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Reflection paper for Supervision

Dr. Tim Creal

Danny Janklow

4/18/07
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The effective administrator has many different supervisory roles within the

school. Administrators focus on service to teachers, as well as service to the students in

the school community as a whole. The roles of an effective administrator are vast and

diversified. Every day and every situation brings about a set of different issues and needs

within the local school community. School leaders focus on priorities, needs, and

assistance of both the effective and ineffective educators. Effective administrators are

able to balance the needs of the students, the needs of the teachers, and the needs of the

administration. The administrator maintains effective working professional relationships

with all staff members and administrative personnel, along with maintaining a healthy

and productive environment in which students learn. Effective administrators are able to

balance all of the needs of each of these categories, along with balancing his or her

mental health and stress levels. Not only will the administrator balance the needs within

the school community, they will also focus on building relationships within the local

community with parents, businesses and the media. Peter Senge, as quoted by Sergiovani

(1992) authors many ideas about systems within the school and systems around the

school. Peter Senge speaks about each system within the classroom, within each of the

departments and within the school as a whole, making up a larger school system. Within

Senge’s Systems Theory, he states, if there is dysfunction within one system, it creates

dysfunction within the whole system. When one system is running ineffectively, it will

cause other systems to be effective or efficient. Systems Thinking is, more than anything

else, a mindset for understanding how things work. It is a perspective for going beyond

events, to looking for patterns of behavior, to seeking underlying systemic

interrelationships which are responsible for the patterns of behavior and the events
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(Bellinger, 2004). This is just one of the many variables an administrator deals with

during any given school day.

Supervision is more involved than just evaluation and observation of teachers

practice. Supervision, as perceived by administrators, is a multi-faceted area with many

responsibilities and many variables within any given daily situation. If we view

supervision as service, it is difficult to see how supervisors can maintain rapport with

teachers if teachers perceive them as people who control their destinies. For supervision

to be successful, teachers want, or wish for the services of the supervisor and value the

trusting relationship that exists between them. Teachers need to feel the supervisor is

there to serve them and to help them become more effective teachers (Olivia and Pawlas,

2004). Trusting relationships are the key to being an effective administrator, if the

building has a climate of mistrust; it can take years to rebuild the trust to effectively

change the culture of the school. Teachers and students better respond to questions and

observations when they trust the person who is sharing their thoughts. If the relationships

do not have trust then people will not respond appropriately and without feeling harshly

judged. Olivia and Pawlas (2004) write, should the supervisor rate teachers and, having

rated them, report to the administrator? What does this do to the trusting relationship?

When this happens, what does it do to the teachers’ willingness to call on the supervisor

for help and to reveal their inadequacies? Administrators must be able to juggle the

relationships as well as the goals of the school. This will also apply to student teacher

who is being mentored by a more experienced teacher. Steven Rose, (1995) wrote don’t

think of student teaching as a drain on your resources. Think of it as a contribution to the

field-and a first hand look at a prospective employee.

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Not only will an administrator deal with the administrative duties but will also

deal with curriculum and ineffective teaching. When teachers and administrators work

together to outline the scope of the curriculum, giving significant attention not only to

what content will be included in the curriculum but also to the relationship between the

various segments of the curriculum. Olivia and Pawlas (2004) state they must strive to

implement the principle of balance. Balance implies that no portion of the curriculum

overwhelms another portion. When the principal deal with an ineffective teacher,

administrators carefully document all incidents and reasons for impending dismissals.

Aretha Pigford (1988) wrote, if a principal would like to raise the performance standard

at his or her school, two options can be considered: the principal can work closely with

the teacher to improve the teacher’s skills, or the principal can recommend the teacher’s

dismissal. Despite the fact that the objective (raising the performance standard of the

staff) may be accomplished using either option, certainly the preferred choice is to work

with the teacher to improve. When an administrator deals with ineffective teachers or

teacher misconduct, the principal takes the time necessary to gather all of the facts to

cover the procedures forthcoming. Before coming to the end of the line, effective

administrators exhaust all avenues of assistance to the struggling teacher. Motivating a

struggling teacher may be difficult but knowing what level the ineffective teacher is

having difficulty is a significant problem. The Situational leadership theory set forth by

Hershey and Blanchard allows for the effective administrator to provide the necessary

service to each educator to make them the best possible. The major difficulty is being

able to effectively judge which of the various levels the educators work within. Leonard

Schwartz (2001) states, a principal must take four steps to ensure due process for teachers
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accused of serious misconduct. The four steps are: take time to investigate, suspend rather

than discharge the teacher, give teacher notice of accusation, and finally give a full board

hearing. When a student accuses a teacher of serious misconduct, such as sexual

advances or physical abuse, you act quickly. If you don’t, the teacher could continue to

harm other students. On the other hand, if you act too quickly and discipline the teacher

without taking the time to find out whether the accusations are true, you could violate the

teacher’s rights and end us with a costly lawsuit, warns Texas attorney Leonard J.

Schwartz (2001).

The most important aspects of an effective administrator are the trust and

relationships built within the school community. Supervision is one key to providing

feedback to educators while guiding a school toward a desired objective. The observation

schedule or clinical supervision model is an effective tool to assist instructional leaders to

identify and target areas of need. Mary Jo McGrath (2000) states would-be school

reformers sometimes forget that the basic issue still comes down to how people get along

and how they work with each other. McGrath (2000) continues by saying recognizing the

human dynamics of the work and the school environment is at the heart of improving

adult performance and, therefore, student achievement. This phenomenon in human

dynamics exists everywhere and is not unique to teachers and administrators in

education. We all have a tough time taking and giving criticism. We all have that very

common fear of failure. School leaders willingly accept personal responsibility for their

own actions, but they often are uncomfortable holding others accountable for

performance results. They tend to focus on technological and curricular advances to

improve education, while virtually ignoring the willingness of school staff to hold
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themselves and others accountable for the results that indicate quality education

(McGrath, 2000). By focusing on trusting relationships the educational leader has the

relationship in place in order to constructively guide an inadequate teacher to the mastery

level. At this point an effective administrator can turn to Hershey and Blanchard, The

Situational leadership model and determine where the teacher is in terms of ability and

either direct, coach, support or delegate. Wherever the teachers’ ability may be, it is up to

the administrator to effectively guide the freshman teacher up to a level of confidence and

effectiveness. Without the relationship many issues will become much larger than

originally perceived, and only hamper the objective of the school as a whole.
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References

Olivia, P., & Pawlas, G. (2004). Supervision for Today’s Schools. New Jersey: Wiley
Jossey-Bass Education.

Schwartz, L. J. (2001). Take Five Steps to Ensure Due Process for Teacher Accused of
Serious Misconduct. School Superintendent’s Insider, 1-4.

Rose, S. W. (1995). How to Build a Better Teacher. The Executive Educator, 27-29.

Pigford, A. B. (1988). Teacher Dismissal: Secrets Principals Won’t Share. The School
Administrator, 227-228.

McGrath, M. J. (2000). The Human Dynamics of Personnel Evaluation. The School

Administrator, 34-38.

Bellinger, G. (2004). Systems Thinking: An Operational Perspective of the Universe.

Retrieved April 20, 2007, from Systems Thinking: A Journey in the Realm of
Systems. Web Site: http://www.systems-thinking.org/systhink.htm