Spring is in the air. The end of the school year is site. This weekend the temperature hit the 50 degree mark in northern Maine. I volunteered to help with the annual Maine Principal Association’s Regional One-Act Play Fest which was hosted at Stearns High School on Friday evening. Ten schools from as far south as Orono and Old Town to as far north as Fort Kent were buzzing excitedly through the halls of the school and into the community. On Saturday evening, students at Schenck High School showcased their talent and fashion sense before a gymnasium packed full of community members at their annual Winter Carnival Talent Show and Dance. “This is our prom,” explains 25 year career Schenck teacher Mindy MacKenzie. “This is our big night.” Basketball tournament is behind us. A weekend earlier, Schenck boys varsity team won the Class D basketball title. In the halls this week, guidance from both schools are reminding students to turn in their course sign-up sheets, signed by parents, for next year. In the teachers’ lunch room, teachers are wondering about the effects of budget cuts from the community and state levels, which programs will be cut, and who will lose their jobs. Everything points to signs of life, continuation, as I realize that another year has come and gone in northern Maine. The job of educating the children of these 2 former paper mill towns for 2009 to 2010 has hobbled along with the tell tale signs of success and of struggles. The numbers may have decreased in the past decade, but the system remains intact despite the devastating economical impact that structural unemployment imposes on the community and on the schools themselves.
Dependency of Environmental Forces
So what forces are at work maintaining this educational machine? I’ve just outlined several annual highlights which begin to mark closure for the academic year. What is it about basketball, one-act plays, and winter carnival dances that is important to educating rural teenagers? Surely there isn’t much academic value to dribbling basketballs or sporting the coolest tuxedo, is there? Why would schools expend so much energy and financial resources on decorating the entire gymnasium for an hour’s worth of crowning this year’s Winter Carnival King and Queen? The answers can be found in comprehending the Open Systems Theory of school management. In this theory, organizations such as schools are not viewed as “static” or “hierarchical” (Hanson, 113) systems that remain “fixed” in their relationships or their cyclical events such as in the classical-bureaucratic theory. In such a system, the processes and products are closed against environmental influences from the outside. In the Open System, the school is influenced by elements from beyond its border. It’s open, interdependent on what takes place in the community, the state, and the nation. Basketball, proms, and drama are the schools’ marketing tools announcing to the outside world that process the community pays for through taxation is vibrant and successful. The gymnasiums and auditoriums packed with taxpayers, parents, town government, and visitors from other schools are tangible evidence of the product the schools are creating. Except for advisers and chaperones, I didn’t see a lot of teachers at the drama or winter carnival. These events are not designed for teachers; they are designed for outsiders, the parents, the community, other schools, and even the state.
Cycles of Events: A network of cycles that are “interdependent, reinforcing, and together make up the whole system” (Hanson, 115)
It’s interesting to note how all these events converge towards the end of the annual academic year cycle. On the surface, it’s obvious why Maine schools participate in basketball tournaments in the middle of the annual cycle and host drama competitions on the “downward hill”. Teachers have had students for a large part of a year, so they have had time to be successful. It would be futile to host major school promotions at the beginning of the year when teachers and students are still adjusting to their new classrooms and academic requirements. In the same light, it wouldn’t be wise to host in May when all students and teachers are thinking about is finishing up. There are other promotional events such as prom and graduation to announce to the world that the cycle of events for that year has ended.
There is nothing particularly unique in the annual cycle of Stearn or Schenck High Schools. The year begins at the end of August. Teachers arrive first followed a few days later by students. Everything in the beginning of the cycle is geared towards orientation and socialization. New teachers must learn procedures. Students must learn expectations from 6 to 8 different teachers. What will I learn? How will I be graded? What is my teacher’s personality? “easy”? “hard? In my small high schools, it is not uncommon for students to already know their teachers from previous years. 9th grade students at Schenck have come from a different building, so they must learn where their classrooms are, the cafeteria, the office. For 9th graders at Stearns, the middle school is on the second floor of the building and the high school on the first. Students already know the art, music, and foreign language teachers because they are “shared” between schools. There is block schedule to master, changing classes as an individual rather than as part of a class, going to lunch, meeting support staff. Learning to maneuver the new-found freedom in high school challenges 9th graders for the first couple of weeks.
And then arrives Open House. This is the first school promotion in the annual cycle of events. The schools invite parents to come meet the teachers. Attendance is pitiful compared to the attendance I experienced later in the year at games and dances. As a teacher, I feel like I’ve wasted my precious evening time just to be introduced to the one or two parents who come. There is always talk in staff meetings about how to get more parent participation, but it seems more like lip service. The beginning of the cycle isn’t the right time to show the world what goes on at school.
Fall presses all the participants along through the cycle. During this time, it seems like there is a holiday every week. I’m glad for the extra day off because I’m exhausted at this time of year. Sports season gets underway with soccer or football. At Stearns, football is a huge community event which excites the community to support the school, coaches, and students. In the classroom, teachers work hard to shape students into learners of subject matter. Standardized tests such as MEA, NECAP, or whatever Maine Department of Education has chosen for that year get administered. Testing is important to demonstrate accountability towards learning gains to the outside. As a teacher, it’s important for me to know at what level my students are working. Everything seems like it just gets up and running when the cycle seems to go into hibernation, nothing feels like it gets accomplished.
During the 2nd week of November, students have 2 days off. One day is a holiday and the other is for Parent-Teacher conferences. We have just wrapped up the first academic quarter and the school wants parents to have access to their children’s teachers. I stay until 8pm to discuss with 3 or 4 parents their child’s progress in class. Most parents don’t come. If their child is failing, they will come. The attendance school-wide is better than Open House. The school works hard to let the outside know about what’s going on. Then 2 weeks after this short week, is Thanksgiving break. That’s 2 days of classroom time, but nothing much gets accomplished. My students don’t remember what they’ve learned 2 days earlier under block scheduling, and they surely don’t retain anything when they only meet 1 time per week. We return from Thanksgiving vacation for 3 weeks and then we have 2 weeks of Christmas vacation. As I said, total down time in the cycle of events. When we return, it will be a new year, the weather will hover at 0 degrees every day, the sun will set around 4pm. The little mini vacations of November and December are fond memories that help me survive: my family, good food, warmer and brighter days. January to February are like a dream state for me. Winter basketball season has begun. The mid year will happen in January. We don’t have many 4 day weeks to look forward to. Since there is no time to do much else, we learn stuff. We learn and wait for February vacation.
By the time we wake up from this dream like state, February basketball tournaments have begun. My principals have asked me to begin budgeting for next year. It seems too far away to imagine. The community is attending school events in larger numbers now. This is the beginning of the end that I described earlier and everyone seems excited. Seniors begin to get their acceptance letters from colleges. They also seem to stop working on high school. Between February and April vacations there are no 3 day weekend breaks, a sharp contrast to Fall.
When students return from April vacation, the cycle kicks into its final days. For underclass students, there are exams to think about. For seniors there is graduation with marching practice, class days, parties, and proms. The days are warmer and everyone wants to be outdoors getting fresh air except by May, the black flies have arrived. It’s time to look back over the cycle and reflect. I start digging out supply catalogs and ordering. I am hoping that the budget gets passes by the community so I can buy a new textbook. I’ve been working from one series since I arrived here 2 years ago, and it is too advanced for my students. I start reviewing for end of the year final exams and encouraging those on the borderline to try a little bit harder. During the final weeks of school, I must decide on student awards. This is the school’s last community event it will host. We award students in hopes recognize student achievement and effort and to motivate them and their classmates to do well next year. Then it’s the last day of school. Everyone wants out. I say good-bye to students and wish them a good summer vacation. Some of them I know I will never see again. I return to my empty room, take down the classroom decorations so maintenance can paint the walls, and wonder how many more years I will put myself through all of this? Then I go away for the summer, relax, think about how I can do better teaching next year, knowing that the cycle will start up again just before September.
Input, Throughput, and Output Events: Human, material, and constraint inputs enter the system from the outside, subsystems within the organization convert the inputs, and the school demonstrates successful conversion through informing the outside of its contribution. (Hanson, 117)
Jed Petsinger, Principal of Milinocket Middle and Stearns High Schools, confirms my impressions of the important community marketing events. “We are very community driven here. If there is a vocal group in the community, it tends to influence what gets done at our schools. There is a large arts booster club, eg., and any time someone talks about cutting music or art from the curriculum, we hear about it. There will be a community outcry if we are considering cutting the middle school B basketball team, but unfortunately, if we cut a math teacher from the program, there will not be nearly as much hoopla over it. Of course, then we have the State and Federal governments telling us we need to teach math, so that’s another influence we try to address.” Petsinger has learned all too well the importance of understanding of the influences that affect his schools. As a principal, he has to work around them to try to make as much learning happen as possible. Those influences from the outside are called “inputs” by Hanson. The inputs he feels that most affect what courses go on at the school are government education departments and the community’s desire to have successful sports and arts programs. “We do hear for a little while if student test scores are low, but it’s nothing like arts and sports. In this community, there is a strong desire to keep our facility in top-notch level. The community uses it for a variety of events, adult ed, etc. The community takes a lot of pride in its gymnasium, football stadium, auditorium, and the school building. They will always vote for money to maintain these resources.”
A Balance-of-Systems Concept: Outside and inside forces create a web of interlocking resources which maintain the processes and products of the organization. (Hanson, 118)
Petsinger’s remarks shed a little light on why so much emphasis is placed on tournaments, dances, and festivals at this school. It’s the input that the community supports and the school wants to demonstrate that it has produced a good program. The school works at creating a “throughput” which attempts to match the desires of the vocal members of the community. That community votes at budget time for funding. “As long as we have champion sports teams and musicals, the community is happy,” Petsinger states. These events are carefully staged to demonstrate what was produced, or “output” in the school.
When a school understands the important desires of its external environment and is able to demonstrate success, a balance is created. The outside influences support the school financially and politically, therefore enabling the school to continue educating students. Inside the school, during the daily to annual cycle of events, these large community events are not that all encompassing. From the inside, teachers and students are producing learning, knowledge, and skill. A very small percentage of the student/faculty body is actually involved in creating the showcase events. But the importance of star athletes and musicians in the student body cannot be stressed enough. Their work is vital since it links the school’s output to the input desires of the community.
Schools who are dependent on their community relationships also know that showcasing the best of the school towards the beginning of the end of the cycle is economically advantageous, too. This is funding season, the time year when Maine communities must face difficult decisions about how they will appropriate money to their schools. By demonstrating the value of the product the schools are creating, the schools are seeking to motivate the outside influences which enable the school to exist.
Environmental Fragmentation: Conflicting demands and levels of contributions from the inputs creates organizational fragmentation. (Hanson, 120)
The local community is only one source of input to the school. Even though financially, it may give much less support than state and federal resources, it’s influence is large because it the community is the closest proximity to the school. Local businesses, parents, booster groups are frequently in the school, have access to political grapevines, and access to administration, teachers, and students. But the community’s expressed desires are a small part of what schools attempt to achieve, their throughput. The major inputs on a school come from state and federal legislation and departments of education. In rural schools, these input are the major sources of educational funding. They create the laws and training programs which produce the certification requirements for teachers and administrators. They create minimum standards and push for accountability in education. What happens to the school when the demands of different inputs creates conflict?
The answer can be found in the school’s cycle of events. On a day to day basis, teachers are teaching curriculum standards; they are using assessments learned from their professional development activities. They are producing the throughputs which are essential for satisfying external influences from beyond the local boundaries. When large showcase events occur in the school, one doesn’t see a lot of faculty members attending. Instead teachers are trying to satisfy AYP, the Maine Learning Results. There is an apparent fragmentation among the demands. Schools are constantly choosing how to meet as many demands as possible. In small schools there is a limit.
The number of extra curricula activities which might serve to promote the school to more inputs has a limit. With a small faculty and small student body, choices have to be made. Choices are like consumer spending. Which activities will give the school the most community goodwill while producing the highest level academics? In the communities where I teach, eg., foreign culture is not an important value. The urgency to belong to a global economy or to communicate with large populations of immigrants has not reached these mill towns. Look at foreign language enrollments in my schools and it’s like looking in a mirror of community values. The students who take foreign language are usually college-prep students. Universities influence American high schools a great deal. But if post secondary education isn’t a community value, then the school doesn’t require all students to take foreign language. The State of Maine attempted to require all students to take foreign language by legislating it through the Maine Learning Results. Yet, when the State had no money to enforce their decision, and funding fell back to the local community, one quickly saw the disappearance of the Maine Learning Results requirement. Now if a foreign investor bought the paper mill and suddenly all the management positions where in Spanish, I predict there would be a sudden push to take Spanish classes. Choices are driven by availability and demand, just like in the consumer world.
Elements of Open and Closed Systems and Finding Organization Equilibrium: Organizational balance is achieved by finding the appropriate level of accepting input from the environmental factors for maximum efficiency or quality.
I asked my colleagues at Schenck High School about which community influences they believed affected the school the most. There was the expected boosters and town leadership reply. But I was surprised to find out that most of my colleagues felt that they were more influential in the community than vice versa. “We tell them what to do,” explains Kim. “We don’t really have much pressure here at this school.” From these teachers perspectives, the school was more closed to outside influence than Stearns High School. Part of the reason, I believe they said this was not understanding the question I was asking. I have sat in several teacher’s meeting over the past year and heard a lot of frustration about trying to write curriculum to Maine’s standards. A month ago, the school board felt it prudent to address all the district teachers about an impending budget short fall from the State. That didnt’ happen at Stearns. I think the perception in this school is that when it comes to making educational decisions, in classical bureaucratic fashion, the faculty takes its marching orders from the State and they expect the community to trust the professionals to interpret and apply the requirements.
Each school has found a balance in the level of pressure it accepts from the outside. Some schools like to or need to let in more inputs than others. Schenck faculty perceived itself on the closed end of the spectrum when it came to letting the community influence its daily or annual cycle of events. Stearns needed to be more open to the community.
With the open theory perspective in mind, I can quickly turn to social system theory which depends on the formal and informal relationships of the people in my sphere of influence. These people are sometimes the cause agents of the problem and sometimes they are the solution agents to the problem. The trick is to know and understand what needs these people have and whether it is advisable for me to use my influence as the school leader to help them meet there needs: quid pro quo is a political theory that has been understood as long as people have gathered together in social groups.
The limits of open theory system with its reliance on motivating the input agents affecting me are time constraints. Whenever I have to rely on others to get things done, it will take time. Another limit is that the solution that others come up with may not be workable for me. Just as quickly as I put on my social system hat, I may have to take it off and replace it with the bureaucratic “person in charge” hat. If a problem needs immediate attention or if the influences of the input agents are contrary, counter-productive, or even harmful to my school and me, I will need to take back on the boss role.
if I am the boss in a school in northern Maine, I have to understand what is important to my community and be ready to find ways to satisfy the needs of the school’s input agents in order to assist in the financial and personal operations of the school. Things like proms and sports games may not seem important to the educational development of my students, but they are to my community, so I am going to try to give these things to them.
This weekend I saw in our local weekly paper an interesting Letter to the Editor. It was from a family member of a Schenck Boy’s Basketball team. The leader traced the winning heritage of one of the players back 50 years or so. The boy’s father and uncles had been on a state championship team, their father and his brothers had also brought state titles back to the community. This is important to people because, for many, it’s the highlight of their lives, their moment in the sun. When else will most of my students ever play in the Bangor Auditorium on a televised broadcasts? when else will my students have a reason to dress up in beautiful dresses and tuxedos? When else will my students perform before a dozen other schools on stage? For many, the sad truth is that they will graduate and enter the labor force. There aren’t many moments for working class employees to shine. As the principal, I know that if I could just get my students to continue their education beyond my walls, the opportunities for more shining moments in these kids lives will happen. It will be different, however. Most likely they will never be in the NBA, win an Academy Award, or be the star/hero of a community again.
Not only do school years move along as a cycle of starts and finishes, but my kids’ lives also do the same. They finish their school years. Unfortunately for too many, the 13 years was a negative experience that reinforced to them before their community that they were a “loser”. They go on with the cycle of their lives, running or hiding from that stigma. As a teacher or as a principal, I want to be a positive memory on the road map of their lives. I need all the theories to connect together to make that happen.
When I view my school as a network of connected systems, I will have a powerful paradigm for managing conflicts and solving problems. First, I have to understand that other systems are “permeating”, or influencing, my school. These influences can create negative or positive inputs. If the inputs are negative, they must be managed. This can be done by addressing them head on or by deflecting them through other inputs. In either case, it would be wise of me to recognize the perspectives of the outside or inside systems and their needs and wants. After recognizing that an issue exists, I need to determine how it will affect my school and if it’s something I have the power to do anything about. If so, through conscious effort, I determine how I will deal with the issue: do I give voice to the problem? do I drag it along until it goes away? do i encourage coalitions to form around the problem? These strategies make sense if I understand the underpinnings behind the issue and the needs and wants of those creating the demands. It allows me to “penetrate the buffer” by letting reoccurring issues settle back down, addressing the issues quickly, going up or down the administrative hierarchy for help, finding an ally within the input group to assist me in dealing with the problem, or removing the problem altogether. Another stage of problem-solving is to figure out who to give the issue to. Do I give it to teachers? parents? The more voices given responsibility over the problem, the better my chances of finding a solution to it or letting the problem die down with time. In either case, people will be glad to have been given an opportunity to be heard.
The second lesson that I take away from Open Theory System is that as a school administrator I should develop thicker skin and a stiffer backbone. Schools are composed of people not machines. People and their social interactions will cause problems. This happens because every person sees the world through slightly different lenses. Everyone has reasons and solutions for input into my school. This causes a variety of behaviors that cannot always be predicted. The only thing I will truly ever know for certain about how the day will unfold is that something WILL happen–students will disrupt, parents will complain, the media will look for their story.
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