SCENE THREE PLAINTIFF
(CALLS TEACHER TERRY TO THE STAND)
PLAINTIFF’S LAWYER
Teacher Terry, I understand that you have been a member of your school’s shared decision team from its beginning.
TEACHER
Yes, both as the building’s union representative as a committed member of our teaching staff, I very much wanted to contribute to its success.
PLAINTIFF’S LAWYER
Tell us how it went.
TEACHER
Well the building always had had a kind of informal shared decision-making planning and improvement team before Dr. Lipservice became our principal. When he came on board several years ago, he made it clear that everything began and ended with him. I think it was Superintendent Samantha who mandated that each school in the district formalize a school improvement team.
PLAINTIFF’S LAWYER
So the beginning was a consequence of the superintendent’s mandate rather than something that Dr. Lipservice put together?
TEACHER
(Smiles)
Well no it certainly wasn’t at the principal’s behest.
PLAINTIFF’S LAWYER
He made it clear this was not his idea.
TEACHER
Yes, and he flat out told us that. He said that he was charged with creating such a team and that he had little faith in it since these kinds of team typically fail anyway.
PLAINTIFF’S LAWYER
How did the process begin?
TEACHER
He brought in a training consultant the district office recommended. She was pretty good. Gave us an idea about how the process might work, how we could contribute to activities that might help student achievement improve, how we could explore areas for improvement and how to decide, make plans, and go forward.
PLAINTIFF’S LAWYER
That sounds like a good start.
TEACHER
Yes, as with all those trainings, I call them Lone Ranger Training; the hero rides into town, does his thing, and then rides out before you know it. I fear a lot of what she had us practice had not really been mastered by anyone, my fellow teachers, parent and community members, staff members, or administration.
PLAINTIFF’S LAWYER
Where was the first bottleneck?
TEACHER
Bottleneck is a polite word. I’d say there were two. One was some parents who were upset that a suspended teacher was not fired and then demanded the group do so. The other was when the group began to examine our Language Arts achievement data and began to consider whether the program we were using might be replaced.
PLAINTIFF’S LAWYER
In the first case, was it within the group’s authority to fire teachers?
TEACHER
Of course not, and as union representative I found myself supporting the principal’s assertion that such a group could not do this.
PLAINTIFF’S LAWYER
And in the second issue of changing program approaches?
TEACHER
Ah, yes that is when fur began to fly. The principal was reluctant to release individual student data certainly, and also reluctant to release student performance by teacher. But he also made it difficult to allow the group access to school trend data that actually was part of what any concerned teacher or parent could get. On top of that, he proceeded to tell the group what the data meant. One of my colleagues, I think she is slated to testify later, pointed out that the principal’s interpretation of the data was misleading if not actually wrong.
PLAINTIFF’S LAWYER
Would you characterize this as a kind of turf war?
TEACHER
Not so much this particular incident, but what it led to was certainly a turf war. One or two parent members, the school Librarian who was also a member, and our Language Arts coordinator thought that the group might take action in assessing the effectiveness of the present program, especially as it seemed to impact our special education and our English Language Learners programs with a view towards possibly modifying it or replacing it.
PLAINTIFF’S LAWYER
Seems reasonable.
TEACHER
Not to Dr. Lipservice! He asserted that the group had no such right to analyze the data and less of a right to even consider changing a program, which by the way he had instituted when he first took over the building.
PLAINTIFF’S LAWYER
Well he was correct wasn’t he?
TEACHER
Not correct by how we had had the shared improvement team planning process explained to us! IF he were correct then why on earth should any of us have volunteered the time to be a member? None of us were there to sugar coat or cover up what he needed to do for the students.
PLAINTIFF’S LAWYER
Thank you Teacher Terry. Defendant, your turn to cross examine…..
Teacher Terry’s testimony actually illustrates a number of High Involvement variables for more exploration. However its prime function is to highlight the POWER variable.
Wohlstetter’s research, supported by Bernato (2001) show that typically, shared decision-making teams, shared planning teams, and school improvement groups will most likely fail as a result of principal versus such-team- groups out of power conflicts. That is, feeling threatened by what extent that group might diminish the principal’s authority or validity.
The best way to diminish this concern is to make clear the limits and extents of the group’s authority, i.e. where they can go or not go, where their activity is merely advisory, and where they can in fact take leadership in guiding the decisions that they have generated.
~Richard Bernato, Ed.D.