Tool # 1: The players
The School Committee
In charge of most school systems in the U.S. is the local School Committee – usually elected, but in some cases appointed. (Virtually all school systems in the U.S. are run locally, although subject to state and federal laws.) If the system were a corporation, the School Committee would be the Board of Directors. Its job is generally to set and oversee policy for the system, to be responsible for its overall functioning and finances, and to hire, fire, and supervise the Superintendent (and sometimes other staff). Like a Board of Directors, it bears legal responsibility for the operations and finances of the system.
While this is arguably how a School Committee should function in a well-managed district, in practice, many School Committees or individual members take on much more active roles in managing schools and education, sometimes to the point of micro-management. Whether an expanded role for the Committee is a positive or negative depends on the character of the Committee and the district, but, in general (assuming the Superintendent is competent), it’s not a good thing. It undercuts the Superintendent in his job (managing the educational operation), makes personnel decisions subject to favoritism, and can corrupt the educational program with the prejudices and often-mistaken assumptions of individual School Committee members.
The Superintendent of Schools
If the School Committee is the Board, the Superintendent is the system’s CEO. She’s the executive who carries out policy, hired by and responsible to the School Committee. In a well-managed system, however, she runs the show, hiring, firing, and supervising principals and other administrators (usually with the approval of the School Committee), providing educational and philosophical direction, and managing the day-to-day educational, logistical, and financial operation of the school system.
Other system-wide administrators
The number of these people varies, depending on the size and structure of the system. A large city system may have tens, or even hundreds; a small school district may have only one or two.
To continue the corporate analogy, these administrators are the Vice-Presidents in charge of various areas of the system’s functioning. In large systems, each might have several people under his supervision. The most common of these positions include:
- Assistant Superintendent. There may be only one in a system, or a large system might have several. They work with the Superintendent, taking on part of the oversight role of the system, and operating, with her, as its management team.
In some systems, most of the following roles are, in fact, assigned to Assistant Superintendents, so that some of these job categories are called “Assistant Superintendent for...” That generally happens only in large systems.
- Curriculum Director. The Curriculum Director develops or oversees the development of curriculum for the system. His responsibility would generally include keeping abreast of the latest research, seeking out best practices, networking with colleagues in other systems, and supervising curriculum developers and teachers in the design and implementation of new curriculum. The position also often involves providing for the professional development of teachers and curriculum staff.
- Athletic Director. The Athletic Director oversees the athletic program (and often the Physical Education program as well), working with coaches. She schedules team seasons, hires and supervises coaches, and is in charge of the athletic budget, ordering equipment and other supplies as appropriate. She also helps to determine what sports will be offered, student eligibility for them, what the budget will be for each, etc..
- Special Education (SPED) Director. The SPED Director manages programs for students with learning, physical, developmental, or emotional difficulties or disabilities. His responsibilities include making sure that each student receives the appropriate services, contracting with services outside the system when particular in-system services are not available. He supervises SPED programs and teachers throughout the system, monitoring outcomes and quality.
- Business Manager. This position exercises oversight of the system’s finances. While the Superintendent and School Committee prepare a budget, the Business Manager controls the day-to-day management of the money, alerts the Superintendent of potential problems, makes sure that bills and salaries are paid, and keeps track of the budget down to the penny. The Business Manager also monitors contract and grant spending, to assure that money is spent in the ways it’s supposed to be, and consults regularly with the Superintendent on the state of the budget.
Any or all of these positions might also entail writing grant proposals, either for specific programs or for broader, system-wide initiatives. Larger systems might have one or more grantwriters on staff, but in smaller ones, everyone does multiple duties. Grantwriting is a common responsibility of system-wide administrators.
- Physical plant manager. Many systems employ a person to manage the physical functioning of the buildings they own. This person is often an engineer who understands construction, electricity, heating and cooling, and other areas necessary to maintaining and repairing buildings and to using maintenance budgets wisely. If she’s good, she can save the system the cost of her salary many times over every year.
Principals
The principal is in charge of his school. In many systems, principals can hire and fire teachers and other school employees, and can determine how the budgets for their schools are spent. They also deal with problems, and are responsible for communication with parents and the community in difficult situations relating to their specific schools. They supervise teachers, and oversee curriculum and discipline (often through an Assistant Principal, who doubles as Dean of Discipline), as well as presenting the face of the school to the public. They also function as part of the administrative team that consults with the Superintendent on running the system.
How much power and flexibility school principals have depends on the system and the Superintendent. In a really large system – cities of half a million or more, say – schools may be organized into clusters within the larger school system. That might mean that principals are part of the administrative team in their cluster, but not within the larger system. The principal of a high school with several thousand students may have more clout than one whose charge is an elementary school with only a few hundred students. Principals with strong community support may wield more power than those who have little connection with the community.
The personalities of the principal and the superintendent also enter into the equation. A superintendent who is protective of his power and unwilling to share it will keep principals as weak and dependent as possible. A principal who is ambitious and unafraid to reach for and use power can become a force within the system. It’s useful for anyone seeking to change policies to understand the relationships among administrators, and to know who’s able to get his way and who’s not.
Teachers and other school employees
We all know what teachers do – they run classrooms and teach subject matter. Depending on the grade level, they can also be surrogate parents, disciplinarians, motivational coaches, psychologists and counselors, nutritionists, and practical health practitioners, in addition to the hours of preparing for class, grading homework and tests, developing curriculum, conferring with parents, and engaging in professional development that come with the job. Many people think that teaching is an easy job, because it looks like teachers work only a 6- or 7-hour day, and get summers off. Most good teachers actually work something closer to a 12-hour day and spend summers taking courses (often at their own expense) to improve or broaden their competence.
Other school employees, depending on the size of the school (in a small system, some or all of these may be system-wide, and only be present in a particular school for a few hours a week), include:
- Guidance counselors. Guidance counselors – again, depending on the size and resources of the system – may function as anything from psychotherapists to college application advisors. Generally, the smaller the system, the less flexibility counselors have, and they can find themselves doing little more than filling out forms and warning students when they have too few credits to graduate. In the ideal, counselors run groups on such topics as tolerance and conflict resolution, act as therapists for a few students with serious problems, are in charge of college and career counseling programs, and help students negotiate the educational system.
School psychologists – who often work under contract or for the whole system, rather than for a particular school – have advanced degrees and conduct psychological and cognitive testing to determine whether students who are having difficulties need special services. They may also engage in some psychotherapy with particular students – their responsibilities vary from system to system.
- School nurses. In addition to ministering to students who fall ill or are injured in the course of the school day, the nurse may also teach health classes, or teach about health topics in other contexts.
- Coaches. The coaches of athletic teams may be part-time school employees with jobs outside the system, physical education teachers, or regular teachers who take on coaching responsibilities for the love of the sport and/or a little extra pay (the pay is usually not enough to justify the hours that go into coaching). They train and coach students in specific sports, and often find themselves in counseling and parental roles as well. Good coaches – those who care more about kids than winning – often loom large in students’ lives, and act as influences for many years after the students’ athletic careers are over.
- Support staff. This includes secretaries, administrative assistants, office managers, cafeteria staff, maintenance workers, etc.. These folks, particularly secretaries and administrative assistants, can be important allies or opponents. They often have the ear of the Superintendent, or can schedule – or not schedule – meetings and appointments. It’s a standing joke that secretaries often run schools, but the joke is so common because there’s some truth to it. Furthermore, they usually know where everything is, what’s going on, and where everyone stands on issues, making them valuable sources of information