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
Wow! This is a great resource. I wonder if it also contains specific examples of models that work? I look forward to hearing more!
ReplyDeleteI 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.
DeleteVolume 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.
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.
ReplyDeleteAwesome resource indeed! I'll look forward to hearing more and will look this out. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDelete