Problem Definition
This case focuses on one of the high recently opened high school in Illinois and raises the issues related to group behaviors and interpersonal behaviors including the lack of open conflict resolution. A housing system is being followed by the high school branches and the housemasters and the department heads do not want intervene in an interpersonal conflict. The case also highlights the inter group conflicts between the department chairmen and the housemasters.
In terms of immediacy first of all the new principle will have to look at the problems of the open conflicts between the housemasters and the department heads. Next the structural questions of the several housemasters and the department heads regarding the housing system organization will have to be addressed and lastly, all the value questions regarding the education quality, innovation and discipline will have to be addressed. These are the core set of the problems that is being encountered by David Kane, in his first week at the Thur good Marshall High School as its newly appointed principle.
List of Problems
The list of all the problems in terms of their importance at the Thur good Marshall High School is as follows:
- The most important problem that has been seen between all the houses in the school’s housing system is the conflict issue between the six subject area department heads and the housemasters. The conflicts between these two had emerged from the different interpretations associated with the curriculum policy of each respective house regarding the course content and the required learning. The conflict also included the issues with respect to the selection of the teachers, their performance evaluation and resource allocation.
- The second important and the significant problem facing the organization and Kane was the problem of violence. Many incidents had occurred of robbery and assault of the teachers. Assaults also included the school students and it had been found that outside people were involved in this and this resulted in security issues and fear among the faculty and the students.
- Another major problem that had been encountered by Kane was the decreasing and the low quality of the education. The achievement scores of the tenth and the ninth graders had declining during the opening of the school in the past two years.
- Another challenged that was being faced by Kane was due to the differences in the skill sets and the experiences of the four housemasters who were also the administrators.
Analysis of Problems
As highlighted in the previous sections there were many problems that were prevailing in the organization and now were being encountered by Kane. The analyses for each of the problems in the light of their causes of occurrences is done individually for each of the problems as listed above.
Conflicts between Department Heads and Housemasters
The first and the most important problem that had been identified previously has occurred as a result of the behavioral issues and conflicts between the department heads and the housemasters. This conflict had emerged as a result of different interpretations of both the groups regarding the learning outcome and the curriculum policy of the houses. The objectives of the housemasters and the department heads were not aligned. The housemasters had to encourage the department heads in order to assign certain teachers to the houses and the department heads had to convince the housemasters in order to offer certain courses.
One of the program from the organization’s C house was considered to be the most innovative of all the programs however, it had been not accepted by the heads of the departments as they said the program did not have the substance and it did not cover the curriculum guidelines and its requirements. Here the perception conflict is being observed between the department heads and the housemasters.
The conflicts also emerged between the two groups as a result of the allocation of the resources and the selection of the teachers for each of the house. Each of the housemasters of each of the house wanted the most dedicated and the best teachers for their houses and there was no agreement between the housemasters. This resulted in conflicts and this problem had become more severe in the second year of the school when 8 teachers had resigned and there were not enough teachers to fulfill the empty spaces in individual houses due to budget cutbacks. The conflicts became more fired when the flexible staffing policy had been implemented to fulfill the need for the teachers and one of the housemasters of C house, Wesley Chase had opposed this policy and argued to have his own teachers for his house.....................
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