Miyoshi Juergensen

EDL 611: Field-Based Experiences

Reflection on a School Law Activity

My first activity was an interview with Dr. Clayburn, a well-respected school leader in

the district known for improving low performing schools; we discussed his perspective on

emerging ethical issues in school leadership as well as his personal experiences with ethical and

legal issues in schools. (See Appendix A for documentation of interview.) During our hour

conversation, Dr. Clayburn highlighted unethical and illegal behaviors related to

professionalism, school finance, and accountability. He also offered advice for how to prevent

and/or stop these behaviors through having oversight practices and building relationships with

teachers and students in order to stay informed about activities within and beyond the school’s

walls.

Of the several unethical behaviors we discussed, two were the most powerful. The first

was that the school was several thousand dollars in debt when Dr. Clayburn started as principal.

A close look at the school’s financial records showed that the bookkeeper was paying personal

bills from the school’s budget. Another major financial issue was parking income from athletics

events was being mishandled and embezzled. In terms of professionalism, Dr. Clayburn detailed

his challenges “getting people to do their job in excellence everyday” (S. Clayburn, personal

communication, November 29, 2017). These challenges spanned from being on time to

inappropriate relationships with students to a general culture of unethical behaviors. According

to Dr. Clayburn, these are the most prevalent ethical issues in school leadership. In all cases, Dr.

Clayburn facilitated the removal of the involved employee(s) from the school by transfer,

voluntary resignation, or termination in an effort to shift the culture and climate of the school. He
noted that the processes to remove faculty and staff can present their own set of challenges, but

the school board supported his efforts and methods to turn the school around.

As a result of our interview, I wanted to know more about how a school leader goes about

addressing unethical and illegal behaviors from a legal perspective. Being an instructional leader

whose responsibilities do not include personnel issues, I left our conversation acutely aware of

this gap in my understanding and abilities as a school leader. In an effort to close the gap, I

intentionally sought a second activity that would assist me in better understanding the legal

aspects of personnel issues. I obtained training materials from the Association of Alabama

School Boards regarding how to approach, respond to, and prevent personnel issues. (See

Appendix B for documentation of presentations.) The presentation, Personnel and Other Legal

Issues (2016), was conducted by Jayne Harrell Williams, Esquire who is General Counsel and

the Director of Legal Advocacy for the Association of Alabama School Boards. The

presentation, What Attorneys Want their Boards to Know (2017), was conducted by Carl

Johnson, a local Alabama attorney. The first training included updated information on the

Students First Act, Teacher Accountability Act, discrimination, nepotism, grievances, and

immunity; the second training sought to assist school boards with avoiding legal action and

embarrassment by looking closely at the decision-making process.

While the information in Williams’ (2016) presentation was helpful, I most appreciated

the practical applications for how to prevent and respond to personnel issues. Specifically, each

major section was followed by “Practice Pointers” designed to explain certain terms, identify

which responses are legally preferred to others, and provide templates for how to best

communicate with personnel about termination, suspension, and/or transfer. The section on

discrimination was problematic, however. Although consistent with Alabama’s code of ethics
(Alabama Department of Education, 2005), members of the LGBTQ community were not listed

as a protected group. As a queer woman and aspiring school leader, unfortunately I remain

unclear about how personnel issues related to sexual orientation of teachers and students can/

would be addressed in Alabama from ethical and legal perspectives.

Given our class discussions on both student and employee issues, Johnson’s (2017)

discussion on policy-making resonated strongly. Johnson actually recommends creating as few

policies as possible, building in flexibility, and adopting realistic performance measures. Johnson

further contends that if a policy is in place, it should be followed consistently. In addition,

Johnson offered several broader ideas related to how (emphasis mine) the decision-making

process should go. For example, Johnson stated, “Be less concerned with mastering legal

minutiae and more focused on adopting an approach to decision-making that reflects and projects

open-mindedness and patient, considered judgment” (p. 10). This kind of training was

particularly powerful in that it provided a framework for how to approach decision-making as a

thoughtful and critical school leader.

Ultimately, I expect both activities to significantly impact my decision-making processes

as a leader. Although Dr. Clayburn already serves as one of my mentors, we had not yet had a

conversation about ethical and legal issues until this assignment. Hearing his experiences and

how he chose to respond confirmed my perspective of him as an ethical leader and introduced

personnel issues and practices for dealing with them that I had not yet fully considered. In fact,

he explicitly advised to never receive or touch money from the school community; instead, the

school leader should appoint ethical colleagues to an oversight committee. I plan to employ this

practice because it speaks to my existing views on ethical school leadership regarding finances
and resources. In addition, distributing the leadership on this would signal to the school

community that ethical behavior is a community-wide expectation.

As far as the training materials, I plan to use both as guidance for how to address and

prevent personnel issues. Williams (2016) offered concrete examples and templates that I can use

with my schooling community to protect personnel as well as the school district. Similarly,

Johnson (2017) provided critical lampposts in the decision-making process for me to follow to

ensure fairness. As an ethical school leader, fairness and justice are a top priority; and, I

appreciate the reminder to be patient, thoughtful, fair, and inclusive in my decision-making

processes.

References

Alabama State Department of Education. (2005). Alabama educator code of ethics. Retrieved

from http://www.alsde.edu/sec/ee/Documents/Alabama_Educator_Code_of_Ethics.pdf

Johnson, C. (2017). What attorneys want their boards to know [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved

from

https://simbli.eboardsolutions.com/Documents/ViewDocs.aspx?S=70061&p=hMFi7A0B

r9aS4Mip9EjWQSiU/QMIveFnALmOznD4Rvfss3W4Ya8Lux8XGkw5ALDx&isEx=1#

elf_v1_TGF3IENsaW5pYyBQcmVzZW50YXRpb25z04466

Williams, J. (2016). Personnel and Other Legal Issues [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from

https://simbli.eboardsolutions.com/Documents/ViewDocs.aspx?S=70061&p=hMFi7A0B

r9aS4Mip9EjWQSiU/QMIveFnALmOznD4Rvfss3W4Ya8Lux8XGkw5ALDx&isEx=1#

elf_v1_Um9sZXMgYW5kIFJlc3BvbnNpYmlsaXRpZXMgT3JpZW50YXRpb2418
 Appendix A

Interview Documentation

Interviewer: M. Juergensen
Interviewee: Dr. Clayburn (pseudonym)
Location: Secondary school in Tuscaloosa City Schools district

• What ethical issues have you experienced since becoming a school leader?

• Professionalism (the ones he sees the most); expect this! “Getting people to do their job
in excellence everyday”

• Reporting absences

• Finances (bookkeepers, receipts, time)

• 8 years at current school as principal

• Best practices:
• read old financial reports; as an administrator, your books should be at 0 at the
end of every fiscal year; CO shouldn’t let this happen (be in the red, negative) ---
this is also unethical according him “MONEY WILL GET YOU IN TROUBLE;
NEVER TOUCH IT”; checking the bookkeeper to make sure she’s checking the
teacher (money receiver)
• hire/assign ethical people for oversight positions

• Inappropriate relationships with students

• Kids whisper; so have to have a relationship with them to find out what’s going
on
• Colleagues knew, but did and said nothing
• Culture of unethical behaviors

2. What do you think are some emerging ethical issues in school leadership?
(That you're thinking about/preparing for)

• Accountability getting bigger here; atlanta over again? Just measuring teachers by test
scores (hoping it doesn’t, but fearful it will). #s driven

• CO wants discipline #s lower, so people don’t report discipline issues

Appendix B
 Training Documentation

Note: I’ve only included the first slide of each presentation for documentation. If accessing this

document digitally, click here to access the complete Personal and Other Legal Issues

(Williams, 2016) presentation. Click here to access the complete What Attorneys Want their

Boards to Know (2017) presentation.