The Principal as Human Resources Leader

A Guide to Exemplary Practices for Personnel Administration

M. Scott Norton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317688440
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation générale

Increasingly, personnel administrative duties within schools have been delegated to the local school principal. This accessible book arms school leaders with the knowledge and skills required to be an effective human resources leader and shows them how to fold these additional duties seamlessly into their daily routines. This practical resource provides school administrators with guidance on personnel selection, growth and development, orientation and placement, school climate, legal processes, leadership for classified staff and other important human resources processes.

Special Features:

• Grounded in extensive research and interviews with practicing principals
• Provides a wealth of examples, strategies, tips, and best practices for leading the human resources function at the school level
• Chapter exercises and case studies explore the skills and knowledge needed for effective human resource leadership
• Details the significance of developing a positive school climate
• Legal aspects of human resources administration are made digestible and understandable

CHAPTER
1
	The Principal as Human Resources Leader

Primary chapter goal:

To understand the changing nature of the human resources function in education and the requirements of new knowledge and skills on the part of the local school principal.

The Story of Amelia

Amelia Beetison was a social studies teacher at Wymore Middle School for 22 years. She was serving as a member of the social studies curriculum committee for the Wymore School District. The coordinator of curriculum for the middle schools in Wymore, Brian Randall, was leading the committee toward the goal of updating the social studies curriculum for grades seven through nine.

During one informal visit with Dr. Randall, Amelia invited him to visit her classroom. For one reason or another, Dr. Randall did not follow up on this invitation. Toward the close of the committee’s curriculum work, Amelia said to Dr. Randall, “My invitation is still open, drop by my classroom at anytime.”

Dr. Randall understood that Amelia was serious about her invitation and made a courtesy call to the school principal indicating his intention to visit Amelia’s classroom. Principal Lyons welcomed the visit.

Dr. Randall arrived at the school, checked in at the school’s office and went directly to Amelia’s classroom. He observed the teacher’s social studies instruction and the involvement of the students for about one hour. As the class ended and students had left the room, Amelia met Dr. Randall at the classroom door. Amelia asked, “Well, what did you think?” The coordinator remembered his lessons on classroom supervision suggesting that the first classroom visit was simply to establish some rapport and to refrain from any serious comments about the lesson’s accomplishments. He replied, “Well, I appreciated the opportunity to visit the class and perhaps I can do so again in the near future.”

“That would be fine,” said Amelia, “But what do you have to say about today’s class session?”

Since Amelia was standing at the classroom door somewhat blocking Dr. Randall’s ability to leave the room, he thought that he had to respond. He had been highly impressed with the outstanding teaching ability of Amelia and the learning environment that she had created for students in the class.

“Well,” replied Dr. Randall, “If every social studies class in Wymore demonstrated the teaching competency that I observed during the last class hour, I would be out of a job.”

Amelia’s appreciation was expressed by the smile on her face and the evidence of tears in her eyes. To hear a sincere compliment about her long tenure of quality teaching was a reward that she greatly appreciated and most deservedly received.

Keep in Mind That Schools Are People

Talented teachers deserve as much time and attention as marginal teachers. Trophies and certificates can be appropriate rewards, but sincere verbal feedback takes little time and goes a long way. Human resources (HR) administration at the local school level encompasses more than recruiting, selecting and assigning personnel. In this chapter and in the following chapters of this book, we talk about the important basic processes of the human resources function at the local school level, but also give due emphasis to the related processes of human motivation that underscore the fact that schools are people. School climate considerations, talent management, teacher retention and other factors such as work-life balance have become important responsibilities in the work of the school principal. Always keep in mind that schools are people.

Throughout the book, we focus on the human resources function and its several related processes (see Figure 1.1). In the following section, we take a look at the school principal as a human resources leader in an ever-changing and redefined administrative role.

FIGURE 1.1. The Human Resources Function and Its Primary Processes

The School Principalship: An Increasingly Redefined Role

The one certain happening in the role of school principal is that of change. Schools are social systems that improve as people grow and develop. Today the practicing school principal is expected to be competent in every administrative function, including being a learning leader, a student advocate, a community-relations expert, a student achievement promoter and, increasingly, being a human resources administrator. Yet the evidence shows that school principals themselves do not believe that their preparation programs served them satisfactorily for administering many of their stated responsibilities and the HR function is no exception.

Heretofore, the primary responsibilities for the recruiting, hiring, orientation and development of the school’s staff were carried out primarily by the district’s central personnel office. Today, most school principals are involved in most every process related to the HR function. For example, local school principals have become much more involved in the identification of prospective applicants for school positions and in the follow-up processes of developing position descriptions and taking a leading part in the interviewing process, especially the interviewing of final candidates for teaching positions. In addition, HR processes such as performance appraisals have had many changes that require pre-conferences, advanced notices for teacher observations, required instruments for assessment, post-conferences and the development of follow-up plans for personal improvement. Empirical evidence indicates that the development of position analyses for professional personnel is limited at best. But let us give thought to how this activity could serve you and your personnel. A position analysis precedes the development of a specific position description.

Analyzing and Describing Every Position

Why analyze and describe every position? Two primary reasons center on legal concerns. First, the Equal Opportunity Act no longer leaves a choice in the matter. An analysis is needed to defend your personnel practices. In personnel litigation cases, the employee’s position description becomes the center of attention. In addition, change that is constantly occurring in your school alters the responsibilities of jobs for both the professional and support staffs.

A position analysis commonly requires the following information:

1. The position itself (duties, tools, load, supervision);

2. Qualifications (knowledge, skills, certifications, experience, physical requirements);

3. Schedule (time requirements, tasks that influence the role, community requirements, development requirements);

4. Effects of the position on the employee (stress, health, relationships, turnover, physical factors such as sitting, standing, walking);

5. Relationship to the organization (supervision, reporting responsibilities, coordination, communication activities, accountabilities);

6. Relationships to the school-community (support services, responsibilities, communication, involvement, contacts).

It is not uncommon to find that the position description of a school principal includes only a general statement to the effect that the school principal is responsible for the professional and support personnel within the school. The following excerpt from the high school principal’s position description of the Council Rock School District of Bucks County, Pennsylvania sets forth a more definitive personnel administration responsibility.

POSITION SUMMARY
The principal is the educational leader of the school, responsible for planning, developing, coordinating, directing and evaluating the school’s educational program and environment. Responsibilities include interviewing, hiring, and training employees; planning, assigning … appraising performance; rewarding and disciplining employees, addressing complaints and resolving problems.

In subsection 3 of the Council Rock School District position description for high school principals, essential functions and responsibilities include the following personnel administration entries: (i) Assisting the central office in the recruitment, interviewing, and selection of new teachers and other staff members; (ii) Organizing, administering and utilizing staff effectively; (iii) Inducting and orienting professional and support staff; and (iv) Evaluating, rating, and recommending the dismissal of staff.

Don’t Try to Wing It: Continuous Self-Development Looms Important

Research evidence supports the fact that the large majority of school principals are not prepared to carry out effectively the activities of the HR function. When asked, school principals commonly state that they are learning how to administer the school’s personnel processes on the job, or that they tend to confer with colleagues about personnel procedures. According to a report of one research organization (Hess & Kelly, 2005), only 36 percent of school principals believed that their attention to marginal teachers was leading to appropriate tenure denials. On-the-job learning most often falls short of implementing the best personnel practices. As noted by Deadrick and Stone (2009), researchers and practitioners may need to step back and review past discoveries, studies and research to ensure that the field of human research development continues to advance with development of theory, contributory research, and input for practice. Just becoming a school principal certainly does not automatically make the individual competent as an effective candidate interviewer or judge of quality hires.

More sophisticated methods for such HR processes as the hiring of teachers, professional development, performance evaluation, results accountability and school climate improvement are being required of practicing school principals. “Some of the biggest changes have occurred in recruiting, compensation and training” (Greengard, 2012, p. 5). In an article by Hess and Kelly (2005), the authors reported findings on school principals’ work preparation as revealed in their courses of study. The principal-preparation programs examined devoted barely 3 percent of total instructional weeks in core courses to the central management responsibilities of hiring, identifying, and rewarding good employees, or identifying and removing ineffective ones.

Movement Toward Site-Based Management and Its Implications for New Leadership

The realization that many of the administrative processes were moving from the school district’s central offices to the local schools is not a yesterday’s happening. Richard Smith (1998), among other HR authorities, discussed this phenomenon in his book, Human Resources Administration: A School-Based Perspective, more than a decade ago. As noted by Smith (1998):

One of the major changes in education is the movement toward school-based leadership. Many of the management functions which were previously centralized for control and standardization are now being decentralized … where they become the responsibility of the school principal…. The principal’s ability to provide effective leadership to the human resources function of the school will, in large measure, determine the effectiveness of the school and the teachers.

(p. 5)

New Takes on HR Processes Can Lead to Improved Results

Schmidt and Hunter (1998) recommend a variety of methods for judging the interviews: intelligence tests, integrity tests, assessment-center results, biographical data and others. The hiring authority might utilize a test of general intelligence and a test of integrity to calculate a valid statistic for predicting the future job performance of a particular candidate. But is all this time and effort worth the trouble that it takes to prepare and implement? It most certainly is, according to Schmidt and Hunter (1998), who used a general intelligence test and combined it with several other tests such as an integrity test, work-sample tests, and assessment-center results. They found that the general intelligence test coupled with the integrity test gave the highest validity result of 0.65. The lowest validity combination came with the general intelligence test and assessment results, the validity statistic of which was 0.53. Such results serve to provide additional hard data for improving hiring decisions.

The point here is that the opportunity to increase one’s knowledge and skill for hiring decisions is available. Personal judgments about a candidate’s qualities often are based on subjective evidence that is not directly related to the candidate’s true qualifications. Both personal interview judgments and the candidate’s personal references are often misleading and unrelated to the knowledge and skills necessary for success on the job. HR processes such as recruitment, selection, assignment and others, to be effective, must be carefully planned; research in these areas will prove to be of much value to you as well.

It should be clear to all concerned that just being appointed to the responsible position of school principal does not guarantee that he or she has the required knowledge and skills for conducting effective hiring interviews or making final hiring decisions. Skill and knowledge in these areas can be attained, and Chapter 2 of this text discusses the selection process in detail.

Let’s Check Your Accountability Status

Assume that a school’s teacher retention rate over the last three years was 55 percent. That is, 55 percent of the teachers hired three years ago still remain on the faculty. Which of the following entries would be most productive for assessing the effectiveness of retention procedures utilized by the school? Each entry most likely would produce some useful information, but identify the entries that would most likely provide important hard data related to retention program results.

1. Data on the percentage of teachers that attended the school’s 12-hour in-service program on assessment techniques relative to student achievement.

2. The identification of the specific activities implemented by the school principal to retain teachers in the school.

3. The opportunities provided for professional growth for the school’s teachers during the three-year time period.

4. The climate-improvement programs/procedures that were implemented during the thre...