Dr. Victoria Pettis

Summer Cohort 2006

EOCS 7450

August 30, 2006

 

EOCS 7450

Practicum in Leadership

Case Study 3

 

ISLLC Standard 3: A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by ensuring management of the organization, operations, and resources for a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment.

 

Name of the Case Study: School Violence Hurts Everybody[1]

 

Problem: Recognizing a problem and doing something about it in a timely manner

 

Questions:

1. How does an administrator’s action/reaction time to vandalism and/or violence affect creating/maintaining a safe learning environment?
2. What can happen when stakeholders are excluded from decisions affecting the school?

 

The Situation:

Jose Rogers has just finished the first two months of his second year as principal of Central Park High. To say that his first year was a tough one would be putting it lightly. The urban high school had so many break-ins last school year that Rogers and the local police grew to refer to each other by first names. Police suspect that a local gang caused some $375, 000 worth of damage to windows, but their leads turned to dead ends. To Rogers’ chagrin, the cost of repainting and other building repairs for Central Park High exceeded the national average. This fact led to Central Park being the lead news story on WBC TV News. It was the front page story for the local newspaper.

The school’s bad luck was not restricted to exterior damage to school property. Custodians were constantly ordered by Rogers to wash gang graffiti off bathroom stalls and walls. During the summer, there was a mass exodus of teachers, who said they refused to return to an unsafe school. Many of these teachers transferred to other high schools within the school district or neighboring high schools that paid substantially less. Since the beginning of the school year, Rogers has noticed an increase in the number of teachers calling in sick.

 Last month, Calvin Stan, a social studies teacher, was grazed by a bullet fired from a stolen gun. The only fact that witnesses can agree is that they saw an unidentified youth fleeing the scene. The police chief reported they have very few leads in the case. As a result, most teachers leave the school grounds long before dusk.

Some of the more vocal, influential parents voiced their concerns during the monthly PTO meeting and wrote letters to school board members. Several parents claimed their children had money extorted from them either on the way to or from school as well as on school grounds by other students. At least 10 parents have withdrawn their children and transferred to other schools in the district.

            During the November school board meeting, Rogers presented his case to a “standing room only” crowd. He requested that board members approve his request for monies to cover four resource officers to patrol the 1,500 student campus during school hours, metal detectors to be placed at every entrance of the school, and an increase in the police presence at night and on weekends for the rest of the school year.

 

Response to Questions: In the situation described above, the administrator chose to deal with his school’s initial bout with vandalism in two ways: 1) by filing police reports; and 2) ordering custodians to clean up after vandals. He did not work collaboratively with faculty, staff, students, parents, or the community to identify the root cause of the vandalism, which cost the school district nearly $400,000. This unchecked school vandalism then transformed itself into violence, which negatively impacted everyone connected to the school and hurt the school’s image and public perception. The administrator chose to wait months into his second year before seeking help from the school board.

 

Evaluation: For several reasons, the administrator’s actions in the scenario above represent leadership skills in the rudimentary stage. His actions in support of ISLLC standard 3 fall short in several ways.  First, the administrator failed to identify the root cause of school vandalism. He chose to deal with the problem on a superficial basis. Second, Rogers did not confront and resolve the school’s problems in a timely manner. It took several months into his second year before he appealed to the school board for help. It is hard to pinpoint what “final straw” motivated Rogers to recognize he needed help. Finally, and just as importantly, Roger’s choices reflect his unwillingness to involve all of the stakeholders in school decisions. Maybe it was Rogers’ pride or stubbornness that prevented him from asking for help. His actions (or inactions) may lead one to wonder: How different would this scenario have been if this administrator had enlisted the help of students, parents, faculty, staff, and the school community when the vandalism first started happening?