Laura Peynado Castro - Collaborating to Celebrate Differences and Disrupt Systems
Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership, Ed.D., 2021
As principal since 2008 of University Neighborhood Middle School (UNMS) on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Laura Peynado Castro, GRD’21, has long focused not on student deficits, but on student assets—a philosophy at the core of her commitment to educational equity. “I’ve always been curious about what spaces we are creating to build on the strengths and the knowledge that students bring to our community,” says Dr. Peynado Castro. She is grateful for teachers who did the same for her. At age twelve, Peynado Castro emigrated with her family from the Dominican Republic to New York City and attended public schools. “I had teachers who saw what I brought to the table,” she says.
Of the nearly two-thirds of UNMS students who are Hispanic or Latinx, many are Dominican immigrants. “The practices of Dominican youth, like those of many other immigrant groups, remain invisible in the field of research,” says Peynado Castro. Working with UNMS alumni, Peynado Castro aimed to address this gap with a dissertation about literacy development for Penn GSE’s Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership. Her project documented the value of the transnational and bilingual perspectives that Dominican students bring to the analysis of a text’s language, biases, and power dynamics.
Through the project, she says, “I have become more intentional about my role as a co-creator and co-facilitator of spaces and opportunities that celebrate differences, embrace our humanity, and disrupt systems of inequity, within and outside our school community.” Her efforts include a multitude of avenues for “courageous conversations” at UNMS about race and social justice: community forums; reflection time and professional development for teachers; weekly small-group meetings that invite students to inform decision making; and a family book club that recently discussed Bettina L. Love’s book We Want to Do More than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom and met virtually with the author. Peynado Castro describes her approach to leadership as reflective, collaborative, and rooted in her experience at Penn GSE.
“I have become more intentional about my role as a co-creator and co-facilitator of spaces and opportunities that celebrate differences, embrace our humanity, and disrupt systems of inequity.”
—Laura Peynado Castro, GRD’21
She has bolstered the quality of education at UNMS by partnering with local community organizations and institutions like New York University for academic and summer enrichment and Hunter College for teacher training. Always, she says, she strives to remain grounded in the realities of students’ lives. To her, equity means making sure students have the conditions and resources to learn; inclusion means offering learning experiences that put students’ perspectives at the center while embracing difference and humanity.
“Penn GSE affirmed some of the beliefs I had about my role as a leader, to lead by example,” she adds. “I have to constantly check my biases, seek feedback, challenge myself, get to know people, not make assumptions. It’s not about me, but the work—what we’re trying to do together with love.”
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