by Dr. Marie Heath
“I’m going to print this out and tape it to my back so everyone will understand what it is I do!”
She wasn’t joking.
Everyone in the room laughed, but underneath the laughter was something deeper. She was trying to describe what so many multilingual leaders feel every day. People see how busy multilingual leaders are, but they rarely see the complexity behind the work. They see pieces of the work, but not the whole picture.
When a participant said that to me after attending a Strategic by Design training, that comment stayed with me long after the training ended. I had to stop and think about why this work feels so difficult to explain.
Her comment helped me realize that the challenge isn’t simply the amount of work multilingual leaders do. It’s that much of their work is invisible to everyone else. The work isn’t difficult because there is too much of it. It’s difficult because it is spread across so many departments that no one person sees the entire system.
Why this happens
Most districts intentionally divide multilingual responsibilities across departments. They have to. The work is simply too complex for one person or department to manage alone. The work remains just as complex whether a district serves 100 multilingual learners or 10,000.
It makes sense to distribute the workload. Compliance belongs here. Curriculum belongs there. Assessment lives somewhere else. Counselors oversee graduation. HR manages staffing. Professional learning often lives somewhere else—until someone realizes a sheltered instruction training is needed. Then everyone starts looking for an EL teacher to make it happen.
The multilingual department becomes the thread that ties all of those departments together. Many of the decisions that affect multilingual learners are made outside the multilingual department, yet multilingual leaders are often the ones helping others understand how those decisions affect students. That’s why this work is so difficult to explain. No one department sees how all of the pieces fit together. Multilingual leaders do.
The systems perspective
This was one of the biggest realizations for me. It felt like I finally stepped back from the construction site and looked at the blueprint.
That’s when I stopped seeing isolated responsibilities and started seeing one interconnected system. That’s when I realized every decision sends ripples throughout the entire system. Scheduling affects compliance. Staffing affects services. Professional learning affects instruction. Family engagement influences belonging. Nothing operates independently. Every decision creates a ripple effect throughout the entire system. When we focus on one pillar at a time, it’s easy to miss the health of the multilingual system as a whole.
The six pillars
I wasn’t discovering six new responsibilities. I was finally seeing the six parts of the work that had always been connected: Compliance & Data, Curriculum & Instruction, Staffing, Professional Development, Family & Community Engagement, and Pathways to Graduation.
Why I wrote Strategic by Design
I wrote Strategic by Design because I wanted multilingual leaders to finally have a way to see the work they had been carrying all along. I wanted them to have a framework that reflected the work they were already doing and a way to check the health of that interconnected system—not just to understand what needs attention, but to see how every part influences another.
Strategic by Design grew from that realization. It provides a way to step back, see the blueprint, and intentionally design systems where multilingual learners can thrive.
Looking back, I think that’s exactly why she wanted to tape it to her back. For the first time, she had a way to explain the work she had been doing all along.
No one department sees how all of the pieces fit together. Multilingual leaders do.
Strategic by Design simply gives them a blueprint to help everyone else see it too.
Seidlitz Education 