Decisions At My School

Overview:

       There are probably around 25,000 decisions made each day at my school.  The person making the decision relies heavily on the specific decision.  When it comes to day to day instruction most decisions are made by the individual teacher and the PLC of the content area they are instructing.  However, the more important the decision usually the more people involved.  Most of our safety policies are set forth by the district our general procedures are set forth by each grade level team and their assistant principal.  Therefore each situation is dealt with an a variety of manners some of which will be described below.

Decisions made by my Principal:

1.)  The first decision my principal discussed with me was a decision that she later regretted.  During a back to school retreat teachers voiced their opinion, "they did not want anyone to wear hats in the building."  She decided this was a decision that needed to be a consensus of the entire staff because everyone would be held accountable for the decision.  After much discussion everyone arrived on the decision in which no one would be allowed to wear hats.  A couple weeks into school a few teachers came to the principal voicing their concerns about custodians who had been wearing hats while working during the school day.  This is when my principal came to the realization that she did not arrive on what she thought was consensus of the staff.  The custodians were part of the staff who were going to be affected by the decision and were not included in the decision making process.  For this reason my principal felt foolish because she had not followed the decision making process that she had desired.  

My principal was using the levels of involvement model and was trying to arrive at consensus between the staff, because she failed to reach consensus the end result backfired and caused discourse between the teachers and custodians.  If she would have taken more time and thought about all stakeholders whom were involved in the decision there would have been a real consensus that was reached therefore no problems would have arose.

If I were making this decision in the exact circumstances that occurred I would have not tried to reach consensus among all stakeholders due to the amount of time it would have taken away from the back to school retreat.  In my opinion there would be many more important topics that would need to be discussed before that day was over in order to ensure the staff was ready to start school.  In the interest of saving time I would ask the teachers to meet in within their grade levels for 10 minutes and then arrive upon decision based upon their input.  I would make it very clear they should decide while thinking about what would be best for students.  After hearing their input I would make an authoritative decision and move on expressing the importance of the other items that needed to be discussed and reviewed by the end of the day.  I would inform the other staff involved that the decision needed to be made quickly and that I had gotten as much information and opinions as I could in the given situation and implore them to support the decision that was made.

2.)  My principal discussed many other decisions after the decision above but I chose to write about how she determines the critical issues that need to be put on our School Improvement Plan.  The first step is to gather data from all stakeholders that will be affected by the School Improvement Plan.  She collects information from parent, teacher, and student surveys in addition to standardized test scores and analyzes data to determine the issues or areas for improvement that are seen across the board.  At the end of the school year in a process we call the "Annual Review" we discuss the data as a staff and arrive on a consensus for our critical issues to be addressed in our SIP and discuss the "Now-Next-Future" of our school in general.  The consensus reached is used by our principal to make a first draft of our SIP.  During our back-to-school retreat we review the document and write another draft with staff input.  In each grade level and department, teachers meet and write goals to support the SIP and create their own sub-action plans.  All of this information is then used to create the final draft which is agreed upon by our staff then taken to the PTA, SLT, and all stakeholders before it is made a final document.  Throughout the year the document is revised when necessary.

My principal used a variety of methods to arrive to the final decision of how our SIP would be written she actually used a decision making process that is separate from the ones we discussed called "Shared Decision Making" published by "The Paideia Consulting Group (1995)."  It does involve many of the same terms and steps as the models discussed in class but differs slightly in that a number of processes are used instead of using only one.  Personally I love the way she makes our SIP and I will use the same method when I have my own principalship.  The only thing I would consider changing would incorporate a group of teachers to make the initial draft and write the revisions and I would give my approval.  Many schools make their SIP and never look at it again and couldn't tell you what goals and areas of improvement are on it.  Our staff uses the document to make a concentrated effort to improve our school each year.