Unite the Right Rally and Charlottesville City Schools - The Transformation of a Crisis

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by acoobca

Educational leaders at all levels need preparation for crises and their aftermaths, as conventional guidance often treats crisis management as predictable stages. This case study analyzes the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally and its impact on Charlottesville City Schools, using paracrisis and crisis-of-challenge framing to trace transformation over phases. Findings show how crisis legitimacy was challenged by historically institutionally racist policies and practices, while the superintendent’s leadership shifted to meet evolving demands.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Educational leaders and crisis management

Purpose and research questions

Conceptual framework: crisis phenomenon and management

Crisis defined

Crisis management as (linear) process

The “Unite the Right” Rally and Charlottesville City Schools: The Transformation of a Crisis Sara Lourdes Epperly Salem City (Virginia) Public Schools Jay Paredes Scribner Old Dominion University Karen L. Sanzo Old Dominion University Educational leaders at all levels must be prepared to address crises and their aftermaths. The conventional wisdom on crises and their management suggests that while crisis can originate from myriad sources, they largely proceed according to predictable stages. Our study draws from traditional and more critical literature on crisis and crisis management to understand the case the 2017 Unite the Right rally and its impact on Charlottesville City Schools. Specifically, we unpack the unfolding nature of the crisis and the district superintendent’s leadership through each phase of the crisis. We use the notion of paracrisis and crisis of challenge to understand how an acute and traumatic experience for the school community evolved into a crisis that challenged the legitimacy of the school district for its history of policy and practices that sustained institutionally racist practices for decades. Our findings illustrate how the process of crisis transformation occurred, and more importantly, how the superintendent’s approach to leadership also changed to meet the new demands of the evolving crisis. These findings raise important questions and implications for how educational leaders might think about the crises they face, and the crisis management plans that guide that work. Keywords: Crisis, Crisis management, Crisis transformation, School district leadership Education Leadership Review, Volume 23, Number 1, Fall 2022 184 From natural disasters to terrorist attacks, corporate scandals to product defects, crises are anever-present reality facing society and organizations, including institutions of public education (Bhaduri, 2019; Bowers et al., 2017; Grissom & Conden, 2021; Pearson & Mitroff, 1993; Wang, 2008) . Globalization and the complexity of modern society amplify the frequency, intensity, scale, and diversity of crises (e.g., Lalonde, 2007; Mitroff, 2002; Mouline, 2018; Perrow, 1999; Wang & Kuo, 2017) . Yet, while experts acknowledge the intensifying impact of natural and social crises, our understanding of crisis as phenomenon and how to lead through crisis has remained largely unchanged for decades. Instead, the linear conceptualizations of crisis manifestation and crisis management leave leaders under-equipped to successfully guide organizations through the actual complexity that crises present (Coombs & Halladay, 2012; Ren, 2000) . Nowhere are these shortcomings more critical than in our service-oriented institutions, particularly public education. For example, crises of school violence, community upheaval in response to acts of racial violence, immigration raids that affect family units, and recently the COVID-19 pandemic have not only challenged children and families, but also, the educators that serve them. This case study focused on one superintendent and her leadership through crisis. Our purpose was to explore the relationship between one crisis—the White supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA—and the superintendent’s leadership during that time. The following questions guided the study: 1) how and in what ways did the “Unite the Right” rally create crisis conditions for the school district? And 2) how and in what ways did the superintendent lead and manage throughout the crisis? In our discussion, we explore lessons drawn from the study about 1) the multi-dimensionality of crises and 2) the leadership skills, behaviors, and dispositions required to lead a district through a complex crisis. Conceptual Frame: The Crisis Phenomenon and its Management Our case analysis is aided by organizational literature addressing how crises are defined conceptually, how organizations manage crises, and what post-crisis outcomes are possible and why. We a

FAQs

What is the main focus of the case study?

The study examines how the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally created crisis conditions for Charlottesville City Schools and how the district superintendent led and managed through that crisis.

How does the study explain the crisis transformation process?

It traces how an acute, traumatic experience for the school community evolved into a broader crisis that challenged the district’s legitimacy, linked to long-standing institutionally racist policy and practice.

What does the study contribute about leadership during crisis?

It shows that the superintendent’s approach to leadership changed to meet new demands as the crisis evolved, highlighting the leadership skills and behaviors needed for complex, multidimensional crises.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by acoobca