(cross-leveled with ED_LPA 7408). This course examines the interplay of ethics and Pk-12 policymaking. Educational leaders today are practicing in a policy environment that continues to grow in complexity. Within this environment, leaders make choices that have ethical implications for richly diverse school communities. Values drive both ethical choices and the setting of policy goals. The intentions behind a policy may be “good,” or “right,” but are policies and how they are implemented unequivocally ethical? Are ethics and ethical policy conflated? History is replete with examples of policy, laws, and programs that haven’t necessarily been ethical (e.g. doctrine of “separate but equal”) – and have had to be changed. Together, we will examine the intersections of ethics and policy. We will start at the beginning with a bit of philosophy for this introductory course, asking ourselves, “what is the purpose of education?” From there, we will move toward defining our own personal and professional ethical leadership approaches and put it in relation to understandings of policy, questioning the values steering modern-day education policy. Graded on A-F basis only.