Throughout the courses in the JHU/ISTE Administrative and Supervision certification program, teamwork has been important for the successful completion
of many assignments. In the Organization and Administration of Schools course teamwork is essential as we role-play a leadership team making decisions for a school.
The structure of the course seems to closely represent the reality of shared decision making in a school setting. The creation of a school vision, instructional goal, and initiative to meet the goal requires the expertise and opinions of many stakeholders and the team structure has helped to simulate such a process. My teammates and I have found it necessary to speak at least once per week and communicate much more frequently than in previous courses. It has been interesting, and frustrating at times, to have our diverse opinions coming together to reach consensus. As in any healthy work setting, my team is dedicated to doing whatever it takes to fulfill our leadership challenge each week. I can’t imagine trying to make these decisions or write an action plan without the support and expertise of my teammates and the feedback from our instructor.
The fact that we are not able to see the assignments for the whole course, just a few weeks at a time, mimics the true-life role of an administrator. The ability to handle the unforeseen and to think quickly but thoughtfully will serve us all well in any administrative role. This course also gives us concrete experience with shared decision-making. Regardless of which role we are playing on our leadership team, we all have to work together to accomplish our weekly challenge. We all have opinions and the desire to do what is best for the school in our simulation but we know there are many pathways to reach our goals. Further, we are all a little unsure since we have not been placed in these kinds of situations before so we talk about “doing the best we can” and reassure each other that we are on the correct path.
The examination of data has been powerful. Since three of the four of us are not familiar with our simulation school, we have had to rely heavily on the data and the information provided by our teammate who is familiar with the school. At times I feel some frustration that I can’t speak to teachers or have a better handle on the culture, history, and day-to-day workings of the school to assist with the decision-making. That piece makes this simulation a little unrealistic, in my opinion, but perhaps parallels being a new administrator in an unfamiliar school with many issues to deal with from the start. I still feel in such a situation I would be talking with teachers, other district administrators, and stakeholders to gather information and begin creating positive relationships with the intent of setting up a shared leadership environment.
The speed with which feedback is given on our discussion summaries, action plans, and group communications has been extremely beneficial. I appreciate when topics are mentioned to “think about”. This approach is helpful, as I am not being directed to add these ideas but to consider the impact on our simulation school and to decide myself whether or not they need to be components of my action plan.
During these five weeks I have wondered about the fact that our simulation is extremely “school centric”. I am left wondering, “What about the district influence?” In my experiences in the three school districts where I have worked, the missions, goals, and initiatives of a school were in tight alignment with district goals. For example, if one school has a math related school improvement goal most probably other district schools would have a similar goal. As a result, discussions and decisions about initiatives would have the input of more people and the scope of the initiative would be more far reaching than just one school or for specific grade levels. This point became more significant during week 4 as we discussed budgeting. In my experience, and that of my teammates, much of the money we would be spending would come from district funds rather than a school budget. (i.e. money for professional development or for substitute teachers) Although we have “district representatives”, like the curriculum director, I still feel like there should be other district stakeholders involved.
Our weekly discussions around the guiding questions have been interesting. It can be a little difficult not knowing all the “ins and outs” of a school when asked to make such large-scale decisions. The teammate who is providing us with her school data has done a magnificent job with answering our questions and posting more and more information as it becomes needed. However, I still feel like we are looking at children and teachers strictly from a data point of view. I understand the focus on data-driven decision-making, but know that an awareness of the day-to-day workings, situations, and challenges of a school or district also impacts the decisions made. It has been difficult, at times, trying to fill in those blanks.
This course has emphasized the team decision-making and shared leadership approach I value in my administrators and hope to put into practice myself as a leader. The creation of individual action plans has also driven home the point that even with a team approach to decision-making, the responsibility of the implementation and nurturing of a plan is in the hands of the school administrator. Finally, this course has really spotlighted the significance of data in the decision-making process.
