Wendy just wanted an answer. At this point, she didn’t care who gave her the answer, as long as she could rely on it. She had assumed that her professor could tell her. Unfortunately, he could not. He sent her instead to an advisor. Yet the advisor couldn’t give her an answer either. The advisor sent Wendy to the campus associate dean. But he couldn’t give her an answer either. The campus associate dean sent her to a central dean who, unfortunately, couldn’t answer either but agreed to convene a faculty committee that made those decisions. Yet when the committee ruled, the central dean said that the president had to approve the committee’s recommendation. The matter then had to go operations for evaluation before implementation. The central dean also said she might hold off on implementation until the school’s board and faculty senate had approved a policy. Just what, Wendy wondered, was she supposed to do in the meantime?!
Distributive
Anyone coming to the academy from business, industry, government, or the professions has an adjustment to make. Schools have their own organization and management culture, distinct from the organization and management culture you see elsewhere. As the illustration suggests, the organization of a school distributes decision-making authority more broadly than elsewhere, to reflect the deliberative, collegial, collaborative, and communal nature of a school, and a school’s respect for expertise. Distributed decision making is not the norm in every school. Online for-profit schools, for instance, would operate more like businesses with centralized and autocratic decision making. And a headmaster at a prep academy might have a lot of say over what goes on. But anyone wishing to effectively lead, manage, reform, or navigate a school needs to keep in mind not so much who’s in charge but instead that everyone has a say.
Boards
Schools, both public and private and at all levels, have governance and leadership. School governance typically lies with a board. Public elementary and secondary schools generally fall under the governance of a district school board that may oversee anywhere from one to five or more high schools, several middle schools, and more elementary schools. District residents typically elect those boards. The governor, state legislature, or statewide electorate may determine the membership of boards governing public colleges and universities, while private school boards at all levels may elect their own members or have alumni do so. Boards do not run the school. They instead govern the school through board policies and by appointing and supervising a school president, principal, or other executive leader. Boards are generally uncompensated and composed of school alumni or, in the case of private elementary and secondary schools, parents of current students. Know and respect your school’s board. When schools face crises, boards carry a heavy leadership mantle.
Administration
Because of their heavy regulation by the federal, state, and local governments and accrediting agencies, their political accountability, and their accountability to students, alumni, parents, employers, and other constituencies, schools require a great deal of administration. Everyone likes to complain about the large number and high cost of school administrators, on the grounds that schools should spend more on instruction and less on administration. Fine, then: just reduce the close accountability and regulation. Depending on the school’s size and level, the school president, dean, or principal may have a provost or dean of faculty, vice-presidents or associate deans, directors, and department heads, who may each have their own subordinate staff members to carry out administrative responsibilities and initiatives. Academic administrators may teach a course now and then to keep the student pulse, but otherwise school administrators tend to devote their full time to administration rather than instruction. They may have risen through the teaching ranks or may never have taught, depending on their institutional roles. To lead, reform, or navigate your school effectively, you must acknowledge and meet its administrative requirements. If your school is a mess, it’s probably an administrative issue, not an instructional issue.
Faculty
The core of a school is its faculty or teaching staff. Schools thrive when they have skilled and committed instructors. No matter how effectively a school’s administration performs in facilities, finances, technology, marketing, recruiting, student services, alumni and donor relations, accreditation, and compliance, if the instruction isn’t strong, the school and its students will suffer. Traditionally, faculty members do more than teach. In higher education, they typically have scholarship publication requirements. Faculty members at all levels also generally have school service requirements, whether on faculty or school committees or in student support. School faculties at some schools also play a governance role. School boards may defer on academic issues to a faculty senate and may welcome a board/faculty committee for faculty input on school governance issues. The school president, dean, principal, or other executive leader typically needs formal or informal faculty support to be effective in the leadership role. A faculty no-confidence vote generally means a change in executive leadership or leadership style is necessary. Faculties typically gather formally on a periodic basis to address institutional academic issues. They also play a critical role in accreditation reviews.
Students
While the school’s faculty is its core, the school’s students are its mission. The clearer the picture that a school community has of its students’ needs, state, welfare, and aspirations, the better the school is likely to perform. The best board members, administrators, faculty members, and staff members are the ones who know how students think, relate, navigate, value, and react, as well as what are their interests, challenges, opportunities, and fears. Schools do well to survey and study their students continuously because of the rapid change in their outlooks, needs, and opportunities. Sophisticated survey tools are available to do so. Technology has recently made vast changes in how students attend, communicate, concentrate, read, write, research, and learn. Social, economic, political, and philosophical beliefs, perspectives, prospects, and commitments continue to undergo rapid change. While schools can appropriately challenge students to grow and embrace change, the current pace of change and its uncertain direction can also make schools an appropriate place to ground and steady students on unshakeable commitments. Schools currently face a delicate role in helping students.
Staff
While the faculty is a school’s core, students can also require substantial contributions from non-teaching staff members. Student-support staff members may, for instance, manage disabled student accommodations and services. Many elementary and secondary schools have substantial student populations on individualized education programs (IEPs) under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) or 504 plans under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Those plans may require services like note taking, transcription, aides for behavioral intervention, and regular pullout for separate testing. Student-support staff at the higher education level provide similar services and accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Student-support staff members may also provide student advising, counseling, recruiting, registration, and placement services, among other support duties. A skilled student-support staff and strong support program can be a real asset to your school.
Operations
Schools can also have substantial operations staff and functions. Schools may need library, technology, food service, purchasing, finance, human resources, alumni and donor relations, public relations, accreditation, legal, facility, custodial, and maintenance staff members, among other operations and business functions. Any organization with a substantial workforce needs substantial operations staffing. Schools complicate that basic formula with their special needs around students, alumni, employers, regulators, and other constituents. Don’t underestimate the complexity and cost of school operations, and the need for skilled operations staffing.
Facilities
Schools can organize around a variety of facility arrangements. Facility designs can substantially affect a school’s organization and operation. The traditional elementary, middle, and high school program will have its own building on its own land, apart from other schools, organizations, and operations. Isolating elementary and secondary school students from other grade levels and from outside influences can be essential not only to student safety and school security but also to managing programs and instruction. The space and facility needs of elementary, middle, and high school students vary substantially enough around classrooms, desks and seating, restrooms, cafeterias, gymnasiums, auditoriums, playgrounds, and other facility amenities and features to make separate facilities efficient if not necessary. College and university programs generally occupy their own distinct and even isolated campuses for similar reasons. Universities, though, may have multiple colleges and schools, each with their own classrooms and clinical or other instructional facilities, while sharing common cafeteria, library, recreational, housing, and other facilities. Facility design, financing, and maintenance can be a big part of a school’s success, failure, and effectiveness.
Distance
Distance education, or remote instruction, is an increasingly significant opportunity, challenge, and feature for schools at all levels. Distance education was initially an emerging dimension of higher education, primarily to increase access and reduce costs for non-traditional students. Some college and university programs are entirely or mostly online, in fields where accreditors permit remote instruction. The pandemic dramatically accelerated the use of videoconferencing tools for remote instruction at all levels, from elementary and secondary school through college and graduate school. Accreditors relaxed standards requiring on-site instruction. Students, instructors, and schools made the necessary program and instructional adjustments. Schools will continue to need to find the best uses and methods for remote instruction.
Authority
As briefly mentioned above, school boards organize and govern their school primarily through policy decisions. In public education, the policies of a district school board or of a college or university board are like administrative regulations, a form of public law, because public school officials are government actors. Indeed, public colleges and universities in some states have state authority to maintain a campus police force, with officers having the power of arrest. Public school boards and officials taking executive action, though, also have the responsibility of government actors to respect the constitutional rights of students, instructors, and others dealing with the school. In private education, school boards also govern primarily by policy. Private school policies, though, do not have the authority or force of administrative regulations or public law. They are instead more like contractual terms between the school and its students, instructors, and other members of the school community. The distinction may be unimportant until a situation arises involving constitutional rights to freedom of speech or religion, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, equal protection or due process rights, or similar rights.
Codes
Schools also develop, adopt, maintain, and implement codes governing student behavior, to promote the orderly management of school programs. Schools typically have two primary student codes. An academic honor code or academic misconduct policy governs how students do their academic work. The honor code defines forms of academic dishonesty or cheating, while providing for procedures to determine cheating and impose disciplinary sanctions. Cheating may include plagiarism, use of unauthorized materials or assistance during exams or on assigned papers or other work, unauthorized collaboration, or using or acting as an impostor to take exams. Academic dishonesty may include altering scores or grades, or altering research data. The other form of student code addresses non-academic misconduct like vandalism, fighting, sexual harassment, trespass, computer misuse, alcohol or drug possession, bullying, and hazing. Schools generally owe students due process rights before suspending a student long term for conduct code violations. Schools typically have misconduct hearing procedures providing that due process. Sensitive enforcement of academic and behavioral codes can contribute importantly to a school culture of respect and accountability, as well as safety and security.
Reflection
Can you see the influence of your school’s board in the school’s governance? Do you know any board members? Can you see the influence of your school’s executive leader in the school’s operation? Do you know your school’s executive leader? On a scale of one to ten, how efficient and effective is your school’s administration? Can you discern any area where the school’s administration needs to improve? How strong is your school’s faculty in its subject-matter knowledge, instructional skill, and commitment to student development? Does your school’s faculty appropriately influence the school’s governance, especially around the design of the academic program? How focused is your school on meeting student needs, interests, and challenges? How effective is your school’s support staff in helping students navigate the school’s instructional program? Does your school have a sound, clear, and effectively implemented curriculum? Does your school offer relevant and practical courses, meeting students’ developmental needs? Does your school enforce its academic and behavioral codes effectively to promote a positive school culture? Are your school’s operations and business functions well managed?
Key Points
Schools distribute decision making more broadly than other bodies.
Boards govern the school through policies on how the school operates.
A school board appoints a president or principal as lead executive.
The school executive leads an administration of program directors.
The faculty is the school’s core and can influence school governance.
Schools properly focus on student needs, interests, and challenges.
Schools maintain substantial student-support staff to assist.
Schools also maintain substantial operations personnel.
Schools organize the academic program through a curriculum.
The curriculum specifies the order and content of courses.
Schools regulate students with academic and behavioral codes.