RUNNING HEAD: Organization Analysis

Samantha Pedri
Organizational Analysis
SW 4020
March 4th, 2015

Organizational Analysis

The selected agency/organization is East China School District. The school

district consists of multiple elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, basic living
skills program, and an early childhood developmental program. This is a school district
so the main job is to educate and teach their children. The social work aspect is to make
sure each student is meeting their needs and learning, helping with disabilities, helping in
the home if needed, staying in contact with needs of the family, and continuous support.
There is only one specific outside service offered by the school besides the
individual support and family contact given. The service is called the Food Backpack.
This is a backpack that goes home with kids on the weekend filled with food for the
family. There is an application that gets sent out to families who may be in need or
financially struggling. The application process is able to determine how many people
there is to feed in the home. This is a great way to help make sure the child is eating,
eating healthy, and it is helping the family as a whole. There are services in the school
such as reduced lunch plans, so then the student can eat hot lunch at a discounted rate to
help the families out. They also have speech and occupational therapist in the school to
assist students to better their language, speaking skills, fine motor skills, and much more.
As a social worker, the services offered is to reach out to the student, staff, and
family to help address a problem, observe for a learning plan, or to record data for staff
and family. The social worker does a lot of different tasks at the school. As a social work
intern based on just an elementary school I have tasks such as: casework, diagnostic
evaluations, crisis interventions, classroom observations for student evaluations,
attending Individual Educational Plans (IEPs), case staffings, scoring teacher and parent
rating scales for Autism, the Conners for ADHD, the BES for emotional impairment,

Organizational Analysis

mentoring and working with an Ambassador Program, and involvement in the

developmental and monitoring of behavior management plans.
The jobs as a social worker in a school district range from very simple tasks, to
paper work, to attending meetings and so on. The above listed roles are just what I have
done at about two schools, now this is a district with at least seven schools and a
childhood development program. There are only two or three social workers working in
the district. The jobs are time consuming with the large caseload to each worker.
The schools mission statement is, Educating todays children for tomorrows
world. The agency is based on education, and this is a leading example of what is
expected for all of the students. The East China School District wants to be able to lead
the way in providing a great quality education along with opportunities and programs. It
ranges from academics, athletics, or in the arts, there are high expectations across the
board.
Goals stem from the mission statements, hoping that all students take their
learning as seriously as they can to maintain great grades, reach for honor roll or AP
classes, learn everyday skills, and even excel in sports and physical education. Every
schools goal is to teach students what they need to advance in the real world, whether it is
to prepare them for college, or give them the education they need to get a job.
Being a social worker in a school district, it is essential to remember and to keep
in mind when working with students, that these are the expectations that are set for
everyone. The school district proudly wants all students to excel and do not let disability,
age, or gender interfere with that statement. With the special education, cognitively
impaired, emotionally impaired, or autistic impairment, it is stressed that these students

Organizational Analysis

are kept on track. It is important to be understanding of these disabilities and help work
with the students to overcome and obstacles they may face.
The mission was determined by the schools superintendent, the school board, and
by the schools principals. These are the leaders of the school keeping these students on
track to being successful. It is a very simple mission statement given to address all ages
and grades. The goals are more morally stated. When working with my Supervisor with
this there is not written goals or specific goals to each school.
Each school obviously puts the mission statement first. For example though, the
elementary school that I am based at has posted around the school, Be Safe, Be
Respectful, Be Responsible. These are things that are expected and goals to get through
the day for each student. Each teacher will also set up goals expected for their classroom
that is shaped around behavior and shaped on education expectations.
Goals for the social workers and staff would be to follow the appropriate code of
ethics, to maintain ethically proper, to be honest, and to help the student achieve
positively in any way able. There has never been appoint to where either the students
goals, the agencies goals, or the staffs goals have been tested, proven wrong or
inappropriate, or have failed anyone. These are very simple life based goals that can help
a student inside school and outside and for their future. It can also help staff work with
others and for other jobs in the future.
The teachers and staff are great influences to follow these goals and reinforcing
why these things are expected of each other and from the students. Having a good staff to
remind these children why they are behaving a certain way and why there are expected
behaviors is important because they are able to better understand and know that there are

Organizational Analysis

reasons behind it. Hopefully by this they are able to take it home and into their futures
eventually.
The agency was not able to provide me with an organizational chart. It was very
difficult to keep in contact with my supervisor. Being at a school there are only certain
days and hours I can be in contact with certain people. My supervisor is only one of the
two or three social workers in the district so I barely see her around. Also, I had the
struggle of having multiple snow days. When we talked about the organizational chart
she said that we could quick make one and she was never able to find the time to work
with me on it.
So based on my knowledge I thought to put together a very simple chart. It starts
with the superintendent being the highest power (White Male), then his assistant (White
Female). After the superintendent there is the Board of Education, which has the
President (White Male), Vice President (White Male), four Trustees (two White Males,
two White Female), and a Secretary (White Female). After the Board of Education you
have the Principals to each school, if they have a vice principal, the teachers and staff,
then the interns.
The superintendent has the highest position of authority and yet is not seen very
often. The superintendent is in charge of the whole district, including all seven schools in
this particular school district. He has his assistant to help him out and he goes straight to
the school board, which he assists in choosing. He provides each school with principals
he trust and then helps provide staff to each school. When you are in the school itself, the
principal is the authority figure and all things go through her. After the principal it would

Organizational Analysis

the teachers, then the interns and volunteers. When we look to see who is above the
principal it will be the Board of Education, then the superintendent.
When working with a specific student, for me it is a fairly basic structure on how
to approach helping them. I go straight to my supervisor who is the social worker. Most
things are already planned out with and individual learning plan or behavior plan so if I
need help that is what I am referred too. In higher instances, you work with the students
teacher, and then the principal. The principal can over all make the final decision but the
teachers input is highly valuable in most instances.
Diversity within the school district is limited when it comes to culture, class,
social ranking, and ethnicity. With this agency you see diversity when it comes to
disability. It does not matter if it is a learning disability, an emotional impairment,
Autism, any form of Cognitive learning disability or developmental delay. The students
are either diagnosed or being observed and evaluated to be certified for a disability.
The staff barely ranges in diversity as well. At the school that I am based at it is
female staff besides one teacher. The principal, office staff, teachers, and interns are all
females besides one teacher. As you get into the middle schools and high schools you see
more male teachers. With looking at the school board all of the members are white, but
there are a fair amount of male and female representatives. It is unaware if any there are
any gay or lesbian staff members or students to my knowledge. It is also unaware if any
staff has a known disability. There are no staff members in the school I am in that have
any form of physical disability. The organization does not seem to face any issues of
oppression or have a minority. It simply just has a lack of overall diversity amongst its
staff inside the school.

Organizational Analysis

The reason the staff of the school board and school itself is not very diverse is
because of the population in which they live in. It is a very small country town down by
the lake. The schools have very little amounts of students in each school. It is a mainly
white population. There are also only a few students that attend that are of different
ethnicity. The area in which I am placed plays a huge role in the diversity of the school
district.
The agency was not able to provide me with an actually SWOT analysis. So with
little time with my supervisor we were able to develop some ideas to create our own
based on the social workers perspective. Strengths would include the positivity that the
community gives off to its residence. It is a clear message that the city is safe and open
and has much to offer. They have multiple community organizations to be apart of and
the school tries to keep up with that and show that they are a big part of the community.
Another great strengths of this agency are that they offer a great program to support
students and families especially with the early childhood program and the special
education department. There is a large need for these students and East China School
District supplies families and students with an amazing program.
The school districts weakness could also become their threats. Their major
weaknesses are that they are not a diverse school district. They have mainly female staff
with some male staff, but very little if at all diversity when it comes to color, age, or
sexual orientation. All though the district sees that it is just based on the location of the
school and the community views the situation; some may see it from an outside
perspective as discrimination. This could be a potential threat to the school district. Being
accused of something along the lines of discrimination is a very hard topic or accusation

Organizational Analysis

to deal with. Another weakness is that the school district has been trying to down size on
buildings and on staff. With a lot of talk it is scaring parents and angering staff.
Opportunities for the district would be to reach out more into the community and
the different thing that it offers. The schools already try to build a reputation into the
community but reaching out more would give them a better image. They have a lot to
offer and if they are apart of something more it will help develop a great name for them
and show what they can do for children. They are also giving opportunities to families
and to students. There are families who may be financially unable to pay for meals and
the school district offers what is called Food Backpacks, for the student to take home
and share with their families. This is helping families save money for bills and clothes.
The biggest threat by far for the school district is the fact that they are trying to
downsize. They have seven buildings and a lot of students to provide an education to
across the board and they want to close anywhere from two to three buildings. That is
putting teachers jobs at risk and also putting a childs education at risk because they are
going to be in a new setting with more kids in a room and less individual attention. This
also may scare parents into moving to a different school district. If the school closest to
them is the one closing, they may choose a different district that could be potentially
closer to them. They are at risk because they could potentially lose a lot of students.
Being that the school tries to reach out into the community, and is there for the
community, they get their clients from the community itself. The people who live in the
city closest and even cities around the area will become the agencies clients. The clients
that see individual help come from special education or impairment classes, and are
referred to by doctors or parents. The school district gets its students as simply as it goes.

Organizational Analysis

The school district works with a few organizations within the community such as
Chamber of Commerce, the community mental health, Down River Helping Hands,
Library system, Food Pantry, and Kids in Distress. For example, the food pantry donates
food to the Food Backpacks for kids with financially struggling families. This allows
them to have food on the weekends for not only themselves but also for their whole
family.
Critical theory is what I was able to best find fit the agency. It is more of a social
theory that aims toward critiquing and changing society. The school wants to take its
students and educate them to the best of their ability, to make these children successful. It
also helps better understand how the world works, and being able to teach these children
social skills, and life skills, is a very important part of this theory.
My recommendations to the school district would be to reconsider how they
downsize the school. It not only is affecting the teachers and the staff but it is also
affecting the students and their families. It has become a huge talked about issue amongst
the staff and will continue to be controversial until something happens. I think merging
the two elementary schools together in the same city is the best idea because it eliminates
only one building and they are right down the street from each other so it is not asking for
longer travel time. They have all of these strengths that they are putting on hold and at
risk just to downsize the spending and the schools. After evaluating the information
gained for this assignment that is one of my only recommendations to better the agency.
Also, gaining diversity never is a bad idea, it will better them to the community. I would
take this to the Board of Education and see if there is a way to petition or challenge what
they are expecting to do, and this would be my proposal. If it is shut down, I would

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petition on my own with the help of the community then take it back to the board for
reconsideration.

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