Getting political

School district administrators play an important role in communicating with and persuading their constituents to embrace policy ideologies and enact policy directions. The authors illustrate how political skills need to be considered in the preparation of administrators for their roles and how these skills are important when responding to populist political stances. These objectives are addressed through an analysis of the counter frames the director of a large urban school district in the Province of Ontario, Canada, used to successfully navigate the controversial decision of a newly elected ‘populist’ Conservative government to repeal a recently modernised ‘sex education’ curriculum. For many observers, this reform threatened to undo recent gains in creating healthy, safe, and inclusive schools for all children in the province.