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Week 3 Blog

 Crompton article

ISTE Educator standard 2.2 Leader focuses on advancing a shared vision, advocating for access, and modeling digital tool use (2025). Crompton emphasizes that bottom-up initiatives are far more effective because educators can implement relevant solutions (2023). The site coordinator model at Strong Tomorrows maps well to this idea as coordinators work at different school sites with pregnant and parenting youth (PPY) participating in the program. The one-to-one work that coordinators do, guided by their overarching vision “Strong Families. Empowered Youth,” relies on personalized, authentic approaches that empower students (Strong Tomorrows, 2023). Top-down initiatives are ineffective due to the individualized nature of their work. PPY are faced with intense stigma, so empowering students to use technology can lead to major educational gains designed to counteract the myriad systemic barriers that often prevent PPY from even finishing high school (Johnson, 2023).

ISTE Educator standard 2.4 collaborator focuses on collaboration with teachers, students, tools, and community (2025). Collaboration is a critical piece of the site coordinators’ day to day work as they support students “through advocacy, case management, and education” (Strong Tomorrows, 2023). This type of teacher to student collaboration has been shown to correlate with higher student achievement in reading and math (Crompton, 2023). Crompton also discusses the value of collaborating with experts, a tenant that is already a part of the Strong Tomorrows program through parent engagement workshops and other resource referrals (2023). 

Gonzales article

Gonzales identified the challenges of sustaining technology funding and building staff buy-in which are also challenges experienced by Strong Tomorrows (2020). As a community organization working parallel to schools, Strong Tomorrows finds itself in the unique position of filling gaps for students, particularly those with  access gaps. Funding is unpredictable, and the organization relies primarily on grants and public/private partnerships. Additionally, site coordinators are working without a shared framework for digital equity, which mirrors the inconsistent expectations principals in the study reported (Gonzales, 2020). 

ISTE Education Leader standard 3.4 Systems Designer calls for ensuring resources are sufficient and scalable (2025). A technology vision for Strong Tomorrows should explicitly name funding sustainability as a goal. This will require identifying grants and funding sources as well as building public/private partnerships. Funding is needed to support critical access initiatives that ensure adequate device and connectivity for students, particularly those with unstable housing.

The needs assessment completed by Strong Tomorrows site coordinators and administrators noted a lack of familiarity with ISTE standards and a lack of a common language around digital equity. ISTE Education Leader standard 3.2 Visionary Planner provides a framework for building a shared vision for technology use and communicating that vision widely (2025). Just as Gonzales found that administrator vision only becomes actionable when staff share it, Strong Tomorrows' technology vision must include professional development as a core component, not an afterthought (2020).

ISTE Standards for Vision Development

The ISTE Standards for Students, Educators, and Education Leaders provide a multi-pronged coherent approach to digital equity for Strong Tomorrows students. The ISTE student standards should be the guiding principle for the technology vision, with an emphasis on the Knowledge Constructor and Creative Communicator standards (2025). The Educator Standards will equip Site Coordinators in facilitating the vision.   The Education Leader standards inform the necessary advocacy and infrastructure-building that the organizational administrators will need to engage in (ISTE, 2025). Finally, The Essential Conditions of Shared Vision calls for participation from all stakeholders and alignment to established frameworks (ISTE, 2025). The process of developing a technology vision is itself an opportunity to build the shared understanding that the needs assessment revealed is currently lacking. 



References

Crompton, H. (2023). Evidence of the ISTE standards for educators leading to learning gains. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 39(4), 201–219. https://doi.org/10.1080/21532974.2023.2244089

Gonzales, M. M. (2020). School technology leadership vision and challenges: Perspectives from American school administrators. International Journal of Educational Management, 34(4), 697–708. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEM-02-2019-0075

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2025). ISTE Standards for students. ISTE. https://iste.org/standards/students

Johnson, L. R. (2023). “Proving Them Wrong”: Reproductive Justice, Civic Engagement, and Advocacy for and by Pregnant and Parenting Youth. Schools: Studies in Education, 20(1), 144–163. https://doi-org.ezproxy.se.edu/10.1086/724406

Strong Tomorrows. (2023). Our impact. Strong Tomorrows. https://www.strongtomorrows.org/our-impact

Comments

  1. Ben KapuyaApril 5, 2026 at 5:06 PM

    Hello Robin,
    Supporting PPY is essential. One of my sisters experienced a similar situation back in Congo, where I am from. The impact on her educational pathway was significant. There was no structure in place to support her, so she was unable to complete her high school diploma through the regular system.
    With my support, she eventually earned her diploma. Unfortunately, during her first year at the university, she became pregnant for the second time. Despite my help, she had to stop school and never finished. Years later, after getting married, she decided to start again. Using technology by encouraging bottom up initiatives as you highlight for PPY is great.

    ReplyDelete

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