an emphasis on education, leadership, and organizational design, and what I know is that one is never done learning about and growing within their own leadership journey.
My advice is to be open to continuously learning and lean into spaces that are outside of one’s wheelhouse. Another key piece of advice is to find the people who will support and challenge you. I am fortunate to have found a strong village to support the incredibly hard yet rewarding work I do every day.
