So, What Should We Do?


In my previous post, I outlined the responsibilities of our school administration, particularly those duties that fall to the principal and assistant principal. Those duties include dealing with curriculum, budget, staff, discipline, parents, and the school grounds, among other things. As I mentioned earlier, this is an unreasonable amount of responsibilities and such a wide range of skills that it seems unlikely, or at least inefficient, for one person (or even two) to handle well. Additionally, because we are a charter school, there is a significant need for someone who has knowledge about how to run a business. Again, as I mentioned previously, charter schools are funded with some government money, but the most successful ones also do a considerable amount of fundraising. Many charter schools are run like non-profit organizations, which means we need someone who knows how that is done.
Three years ago, our current principal worked tirelessly to get us into a new building, meaning for several months, in addition to regular duties, he met with contractors, realtors, lenders, and builders. He slept on the floor of his office on gym mats. He is one of the most dedicated principals I have ever known, but that doesn’t make him perfect. He knows budgets, has a knack for hiring talented teachers, and he is willing to clean vomit up when a student gets sick. But he doesn’t do classroom observations, he doesn’t meet with teams of teachers to ensure they are planning according to state standards, he doesn’t encourage school wide language, he also doesn’t want to continue working…he wants to retire.
So, what should we do, since it is evident that there is a need for a different system? The current system is not working, and the problem is not limited to our school alone. I found a fabulous resource online that is published by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) titled Improving School Leadership Volume One: Policy and Practice. The OECD members are in over 20 different countries, including the United States. The following is taken from chapter one:
There are concerns across countries that the role of principal as conceived for needs of the past is no longer appropriate. In many countries, principals have heavy workloads; many are reaching retirement and it is getting harder to replace them. Potential candidates often hesitate to apply, because of overburdened roles, insufficient preparation and training, limited career prospects and inadequate support and rewards. (Pont, Nusche, and Moorman 11)
To address this, they have focused on four policies that schools/districts should change; redefining school leadership responsibilities, distributing leadership responsibilities, developing skills for successful leadership, and making leadership an attractive position. For the rest of my posts, I will continue to refer to this amazing resource and will focus on the first two areas that they discuss – redefining and distributing leadership responsibilities.

Works Cited:

Pont, B., Nusche, D., & Moorman, H. (2008) Improving School Leadership Volume One: Policy and Practice. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/education/school/44374889.pdf

Comments

  1. Wow! This is a great resource. I wonder if it also contains specific examples of models that work? I look forward to hearing more!

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    Replies
    1. I commented below to your post below as well, but I just found this and thought I would share, it is a table of contents for Volume 1 and 2 of the text that I found.

      Volume 1: Policy and Practice
      Executive summary
      Chapter 1. School leadership matters
      Chapter 2. (Re)Defining school leadership responsibilities
      Chapter 3. Distributing school leadership
      Chapter 4. Developing skills for effective school leadership
      Chapter 5. Making school leadership an attractive profession

      Volume 2: Case studies on system leadership
      Executive summary
      Chapter 1. Introduction
      Chapter 2. Realising the potential of system leadership
      Chapter 3. Leadership a the practice of improvement
      Chapter 4. The Finnish approach to system leadership
      Chapter 5. The English approach to system leadership
      Chapter 6. The Flemish (Belgian) approach to system leadership
      Chapter 7. Building leadership capacity for system improvement in Victoria, Australia
      Chapter 8. Building leadership capacity for system improvement in Austria
      Chapter 9. Approaches to system leadership: lessons learned and policy pointers

      So, as you can see, it looks as if there are several examples of models that work.

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  2. Hi Gaye! Thank you for commenting. It is a great resource and in chapter three there is a text box that talks about different models that they are using in England. From what I can tell, there is a very similar kind of situation in many countries and in England teachers and principals are both overworked. I will definitely post more about these models.

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  3. Awesome resource indeed! I'll look forward to hearing more and will look this out. Thanks for sharing!

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