In Case Study 1 (Martin, 2019a), I determined that the root cause of the problem that King Community College brought up was a lack of a direct connection between the the school and the students’ immediate needs at home. KCC complained that students were not prepared and did not finish the program. The teachers said that the students were not motivated to come to school and were more worried about getting home to go to work. The demographics point to a low socio-economic situation in the community. This points to the curriculum and KCC as not being relevant for the students’ immediate needs.
The second case study (Martin, 2019b) deals with a new principal, Mr. Kelly and his efforts to implement a new literacy program at his school. The program is proposed by the district administration and is in line with district policies. After the program is implemented, Mr. Kelly is pointing out where teachers are falling short on the program and morale among the staff is starting to fall. Competency #7: Managing Group Processes This competency from Martin, et. al., (2022), mostly deals with meeting and making the best use of time. At the end of the section, it brings in working with groups to meet goals and manage activities. Mr. Kelly did not do well in this area as he brought in the new program. He started with about 20% of his teachers already struggling before the new program was put in place. Starting a new program takes time and a lot of practice. Utilizing the leaders on staff to help with grouping the teachers to collaborate on the new system would help with the implementation Competency #8: Supporting Others with Appropriate Leadership Style Mr. Kelly seems to only have used a Directive leadership approach. He never involved any of the staff in the implementation or review of the new system. The staff had no input at any time on the system or how to bring it into the classroom. After it was brought into the classroom, the only feedback and information came from Mr. Kelly himself. Competency #9: Using Power Ethically Mr. Kelly was not overtly abusive of his position of power. At the most basic, he employed a coercive power model. It is not a strong use of coercion. The expectation was the staff implemented the new system and he would evaluate them. At the same time, he was exercising his authority under a Legitimate Power model. The biggest problem was that he really did not do much with the opportunity presented. He might have done better using a referent or expert power model to work alongside the teachers and leverage the abilities of those on staff. 25% of the students are scoring high, so not all students and not all teachers were struggling before putting in the new system. Competency #10: Crating and Managing a Positive Culture and Climate The area is a huge shortfall for Mr. Kelly. The school was performing poorly and implementing a new program to help change things. Mr. Kelly needed to do a better job of building up the staff and building on the things that were working in the school. Mr. Kelly did not look for other factors that could be contributing to the over all school performance and the performance of the 20% of the teachers who’s students did not keep up year to year. Through the implementation and the evaluations, it seems that Mr, Kelly was trying to fix the school instead of lead it. Competency #11: Initiating Change The feedback was mostly negative which only hurt the climate as they were going through the difficulty of implementing a new program. Change takes time to bring about improvements. The staff does need to watch out for the areas they are not doing well with in the new program. At the same time, they need to know what they are doing well and they need their efforts to be recognized. In addition, new programs require a lot of on-going training and evaluation. Mr. Kelly only put the training at the beginning. As the year progresses, it is hard to maintain the drive with the new program without constant reinforcement, support, and training. Competency #12: Evaluating Student, Personnel, and Program Performance The evaluations given by Mr. Kelly seem to be very limited in scope and understanding. He seems to be expecting huge and lasting changes immediately after a single 2 day training after he went to a 2 week training. None of it matches up and leads to a successful implementation. References: Martin, G. (2019, October), Case Study #1. [PDF]. https://luonline.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_183930_1/cl/outline Martin, G. (2019, October), Case Study #2. [PDF]. https://luonline.blackboard.com/ultra/courses/_183930_1/cl/outline Martin, G. E., Danzig, A. B., Flanary, R. A., & Orr, M. T. (2022). School leader internship: Developing, monitoring, and evaluating your leadership experience (5th ed.). Routledge.
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About 5311This is my first course in my principal certification program. The course focus on leadership. ArchivesCategories
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