Blazing New Trails - Connexions

150 CRITICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTING ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
accomplished mostly through grade level chairs with a monthly faculty meeting and weekly
grade level meetings. According to Principal Beta, collaboration in her school was rated 10 on
a scale of 1 to 10 (highest level of collaboration). Beta “does not like making arbitrary
decisions.” Principal Beta collaborated all the time, casually with teachers at lunch, in the
lounge, or when passing in the hall, and more formally in grade level and faculty meetings
and other formats. She met with her teachers at least two to three times monthly to ascertain
what is happening in classes and to collaborate on teaching and learning. Teachers were fully
involved in setting policies in the school such as what goes into the Campus Improvement
Plan.
Collaboration for Principal Alpha was a way to get a “good buy-in” from all people
who are involved and to have full support from them. Alpha wanted to make sure that she
tapped into the expertise from the most experienced and knowledgeable teachers. She met
regularly with her faculty for instructional committee meetings, grade level meetings, and
during meetings with combined grade levels. Principal Alpha communicated in one of her
weekly bulletins: “Be prepared to be an active participant on the decisions to be made as we
move from Acceptable to Recognized [state ratings] this year .... This will happen; it is Non-
NEGOTIABLE!” [Emphasis is Alpha’s.]
Decision Making Practices
In her decision making role, Principal Alpha stressed, “I don’t make [decisions] by
myself. [Decision making] involves the teacher or grade level chair.” Teachers in school A
are encouraged and are involved in different capacities in the decision making process in the
various leadership roles discussed earlier.
In school A, the principal strived to have all decisions directly align with her goals for
the school, one of which is to earn the state rating of “Exemplary.” She wanted this goal to be
the priority of all teachers. She repeatedly encouraged them to ask how they can improve
instruction, how they can make what they are doing now better. She arranged for various
committees and grade level teams to get together often. She wanted teachers to understand
that meetings are required in order for them to plan and make informed decisions as a team.
She believed that if teachers do not get together as a group to find solutions to their problems
and make decisions, then decisions would have to come from the principal and become more
of a directive from the teachers’ perspective. She wanted her teachers to find solutions for
their problems and “[do] whatever works … and make the students successful.” She
encouraged and expected her teachers to think and take ownership of their actions and results.
With her leadership style, Alpha aimed to empower each teacher by encouraging, guiding,
and providing all the necessary resources in her power so the teachers could help her make
decisions that affected their own classrooms. Some teachers were not comfortable with her
method. While Principal Alpha worked closely with these teachers in helping them
understand and adopt her way of leading, many teachers who were not able or were not
willing to fit in have moved on and are no longer at school A.
Principal Beta encouraged her teachers to find new ways to teach their students
stating, “I’m willing to empower the teachers …. If a teacher comes to me and wants to do
something [new and] … can justify that it’s the right thing for students, then it’s not a
problem” (Principal Beta). According to teacher B1, “She’s very open-minded, and whenever
we see things that we can work [on] in the classroom, she doesn’t hesitate to allow us to
implement those changes.” Beta added, however, that she would review a decision and
reverse it if she finds new information that no longer supports what she thought the decision