Notes of a School-Based Management Team Chair.

As director of a school-college collaboration at a middle school with 1,350 students in Queens, N.Y., I was asked to chair the school-based management team during its second year. These notes of my observations raise issues that others might consider as they prepare to introduce the SBM concept to their school district.

It's 10 days into the school year, and I'm prepared to open the first meeting of our site council, which consists of seven teachers, the principal and assistant principal, a college representative, three parents, and students. It's 7:30 a.m., an hour before school opens.

I look around the room and most of the council members are in attendance. I wonder how such a diverse group will be able to work together. Will we be able to overcome differences in roles? Will there be sufficient time to grapple with problems? How will personalities mesh? What limitations will be presented by bureaucratic mandate and union contract?

Guidelines dictate that teacher representation will always be in the majority. I wonder why. Is it to make certain that the administrative view is in the minority? Do we presume that professional wisdom resides primarily in the teacher? Does the idea prevail that issues will be settled by vote and the teacher bloc wants to ensure majority representation?

A discussion arises regarding the appropriateness of student participation on the school-based management team. A few teachers resist the presence of students. They do not see the contradiction between their own desire for empowerment and their opposition to children helping to make decisions.

Until the idea of shared decision-making also becomes part of classroom curriculum development, the underpinning for school-based management remains fragile. The students continue to attend meetings.

Periodically, the SBM team receives voluminous data from the board of education office in Brooklyn. We are expected to use this information to guide our decision making. How realistic is it for a 13-member group to absorb a vast quantity of statistics considering we meet for only 45 minutes once a week? How can it be possible for people burdened by other responsibilities and with different backgrounds of knowledge to consider meaningfully the implications of attendance data and achievement scores, to analyze budget information, and to respond to lengthy evaluative reports? Information is power, but the limits of time stand in the way of what we realistically are able to accomplish.

Can we deal with every issue or do we need to restrict ourselves to matters of priority, only to topics on which we can become fully informed?

A teacher reports on a resolution emanating from a union meeting at which concerns focused deteriorating discipline in the school. The principal believes this represents an inaccurate and tactless statement since it was made in front of parents. She talks about it with the teacher, who feels reprimanded and subsequently resigns from the SBM team. All entreaties for her to reconsider the decision are futile. The incident has a strong impact.

A teacher writes a note to the team that says: "Ms. G. was carrying out the will of the majority of the staff. It is our understanding that her role as our representative is to bring our concerns to the school-based management team. Ms. G. was put in a very awkward position. ... I think many faculty members will question their participation on SBM if they cannot freely present their views."

The incident highlights the need for us to deal with the perception that school-based management divides staff into superiors and subordinates. Free expression of ideas and questioning authority have not been part of school tradition. We need a different kind of atmosphere, one in which people feel trust and can disagree without rancor.

I question the compulsion to shield deficiencies from the eyes of parents. Good public relations does not mean communicating unblemished performance. If we are to move forward, we need to feel free to acknowledge problems. School people ought not to be afraid to "show their warts" in front of non-professionals.

A teacher says to me, "Isn't our job to take power from the administration?" I try to respond tactfully. "It seems to me our task is to share power, not take power," I tell her.

Once again I see a firmly entrenched combative attitude. Collaboration among people in different positions won't occur smoothly if the history of the school has been one of adversarial relationships. The residue of anger from previous encounters influences how people respond to each other in the present. Are we just another arena for conflict?

Two weeks before the end of the school year I learn that budget information will arrive from the board of education in late summer. The time at which data become available to us contradicts the premise that all major policy decisions at our building can be handled through school-based management. This late arrival means the school administration will have to make last-minute decisions regarding staff selection.

A teacher raises the issue of students bringing food to advisory sessions. Is every deviation from the norm an appropriate subject for deliberation by the SBM team?

We need to learn to screen topics and deal only with major problems. Triviality consumes time.

For the most part, the student representatives are silent, intimidated by the adults on the committee. Nevertheless, they seem to learn much by observing and, in time, they begin to introduce useful points of view.

Over the years the number of art teachers in the school has diminished. Parents and teachers ask for more art staff. The consequences of hiring more art teachers are not initially apparent.

Ultimately, we determine that such a move may require the release of a math instructor. The faculty representatives resist making any decision that may negatively affect a colleague.

Between meetings, the arts faculty begins to lobby the parent representatives on the SBM team to gain their support for an expanded arts program. Others are annoyed at this attempt to influence. Isn't seeking backing for educational points of view part of shared decision making?

The task for me as a chairperson is to help the group to act despite the differences in role, background, and personality. I discover this is not easily done as some teachers, almost reflexively, resist any idea proposed by administration.

Others begin to define roles for themselves. There are the counter-dependents and the dependents, the silent and the verbose, the appeasers and the irritators, the active and the passive. I need to be alert to the fact that responses to individuals may be based not on what is said but rather who says it.

If we are to coalesce as a group, it is important for us to look at how we are working together. We pause periodically to assess our progress.

The push for immediate results becomes an obstacle. Impatience is evident when the team cannot instantaneously design and implement a new staff development program. The complexities of shared decision making are blurred by a penchant for a quick payoff.

Our SBM team needs time to develop discussion skills, find ways of dealing with conflict, learn better approaches to problem solving, and break the barriers of roles built over years of hierarchical interaction. Will enough time be available for the school-based management team to develop?

In April, prior to the last marking period, an issue arises that brings to the fore differences of educational philosophy.

A group of faculty representatives suggests that students' grades in art, music, and physical education be included in the average needed for admission to Arista, the school's honor society. The proposal passes and some parents protest. They circulate petitions demanding a reversal.

They ask, "What if a child doesn't have particular ability in art, music, or physical education? Will that mean a poor grade and prevent admission to Arista?" We receive a letter that reads in part: "Up until now, only the major subjects (math, science, English, social studies, and foreign language) have been used to compute the overall average. This is the way it has always been and the way it is in other schools. Now, courtesy of the school-based management team here at I.S. 227, gym will be just as important as math, English, or science."

The SBM team stands firm, and the decision remains in effect. The teachers present their rationale for assigning grades to reassure parents and children that ability alone does not represent the basis for marks.

Communication with the total school community is an ongoing problem. Despite wide distribution of meeting minutes, announcements to teachers and parents, and a broad representation on the school-based management team, some teachers complain they don't know what's going on.

We get mixed messages from faculty. Some are eager to get involved; others prefer that administration make all the decisions. We reiterate that all meetings are open and that teachers and parents need to seek out information rather than wait passively for its arrival. Communication is a two-way street.

Communication involves more than transmitting messages. It re quires that people be ready to receive them. If angry feelings and antagonistic attitudes exist, some will resist the messages sent by the SBM team.

This group will ask angrily, "Why didn't you inform us? How did the agenda get devised? Why weren't my ideas included?" The larger barriers to communication are not technical but personal.

Uneven participation and lack of interest in school policymaking results, at least in part, from teacher preparation programs where little or no attention is given to developing a total school perspective. Pre-service education seems to focus on a single classroom. We need another kind of teacher, one who operates not in isolation but as part of a team.

One issue follows another. We consider bus safety, school morale, grading, teacher schedules, and the adviser/advisee system. We get caught up in discussing particular elements of each topic. Periodically, I suggest the need to pause to harken back to basic questions: What do middle-school-age children need? What is good middle-school education? What is our mission? It's so easy to get caught inside a cluster of trees and lose sight of the forest.

A teacher raises the question of how teachers will be selected for out-of-classroom assignment. Seniority rules dictate the person to be chosen. The leeway for decision making is limited by union contracts that at determine class size, transfer rights, staff assignment, tenure, and hiring.

Only on rare occasions, when a position calls for a person with unique qualifications, are the rules bent to allow other than the most senior person to be chosen for a special job.

I wonder if my 10 years of experience as a school administrator influences my perceptions. Do I resist intrusion into what traditionally has been the territory of the principal? I don't think so, for I have also been a teacher and shared decision making always has been part of my view as to how a school should be run

Near the end of our year, we hold an annual retreat at Queens College on a Saturday morning. The parents in attendance express admiration for the professionalism and caring displayed by teachers. All the time together and the respectful listening has cemented good relationships.

We praise each other for good attendance, good communication, and good management. We've succeeded in living together in comparative harmony. We have only just begun to deal with fundamental issues, to face our own differences, to give ourselves opportunity to work out conflict.

Tangible outcomes have resulted from our year's work as a school-based management team. They include:

* improved safety procedures,

* clarification of the rationale for grades,

* recognition of the importance of art, music, and physical education,

* establishment of evaluation procedures for electives and the adviser/advisee system, and

* creation of a forum in which teachers, parents, and students can openly discuss problems.

No Panacea 

I have seen the school-based management team serve a useful purpose. It epitomizes the view that decision making should take into account the ideas of those who will be affected. But I also have become convinced that those who envision school-based management as the cure or all educational ills are mistaken.

I remember the saying that for every deep and complex problem facing our society there is a simple answer, and it's wrong. We need to be wary of jargon that substitutes title for reality and professes a kind of certainty that takes the place of the reflection and the investigation needed to explore problems that are full of elusive complexity.

School-based management is more than a new organizational structure. It's an ethic that calls for mutual trust, patience, persistence, hard work, contribution of time, tolerance of conflict, and the ability to interact as individuals rather than as representatives of a role. It speaks for a process in which information is disseminated and absorbed and there is sufficient time to explore and discuss.

We need to view SBM as a way of restructuring attitudes and assumptions about schooling. The dispute about the inclusion of the arts and physical education as significant parts of the curriculum is a case in point. Teachers and parents were challenged to consider the role of the arts in the curriculum and to clarify the rationale underlying grades.

As I review my notes, I discover that I have focused primarily on problems that have arisen. This does not mean I don't believe that school-based management cannot be useful. It can facilitate authentic communication and genuine collaboration. To do so demands skillful leadership, commitment, patience, persistence, and realistic expectations.

Sidney Trubowitz stepped aside as chair after two years in the role, but was asked to stay on as co-chair this year.