Blazing New Trails - Connexions

The Administration of Special Education Programs in Rural Schools 117
As shown in Table 4, the items that respondents substantially delegated were few in
number. Conversely, with the exception of the Legal and Policy functions, 75% or more of
the items included in all other function type categories were either not delegated or only
partially delegated, suggesting a substantial level of involvement by the administrator in
addressing the special education functions. This finding further suggested that the
participating administrators were not limiting their attention to one or two narrow areas of
special education administrative responsibility. Interpretation of the relatively high rate of
delegation rate for the Legal and Policy items will be addressed below.
By referring again to Table 4, it is reasonable to propose that the majority of this
study’s respondents found it practically or procedurally necessary to delegate substantially the
supervision of related service providers. For instance, few administrators had the expertise
necessary to evaluate the appropriateness of services provided by a speech clinician.
Additionally, it is often the case in rural areas, where the number of students requiring related
services is low, that these services are provided through a special education cooperative or
consortium to provide services. In these cases, it is likely that the supervision of related
services professionals lies contractually with the employing agency. Similarly, since 19 of the
30 respondents were superintendents, either the principal or the teachers in these schools may
have performed functions such as encouraging and ensuring parent involvement in IEP
planning activities. Conversely, in the comments made by principals on the survey, they often
explained their substantial delegation as being a task that fell within the purview of the
superintendent. One can also speculate about the influence of the principal responses to the
Legal and Policy items on the overall rate of substantial delegation (50% of the items) in this
area.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Although making assumptions about superintendents delegating to principals and
principals deferring to superintendents may be rational, the act of doing so suggested a need
for revisions to the survey. Such revisions should seek to gather more descriptive and discrete
information at both the superintendent and principal levels. Further research should provide
more in-depth investigation into each of these nine functions. In order to understand fully
what rural administrators in Montana are and are not doing, and why they are administering
their special education programs as they are, interviews and/or focus groups need to be
conducted. Specific inquiry into the functions identified in survey items 2, 15, 29 and 38 will
provide a greater understanding of why the respondents for these Legal and Policy items
substantially delegated these functions. Additionally, such interviews or focus groups could
identify the specific challenges rural administrators face in fulfilling these functions helping
to understand not only what is performed and what is delegated, but also how the decisions to
delegate or perform the tasks are decided. Another recommendation for research would be to
survey other groups regarding what special education tasks are being addressed by small rural
school district leaders from the perspective of other groups working with children that have
special needs. A limitation in this study was that it relied on self-reporting from small rural
schools and school districts by the leaders about the tasks they perform. Providing a 360degree
view of the phenomena would provide a clearer picture of the tasks performed.