preview

Principal Hulbert Case Study In Schools

Decent Essays

Successful administrators possess the necessary attributes that help them make decisions and solve various problems. All school leaders, regardless of their title or role in a building or district, will face obstacles involving individuals, community members, staff, and students. In order to address these challenges, leaders must understand the issue, formulate and apply a solution, and then reflect on their implementation of the solution to decide whether or not it is improving the situation. By no means is this an easy task, but effective leaders must strive to make sure their students, personnel, and constituents are being led down a path that will lead to overall academic and personal success. According to Young (2008), “as such, …show more content…

Collecting and assessing data is an integral part of the NCLB law. If Principal Hulbert knew her staff was using generic lesson plans, her assumption that data was not being analyzed nor collected was most likely accurate. Principal Hulbert understood the problem related to lesson planning and now had to address her staff and begin to formulate a solution. When presenting her findings to the staff, a very outspoken staff member, Bill Osborne, became defensive and vehemently defended the school’s staff. He stated that Buchanan Elementary School was mostly compromised of a veteran staff and cited outside factors, such as poverty and emotional, social, and parental issues that hindered learning at the school. Furthermore, he argued that creating new lesson plans will just be a formality and no true change will ultimately occur. At this point, Ms. Hulbert now realized that she not only had academic achievement issues connected to the NCLB, but her school culture was also jeopardized by a disenfranchised …show more content…

True learning cannot take place and sufficient lesson plans cannot be submitted until Ms. Hulbert addresses and fixes the culture issues within her building. The culture of a school system is shaped by attitudes, routines, habitual ways of doing things, behavioral norms, rules of conduct, position requirements, and the network of social relationships within which people work (Sergiovanni, 2006). Mr. Osborne and the rest of the staff strongly supported the principal prior to Ms. Hulbert, Mr. Sampson, and his stance on lesson plans. Mr. Sampson believed lesson plans were a part of a monotonous routine and only needed to be submitted to appease the superintendent. His beliefs created a trickle-down effect in the school, which ultimately led to negative perceptions from the staff in relation to a variety of issues. First, the staff believed lesson plans were irrelevant because Principal Sampson never checked them, thus they were not valued. Ms. Hulbert needed to deeply reflect on what occurred prior to her arrival and make the necessary improvements that will lead to positive changes in the school. Consequently, her decision to have teachers rewrite their lesson plans were justified and necessary if she wanted to begin to close the achievement gaps in her school. Ms. Hulbert’s decision to have the staff rewrite their lesson plans is part of her vision

Get Access