A. I think at the beginning of the year, we had a parent who came
to us with an order from her attorney that they were going to
proceed with bringing action against the district if, in fact,
we did not change a grade that her son received, because he
was diagnosed late in the year as having attention deficit
disorder and she felt that not every teacher did make
adjustments in the teaching procedures to reach that child, so
that the parent came in, and the parent happened to be a
school psychologist and knew the law very, very well, and also
had an attorney and her next step, had we not complied with
her, and we met with her for a matter of almost five or six
months, and ultimately the grades were changed, not for any
modification because the student already was out of the class,
they simply went back and changed the grades because that's
what she insisted upon having been done, because she felt that
the grades were unfair and insisted that that happened and we
as a district cannot change grades, we met with the teachers
a number of times and finally the teachers, out of a sense of
inadequacy and frustration, felt that they did not want to go
through a legal situation, so they changed the grades in some
cases, not in all cases. And I think the other thing, as far
as the courts are concerned, we do have courts that will tell
us in regard to disciplinary action, that we cannot suspend or
expel students who have committed expulsion acts where
normally a student would be expelled for a certain action, if
a student the court tells us is labeled as a special education
student, we cannot expel that student because the action on
that student's behalf might have been a part of that
condition, in other words, it might be attributed to their
condition, so therefore we can't remove them. So there are
students here that we have to treat very differently because
the courts have told us that we can't -- that that student
behavior shall not be punished by having that student expelled
because that behavior is a part of his condition.
Q. Incident -- parents?
A. This district has, and I'm not sure if every district is like
that or not, because I was not an administrator in other
districts, in private school I was an intern in I learned that
parents do have a great deal of influence on activities
because we felt that we had to keep the enrollment up, but at
this school we have a community of parents that are the upper
level socioeconomic, many of them are manager level people,
executives, many of them own their own businesses, many of
them are professional people, they are the kind of people that
are articulate and have the energy and knowledge on how to
work a system and they know how to get things done in their
business and in their life, and they are also very familiar
with educational institutions. So I think they more readily
will turn to the school to address the problem that they have
maybe more so than other districts would or other parents in
other districts would. But here we have a very active parent
population that are very much involved with the student's life
at school here. I guess probably ten to 20 calls every day
that I have to return to parents who have questions about
teacher relationship with students, about curriculum, about
schedule changes, problems with counselors, problems with
other students, things they think the school ought to be
doing, things they think the school shouldn't be doing, and
sometimes just general questions about procedures, about a
variety of things like attendance, discipline, grades, what
teachers say in class, and a variety of different things. And
I return all those calls to people, we try to do it the day we
received them or within the next day, but I think my entire
day is affected by parents by what parents have to say, they
don't change things necessarily, but we certainly respond to
them and very often what we try to do is that most of the
complaints or concerns they have are legitimate for the most
part. I have students meet with teachers a lot, I have
parents meet with teachers a lot, trying to remedy the
situation at that level; I bring parents into this office
frequently, students in the office with parents to try to talk
things through, problems through; anytime it's a disciplinary
matter, we always involve the parents, we always call them, we
always keep them informed of what we're trying to do, so they
definitely affect us both positively and negatively, they
definitely affect the school and we do make a lot of
adjustments to accommodate parents.
Q. Comparing to that private school experience you had, would you
say it's any different? How would you compare the level of
influence of the parents at that school with the level of
influence of the parents at this school?
A. In a private school, always in back of a complaint was -- that
the parents brought to the administration -- was the threat to
pull the student out of school, that was a real threat, it was
always there; not only was their a concern among the
administration that that student not be pulled out of school
because enrollment at that school was a serious question
because the enrollment dipped much below -- I think it was at
400 and something at that point -- but dip much below 450,
there was concern that the school would have to close so they
were desperate to keep students there and they felt that if
they lost one student, they would lose that student's friends,
they would also lose the siblings of that student, so there
was also a concern that there would be a ripple effect.
Parents concerns -- we tried to keep open communication on a
great degree, involve parents and try to be very, very
accommodating to parents. Here at this school I think there's
more of a respect in that there's a discussion with parents.
At this particular school, a public high school, I guess we
could probably say to parents, "This is the way the rules are,
this is what we're going to do, there's nothing that's going
to change, we're going to do what we have always done because
this is the policy," we could say something like that and I
think that's what bureaucrats are always blamed that they do
in fact do that and say that, but at this school that doesn't
happen.
Parent's calls mean a great deal; we have a procedure
here that if they're not satisfied with my answer, they can go
to Mr. XXXX, the principal, who is very, very responsive
and receptive to parents and if they're not satisfied there,
they can go to the assistant superintendent who again will
direct -- call back to the school and say "Remedy the
situation; do something about it." Sometimes we have to tell
parents things they don't want to hear but I do think we go
out of our way to accommodate parents and the reason we do
that is not for fear they're going to drop out of school,
because we don't think that's going to happen, but I think
it's because of an attitude in this district that says that
parent calls are very, very important and I think that the
tone that the school board even sets, they have these open
microphones at every board meeting and one parent come up and
monopolizes a meeting, and the superintendent will receive a
call, for example, and she will personally call the school and
ask what the situation is. I mean, one call in a district as
large as this means a lot and that's just the attitude of this
district. To me, it's very interesting, but it's something
you learn very quickly when you're an administrator here, that
parent's calls mean a lot and you respond as well as you
possibly can. Maybe that attributes to the success of our
school; parents feel they have got a real say in what goes on
here.
Q. Incident -- professional organization or teacher's
association?
A. Well, the teacher's association in this school is very
important. We have the past president of the union
association who just returned to the building, where as
president of the association you have a year's leave of
absence where you work and you're paid partly by the union and
partly by the district, but you do all union work, you don't
work in the classroom, that person just returned. We had
another president, previous president, who works here; we have
very active and very powerful union members here, that the
entire association turns to for guidance, they're in this
building and we talk to them an awful lot.
The administration
seeks their opinion, we let them know when decisions are being
made that we think are going to have a significant impact on
the faculty, when we deal with any teacher and say anything
that could be construed as negative criticism, they're
entitled to always have a union representative with them in
the office when we meet with that teacher. So our actions as
administrators are very much influenced by the association.
We include them in a lot, we treat them as equals, we value
their judgment and input, and I think there's a good working
relationships. As far as state organizations, I do rely a lot
on the National Association of Secondary Principals to provide
-- there's where I get most of the reading material that I
read, professional documents and professional literature. I
think that's a wonderful organization. I think it's the one
place that I can get information and keep up with what's going
on around the country and background on a lot of things, and
that's very important to me.
Q. Incident -- in-service training or your own continued
education?
A. Continued education, yes, I have taken courses that -- in a
variety of different areas that have absolutely influenced my
decisions. I have been recently involved with courses with
quality improvement, with management styles, I think that has
helped me a lot as far as making me much more sensitive to
team work, to collegiality, to collaboration, to analyzing the
way I think and the way I make decisions and how it impacts
other people, people like Steven R. Covey comes to mind, I
think those people that talk to the business communities and
corporations and that, but I think they also now are applying
the models of -- Deming's model, for example, to education,
and I think that that's fantastic. I think we can learn a lot
from those people on management styles, and I have gotten that
from recently going back to the study.
Q. Incident -- students?
A. Oh, sure. I mean, some specifics you would like?
Q. Uh-huh.
A. Well, one of the jobs I have is that I am supposed to be
responsible for all of the clubs and activities on the campus,
all of the various groups that the students join. Whenever
there's a problem with any of those clubs or groups, I always
have to intervene and find out what it is, so I meet with
students -- especially just recently, as a matter of fact,
even today -- I'm working with the student council on
affecting the recent elections they had, whether those
elections were followed according to what the constitution of
the student council said they should do and whether every step
was followed in an appropriate manner, whether they in fact
let the students know who did not win the election that they
did not win in a sensitive manner, in a manner that was
sensitive to the suffering that was going to be felt by the
students when they were told of that. So I meet with students
frequently and I try to -- just a lot of things that I do on
a daily basis, what has happened with students and what
students want to happen. I work with them very closely and
they do affect a lot of things I do. Probably -- the other
day, for example, I went with three students down to XXX
City Hall where these students addressed a mayor's commission
on the possession of handguns, teenagers being restricted on
the possession of handguns, so I had an opportunity to talk to
those students and the students gave me, in kind of an
informal manner, input into some of their homework habits,
what they do in class, their observations of what they thought
were strong and weak teachers, names they didn't give me, but
they talked about styles, and I told them of some of the
concerns that I have about what I see going on in this
building and they reacted to that, and some of the things they
told me, I went and talked to the principal about, and there
is some specific things that we will do next year as far as
observation of teachers that come out of that kind of
conversation. So students have a lot of influence on what we
do.
Q. Incident -- colleagues?
A. Other administrators?
Q. Uh-huh.
A. I work for a guy who is the principal at this school who is
probably the most informed, articulate teacher, as far as
administrators are concerned, in this district, without a
doubt. He is very outspoken, he has a great deal of insight
into human behavior, and certainly has a great deal of insight
into -- because he's the dean of principals in the district --
he has a great deal of insight into administration and the
procedures of administration. He teaches a lot of classes, he
teaches a lot of teachers, he teaches administrators, he's a
recognized, I think, statewide leader in educational
administration. So he has influenced me a lot and I'm really
happy to say that. He's a wonderful mentor for me and has
given me an awful lot of insight into human behavior and
educational administrator, so he influences my life a lot.
Everything that he says that I agree with -- a great majority
of the things that he says I agree with, his style is
different than I would have as a style of managing, but I have
learned a great deal from him.
Q. I'll tell you four different areas and ask you to tell me how
much influence you have on each, from none to a great deal.
The first area is in establishing curriculum. How much
influence do you have in that area?
A. It depends on -- I'm the one who is in charge of curriculum
and I'm the one in this building who will meet with
representatives in the other buildings, other two high
schools, and one of the assistant superintendents in charge of
educational services, who is the primary curriculum person.
So I am one of four people who actually designs the curriculum
guide and decides what's going to be in that curriculum guide.
But you don't do anything in a vacuum; I mean, everything that
I do is a collection of information and input from the
teachers in this building, the department chair people in this
building, and the other administrators in this building. They
give me an
awful lot of input; I'm constantly asking them for
direction. We also will take input from teachers and students
on an informal basis; we don't have a formal basis for getting
information from them as to what they need, but as far as my
role is concerned, I think I'm a liaison, I'm the one who is
ultimately responsible for what goes in there and I'm supposed
to know what's in there, in the curriculum guide, and what I
think we need in this building, and whether the curriculum is
meeting the needs of our students, what the parents, and
whether it's meeting the requirements that the state has
imposed upon us. So I think have, from zero to a great deal,
I guess I have as much influence, outside of the principal
himself, as anyone else in the building. I don't know if that
answers your question.
Q. How much influence do you think colleges have, considering the
type of students you have here?
A. They have a lot of influence, because what colleges will do is
they will tell us what they will and will not accept and we
put that in all our curriculum guides. Every time we talk to
parents, we always tell them what the colleges, especially our
state universities, are asking for, and, as a matter of fact,
that is even stated before our requirements are stated because
parents, especially in this school, a great majority of the
students will go on to college, either two-year colleges or
the four-year universities, parents are absolutely interested
in what the colleges want. Our requirements are a little more
stringent than the college's requirements. We expect a little
bit more out of them as far as the number of years of taking
a course, but they have a lot of influence, absolutely a lot
of influence. We put all of their recommendations into our
curriculum guide so each student has it in the handbook as to
what the colleges of Arizona expect for entrance requirements.
Q. How much influence do you feel you have in determining
instructional methods in the classroom?
A. Well, I have -- teachers are autonomous in a classroom. The
teacher really has the say as to what happens in the
classroom. What I do is that I meet with -- once there is a
faculty, each administrator is responsible for one-third of
the faculty, I'll meet with this one-third in a fall
conference and I talk to them about my expectations and I talk
to them about what I think are the effective strategies in
effective teaching, and then they share with me what they
think, and we come to some kind of an understanding as to the
main ingredients in effective teaching. So what I do then is
I make out a chart that I use when I go in to observe these
teachers, I record on the chart how they are abiding by these
things that we've agreed to, or they've understood that I'm
looking for. And I keep that data sheet and record several
pages of observation notes and then I write that up and sit
with them afterwards and tell them whether they've met the
criteria that I think and they agreed to hopefully that was
effective teaching strategy, and if not, I suggest improvement
or if I feel they're serious enough, I put them on a plan of
improvement, which is that specific steps have to be taken to
meet those steps that I thought were absent in their teaching
strategies. So I have influence in that I can tell them what
I recognize or didn't see and things that they must
incorporate in their teaching, they'll be on a plan of
improvement, and if they don't abide by those over a period of
time, we could start steps in removing that teacher from
teaching. That's how, in fact, we get ride of what we
consider ineffective teaching; so the administration has an
awful lot of influence. We're considered supposedly master
teachers, and to me that is my most important function, is
observing teachers and evaluating teachers and working with
them to make them as effective as they can be. I always
thought that was the most important thing an administrator
could do when I was a teacher and I absolutely loved an
administrator coming into my classroom and I even loved having
them tell me I wasn't doing something that I should or that it
could be more effective, because it made me feel that somebody
care enough to observe what I was doing and they were trying
to help me.
Q. Influence on allocating funds?
A. Allocating funds, people would probably disagree with me, but
I would say almost none. I don't have anything -- I sign
checks once in a while but the checks have already been
determined as to where they are going to go, it just happens
the principal is not in the building at the time, but if I
have an office budget, I'm not aware of it. I hardly ever ask
for anything. I would like to get a printer, so if you can
get me a printer, I would appreciate that, but supplies are
provided, they turn the lights on for me, they gave me a
computer, but as far as allocating money to the teachers, it's
almost non-existent. The principal has control of that.
Q. How much influence do you have on the hiring of new full-time
teachers?
A. The principal and I met last year when I first came here, we
met -- he and I interviewed a number of candidates for
openings at that time, to be filled at that moment, and I had
an equal input with the principal. He made me think I did,
and we decided at that time -- we wrote up on evaluation
sheets our feelings about these candidates we interviewed. I
went through a paper selection process on my own, I called up
people that were used to references and I talked to those
reference sources about the people that we were considering as
finalists, so I felt that I had a good deal of influence in
hiring teachers.
Q. This last area is kind of a big question. Going back to my
research that's directed at current debates in education, it's
claimed . . . . . . . . What do you think of all this?
A. Well, I think some of it is true and some of it is not. From
the private school, I believe that probably is true about a
private school. What I observed when I was in the private
school, a Catholic high school that was known for its academic
achievement, it was considered a prep school for college
entrance, that school, in my opinion, had an almost an non-
existent curriculum. Each teacher did, I think, what, not so
much maybe what the student or the parents wanted, they did
what was their own strength, they taught to their strength,
they taught to their interest. It was kind of an odd
assortment of approaches. In the English department, for
example, there was no consistency, there wasn't even a
consistency as far as scoping sequence from one year to the
next, there wasn't a relationship. I talked to a few teachers
about that and asked them how they decided what they were
teaching and why they were teaching what they were doing and
they would say that it was something that they felt very
strongly about, and I said, in a way that was hopefully non-
threatening, do you meet with the teachers that are in classes
that feed into this class? And they said once in a while, but
not often; if we do, we don't talk about that. So there
seemed to be at that school an honest lack of coordination,
almost a real jealousy about the autonomy of a classroom. I
think they looked upon themselves as independent business
people in each classroom. That was my shop and I'll do what
I want in my shop. In this high school, and in other high
schools that I have been at, I think there was criticism that
some teachers felt restricted by the curriculum guide, they
felt that the curriculum that had been designed for social
studies, for example, or English or whatever the discipline,
was too rigid for them, they felt that their hands were tied
in many cases, and I think that that conversation came on in
department meetings and I think it came out when we had
districtwide curriculum meetings,
when the high schools were
talking to middle schools and other high schools and we sat in
rooms made up of representatives of the various schools and we
talked about their relationship in the curriculum, I think
there was that discussion about the rigidity and that you
shouldn't impose this upon teachers but let teachers be more
creative, so I think that discussion was there and I think
that realization was there that you are tied in to some
curriculum guide. At the same time, I think the curriculum
guide simply offered some sort of scope in sequence -- of
sequence, something should be sequential, should be a building
block. I think the teachers that were upset about the fact
that their hands were tied, I'm not sure that that was the
real issue; I think the real issue might have been where the
teacher was assigned in the first place. For example, some
teachers have very strong backgrounds in literature but yet
they are assigned to classes that are maybe a basic research
class where they are not asked to do very much reading of
literature and they're grumbling about the fact that their
hands are tied because they're really in a class they probably
didn't want to be in in the first place. But I do think that
teachers in classes do what they want to do to a large degree.
You go around and actually observe a class and then ask the
teacher after you have finished observed the class, "How does
this fit into the curriculum? This doesn't seem like the
teacher next door who is teaching the same thing is doing
this." And they say, "Oh, what we do is I just spend maybe
fewer weeks on that area or I'll get to that before the end or
I just have the students read that outside of class, but I
think this is more important, so I'll spend this much more
time in this particular segment of the class." What I am
saying is that there is an awful lot of individuality in a
public school; teachers do a lot of what their strength is and
I think they'll try to abide by the basic curriculum umbrella
but there's a lot of flexibility within a public school and I
do think that there is a pattern also that they try to abide
by.
Q. Okay. How different would teacher autonomy, do you think,
between teachers at Sunset and PCDS, if they were the same
size, same student numbers; would they be very different?
A. I'm not sure -- I think you have different kinds of audiences.
I think, I'm just guessing about Country Day because I'm not
intimately familiar with that, but I have a feeling that the
audience that they're appealing to are parents who say that
this is what I had when I was in school, I think my child
ought to have this, this is what Stanford is asking for, this
is what they thought was important, I read their bulletin, I
think we should have pre-calculus or I should we should have
more art classes because my student wants to be an artist and
I think you should have more of these, I think there's an
audience there that the day school may be very, very sensitive
to, so I think they'll adjust the curriculum to that kind of
pressure. I think in a public school, our audience may be the
same but I think we're very often tied into what the state
requirements are, also the school board will establish
districtwide guidelines and the universities and colleges tell
us a lot of what we have to do, so I think we have a lot of
different audiences. I'm trying to think of a parent that
actually put a course into existence here at Sunset and it
doesn't come quickly to mind what course parents would have
demanded. To answer your question, just recently we had
budget cuts here, we have a limited amount of money that's
coming into the district, and we're going to have to make
severe cuts and we had to increase our ratio of students to
teachers, and it has impacted negatively upon some of our
programs here and we cut out our advanced French class here at
the high school and parents went to the school board and were
very upset about it and the students did also, there were 20
students involved, but parents went and the school board
instructed to put the program back into existence and knock
something else out, they didn't say knock something else, they
said accommodate these people, we think you made a mistake.
So we went back and struck out another class and we took out
speech and debate, advanced speech and debate class, and put
the French class back in. So there the parents had an
influence on the subject that we taught here at the school.
We also got criticism on speech and debate but we weren't
ordered to put that back in. We could have kept going down
but in this school we wanted -- there's a certain direction we
wanted to take, and after talking to our teachers and our
department chair people, and we felt that our decisions were
in the best interest of what we wanted to do but the school
board and the parents told us that's not what they wanted, so
we had to do what they wanted, in that case at least.
Q. Do you think there any other questions I've left out that I
should be asking when I talk to teachers and administrators?
A. I think the autonomy is a good question. What kind of
influence do they really have? Are their hands tied by
curriculum guides and district policies, in comparison --
dealing with choice itself, I just think -- I think just
asking that question outright, what do you think of choice,
even if it's non-sectarian, let's say it's private schools and
it's private parochial schools, is appropriate for children to
have that option of going to any school that they so choose
and therefore schools would be more competitive and might be
more -- might improve because of that competition. I have
always been concerned about that whole argument because
private schools, I mean, there's absolutely no question in my
mind that private schools do not deal with the same clientele
as the public schools and that's required by law, we can't
throw out students that have a discipline problem, and we
can't deny entrance of special education students, we can't
deny entrance to students for whatever political reasons that
we would like to impose, this is a public school and we are
supported by all of the taxpayers and we take everybody, so
the public schools really reflect societal problems, and we
are society, we are microcosm society, and I truly don't
believe that the private schools are. I think there's a great
deal of elitism, I think selection in private school, and we
should be on a level playing field. If we are on a level
playing field, then I think that any public school could
compete with any private school.
Q. In that _______ system that you told me about in Wisconsin,
when private schools accepted those vouchers, were they then
subject to federal laws and mandates?
A. Absolutely not. That was one of our criteria. They were not.
And those private schools that accepted that money never
opened their doors to the students who had handicaps,
physical, emotional and academic handicaps, they didn't open
their doors to those people. They also imposed the same
restrictions that if the student was disobedient, they could
be expelled; I mean, there was -- they were not subjected to
the requirements that you had to go through due process and
the state of Wisconsin did not ask them to do that. They were
free to do what they wanted to do and that's why the public
schools and the public school teachers in Wisconsin felt the
whole system was outrageous, but it was a political effort on
the part of a Republican administration, and I was a part of
that, to say that we were trying to improve public high
schools and public schools, not high schools only but public
schools, and this was one step they were taking. All it was
was political grandstanding, in my opinion, a way to say this
is what we have done ______, we have done something, and I
think it was unfortunate and a cheap slap particularly at the
Milwaukee public school system, which they thought was having
a lot of problems, as if the city of Milwaukee wasn't having
a lot of problems.
Q. Well, $2600 is not paid tuition in a private school, based on
the schools that I have been visiting?
A. Doesn't cover that, you say?
Q. Yeah.
A. It was what the state of Wisconsin felt they would give in
support of that student at that public school.
Q. Were the parents expected to pay the difference?
A. Uh-huh. But that $2600, what it did is it brought $2600 into
these private schools and another parents -- another student,
and they were thrilled to death by -- it was a lot of money
for the private schools. Some of the private schools were
schools that were operating out of storefronts and everything
else so to them it was wonderful.
Q. Okay. What I would like to look at or to have a copy is the
student handbook. What you give to parents, and a teacher's
handbook.