change of leadership

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This case study was made possible through the generous contributions of the Institute for Local Government and Public Service in Budapest, Hungary. Its distribution through the Electronic Hallway system is made possible through the Pew Charitable Trusts’ generous support of the Public Service Curriculum Exchange. The case was prepared by Vassily Selishchev, Professor at the Belarus Educational Center for Leadership Development in Minsk, Belarus. Professor Selishchev was a participant in the Cascade Center for Public Service’s 1994-95 Case Project for Central and Eastern Europe. The Electronic Hallway is administered by the University of Washington's Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs. This material may not be altered or copied without written permission from The Electronic Hallway. For permission, email [email protected], or phone (206) 616-8777. Electronic Hallway members are granted copy permission for educational purposes per the Member’s Agreement (www.hallway.org).

Copyright 2000 The Electronic Hallway

A CHANGE OF LEADERSHIP AT THE

LOCAL EDUCATION AUTHORITY

After hanging up the phone receiver, Ales Rakovich, the new Local Education Authority (LEA) head in the town of Rubensk, sat back to collect his thoughts. The call from Zenon Gvozd, the head of the Regional Education Authority, was very disturbing. The conversation revealed Gvozd’s extreme dissatisfaction with the work of the Rubensk LEA staff. Rakovich knew that he had to act immediately to address the situation. Among the issues brought to Rakovich’s attention were problems laid at the feet of Olga Vasyuk, the LEA secretary, which were interfering with the effectiveness of the LEA operation. Even though Rakovich had spoken with Olga about her performance several times, nothing had ever changed for the better. Besides the phone call from the REA, he had also received recent complaints about Olga from the heads of the LEA departments. Background Lyubenski was a small, remote rural district in southern Belarus. There were about 35,000 people living in the area, working mostly in agriculture. Most residents had lived in this place for a long time and knew each other relatively well. The school district was not big--about eight schools (including one vocational school for agriculture and one music school)--with between sixty to two-hundred children attending each school. Very few newcomers came to settle in the area, which had been severely polluted during the Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion. There were thus many vacancies in the local schools. In addition, there were problems with hiring virtually every kind of teacher or school administrator. It was also quite difficult to find employees for office work, as salaries were very modest.

A Change of Leadership at the Local Education Authority (A)

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The Belarus Educational Administration System The system of educational administration in the Republic of Belarus was highly centralized. All decisions were made at the top and imposed on mid-level administrators, who did not participate in the decision-making process. This system bred administrators who were not willing to make decisions on their own, as independent decision-making was accompanied by stress and greater responsibility which the administrators tried to avoid. They considered it to be much safer to monitor the accomplishment of tasks and execution of decisions made by top administrators. Thus they considered the control function, or maintaining the status quo, to be the most important aspect of their work. The heads of the local Authorities were thus subject to long-term pressure of varying degrees. Very often they were valued not for their professional skills, but for their ability to conform to the policies and procedures dictated by top administrators. Even experienced administrators had no idea what educational leadership was or how the organization should be managed. Many them managed their educational or administrative support organizations intuitively, basing their decisions only on their own previous experience. Most had received no formal training in management, leadership or administration. The Local Educational Authority (LEA) in Rubensk The Local Education Authority office was situated in Rubensk, which was located in the Lyubenski district. There were fourteen people working in the office. Before Ales Rakovich’s arrival, the head of the LEA office had been Adam Lozinsky. He was an experienced administrator and had served for five years in this position. The role of the Lyubenski LEA was very important, as it served the rural population in a disadvantaged area of the country. The LEA was involved in such activities as: allocating and distributing educational resources, hiring teaching staff, organizing staff development programs, designing and implementing assessment and evaluation procedures, and overseeing curriculum development. As part of the centralized system of educational administration, the LEA monitored and controlled the implementation of the policies and decisions of the Regional Education Authorities (REA), which in turn received decisions and policy directives ready-made from the national Ministry of Education and Science. This period of education development in Belarus was characterized by the transition to liberalism, which proceeded rather slowly given the unpredictable political environment. This transition was accompanied by uncertainties in the division of rights and responsibilities between the national authorities (Ministry of Education and Science) and the Educational Authorities in the regions and localities. For LEA administrators, the situation meant constant change,


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adapting to new conditions, varied student needs, new economic demands and development imperatives. The Rubensk LEA consisted of three departments: primary education, secondary education, and vocational education (Attachment 1). Each department was comprised of the head of the department and three administrative employees. The heads of the individual departments reported to the head of the LEA. The LEA head was responsible for hiring and supervising all departmental employees, although to undertake disciplinary actions and/or to fire the employees, the LEA head had to consult with the head of the Regional Educational Authority. The Rubensk LEA had one secretary, Olga Vasyuk, who had been hired by Adam Lozinsky about three years before Ales Rakovich’s arrival. Olga was the sole clerical employee in the office. (See Attachments 2 and 3 for LEA employee job descriptions.) Organizational Culture Under the stewardship of former LEA head Adam Lozinsky, there had been a tradition in the organization of following the working habits of the head administrator. Thus, there were no formal policies defining when staff had to arrive at the office and when they could leave work each day. The national Ministry of Education regulations defined the length of the working day (eight hours), but did not decree specific work schedules. Because Lozinsky had typically arrived in the office at nine in the morning and left at five in the afternoon, everybody in the office followed this pattern. This tradition became a part of LEA office culture--an informal, but common working norm which was followed by most LEA employees. It lent predictability to the operation and to the work of LEA employees. The Secretary Olga was the only secretary in the LEA office. Her responsibilities included working for the LEA head and for the three department heads. Olga did a lot of computer work, since she was responsible for sending letters and reports to the district and regional Education Authorities. She enjoyed her work; she liked to type and to meet people. Olga didn't mind when employees from the departments asked her to do some small tasks (e.g. looking for documents, answering phone calls) for them. From the time she was hired, Olga considered Adam Lozinsky (and later Ales Rakovich) to be her real supervisor, though there were no official regulations defining to whom she formally reported. Olga was a very good worker in many ways. She knew the answers to practically everything and she had good communication skills. Local principals, kindergarten directors, teachers, and parents had often commented to Lozinsky about how much they appreciated Olga's helpfulness and friendliness. But Olga had some negative qualities. She was not particularly orderly. First and foremost, this became apparent through her work with LEA documents and files. Over the course of a typical


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day, Olga had to prepare documents, answer telephone calls, and take messages for the head of the LEA and for the heads of the departments. Her desk would inevitably become a mess. It was usually piled high with letters, messages, and pages from files she had pulled while answering calls or preparing documents or messages. Olga sometimes forgot to put documents back in their proper files and she never threw away papers she didn't need anymore. Once or twice a month, when her desk became a complete mess, Olga would spend the whole day cleaning it. After such episodes, her desk was a model of organization. But this was a temporary state and her desk soon became covered with papers again, as Olga continued to do things in her own disorderly fashion. Olga’s second major shortcoming was that her arrival at the office each morning was very unpredictable. When she worked for Adam Lozinsky, she would arrive at work from five minutes to a half- hour after her boss every day. However, she usually stayed at work later than most other LEA employees. Olga was typically in the office until 6:30 or 7:00 p.m. waiting for her husband to pick her up. During that time, she answered phone calls and assisted visitors who dropped in after-hours. Many of these people worked in small schools or farms far from the central office, and could only visit the LEA office after their working day was over. Since Lozinsky and LEA department heads often scheduled meetings after official working hours, they found having Olga in the office to be very convenient. From time to time, Adam Lozinsky would speak to Olga about her tardiness in the mornings, and about how critical it was to return LEA documents to the files so that others could access them when they needed to. The files were organized into several key groups: the first contained information about teaching evaluations; the second group included educational institutions’ work plans and data on student test scores and achievements. The third file-group contained financial information, including the detailed budgets of local schools, special program funds (e.g. additional funding for the Chernobyl zone), salary data, etc. Many of these documents were classified “confidential” and were not intended for general use. Within each file-group, folders were arranged according to their importance and frequency of use. Often, after Olga had used the files, certain documents were missing one or more pages, or were missing altogether. During her periodic conversations with Lozinsky, Olga would always promise to improve, but within several days she would have resumed her usual practice. A New Regime at the LEA After Adam Lozinsky retired, Ales Rakovich was appointed to direct the LEA office. Rakovich had previously worked in a neighboring region. His work habits were different from those of Lozinsky. Rakovich spent a lot of time in the field, getting acquainted with the facilities and


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employees across the school district. He usually began his day by visiting the principals of area schools. He usually started work at eight each morning, but was out of the office until close to noon. The period from 9:00 to noon or 1:00 p.m. was, as a rule, the most busy period in the LEA office, as many people called and important messages were taken. It was during this time that Rakovich was out in the field, visiting schools, riding from one school to another, and it was very difficult to locate him. However, he usually informed Olga of his whereabouts. Because Rakovich was out of the office most mornings, LEA employees soon began arriving to work at different hours. As a result, there was often no one in the office at nine or half past nine to answer calls or greet visitors. Conflict Regional Educational Authority (REA) officers called practically every day to ask for statistical information that LEA was responsible for preparing on a regular basis. Such information included data on teacher assessment, school reports, student grades, student absenteeism, financial reports or additions to them, and other standard documents. REA officers typically called Rakovich’s office for this information, but, due to Olga’s absences, these calls frequently went unanswered. If other staff members happened to be standing by her desk, they would answer the calls. However, they had such a difficult time locating the necessary documents that they were unable to answer inquiries effectively. Very soon they gave up trying. After trying to reach Olga several times without success, a frustrated REA officer mentioned in a phone conversation with LEA’s primary-education department head that he was going to report this problem to the head of the REA. Consequently, Ales Rakovich and the LEA department heads were forced once again to discuss with Olga the impact of her working habits. As she had done in the past, Olga promised to change but then did little about it. Finally, when Olga failed to give the primary-department head a very important message from the REA and sent the documents intended for one principal to that of another school, the LEA department heads complained again to Rakovich. The situation began to escalate very quickly; it was clearly influencing the effectiveness of LEA’s work and its standing in the community. Even Rakovich’s reputation as a capable manager was endangered. REA Chief Applies Pressure The situation finally culminated in a phone call between Rakovich and Zenon Gvozd, the Regional Education Authority (REA) head, who expressed his dissatisfaction with the working habits of LEA staff. The REA head said that he had recorded several cases when his messages clearly hadn’t reached Rakovich. He also informed Rakovich that, due to the inadequate work of the LEA staff and their inability to provide information to their chief, Rakovich had missed a very important meeting with the head of the State Commission on Radiology about the


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consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe. During that meeting, the problem of allocation of additional resources to educational districts in the polluted areas was discussed. With the exception of Rakovich, all district heads were present and were able to present and justify their districts’ needs. This reflected poorly on Rakovich and seriously damaged the reputation of the LEA. Word about the LEA office had filtered down to district constituents, who were talking, as Rakovich learned, about his inability to improve educational services and the financial condition of kindergartens and schools. Some even said that Rakovich was neglecting the interests of local people. Rakovich knew that if he didn’t take immediate action to rectify the situation, such events would be increasingly damaging to his department. He sat down to decide what to do.


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Attachment 1 LEA Organizational Chart


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Attachment 2 Job Descriptions: LEA head and LEA secretary

Local Educational Authority Head Organizes and monitors the work of the LEA. Reports to the

REA head. Responsible for organizing those educational activities in the district aimed at achieving educational goals developed by the Ministry of Education and Science. Monitors the work of local schools and evaluates their progress on their annual plans. Responsible for providing the necessary financial and programmatic conditions under which the schools can operate successfully.

LEA Secretary Responsible for maintaining and responding to requests about documents. Should perform in accordance with the regulations and protocols approved by and used in the LEA. Collects information requested by the LEA head from LEA departments, schools and top authorities. Organizes meetings between visitors and LEA head. Makes and answers phone calls, takes phone messages for the LEA head and relays them to him. Types necessary materials. Monitors incoming information from the regional and national offices. Must understand the structure of the organization, the protocols for completing and organizing documents, how to operate office machines, the rules of orthography, and LEA internal job regulations and operations guidelines. Secondary school education is required.


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Attachment 3 Job Descriptions: Primary education department

Head of the department Reports to the LEA head. Is the LEA head

deputy. Organizes and supervises the work of the department.

Advisory officer Deals with educational technologies, teaching methodology, teaching resources. Responsible for conducting annual and biannual evaluation of primary education organizations. Monitors and assists the evaluation of the teachers in the schools.

Training officer - analyst Deals with retraining of teachers and principals (organizes teachers’ and principals’ participation in the retraining courses and programs). Conducts analysis of primary education organizations’ accomplishments. Defines services gaps, makes prognosis, etc.

Book keeper Organizes and monitors distribution of state finances to the primary education organizations (PEO). Assists in developing budgets of PEO’s. Responsible for effective allocation of taxpayer money in the district, etc.

NOTE: The structure of the secondary education and vocational education departments are the same.

change of leadership

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