School Leadership

Discuss The Readings

• What did you already know?

• What can you take away and apply?

• Do you disagree with what’s being said?

Ice Breaker

• Focus upon a leader with whom you have associated with and with whom you admire. Think about this person and has set themselves apart from other leaders. Describe the person

• Describe an event or an incident that captures the individual’s leadership.

• Think about some of the specific attributes possessed by the individual.

Case #1 The dress code and its enforcement has been a issue at a K-8 school all year. This year’s grade 7&8 girls have been wearing bandanas, short skirts, midriff revealing and low-cut tops. While the boys have worn sharply studded chains around their neck as well as low slung jeans. Staff are constantly in the office asking for new rulings on new styles.

You and your staff feel that the new trends require that the dress code be amended but there is a split on staff as to the direction to go in. This was a scheduled item for the monthly staff meeting and school council meeting,

Spring has hit and temperatures have sored. With the hot weather have brought even more transgressions to the dress code. Tops are more revealing and staff are having a difficult time as students try to stay cool. Two students who have consistently and vocally opposed the rule have been given a one day suspension. The monthly meeting is being held just after the suspensions and you know that the parent of one of the students is going to attend the meeting and that she is very angry. You have given your chair a heads up but there was not much time to get together to discuss the issue before the school council meeting. It is item one on the agenda and has been allotted 20mins. On the whole, meetings are relaxed and informal although people are expected to follow basic rules of order.

How do you intervene? Do you intervene?

Could you have done something differently earlier to stop the escalation of the scenario?

Case #2

• This scenario comes to mind because of the holiday season:

You are the principle of a public school. A parent comes to your office to complain that his son’s Grade 2 teacher is teaching the children Christmas songs. The parent let’s you know that his family does not celebrate Christmas and he believes that this is unacceptable. What do you do?