Leading Schools During Crisis: What School Administrators Must Know

305 Pages·2010·0.94 MB·English

by  Matthew J. Pepper

Leading Schools
During Crisis
What School Administrators
Must Know
MATTHEW J. PEPPER,
TIM D. LONDON,
MIKE L. DISHMAN, AND
JESSICA L. LEWIS
Published in partnership with the
American Association of School Administrators
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD EDUCATION
A Division of
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham (cid:129) New York (cid:129) Toronto (cid:129) Plymouth, UK
Published in partnership with the American Association of School Administrators
Published by Rowman & Littlefield Education
A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowmaneducation.com
Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2010 by Matthew J. Pepper, Tim D. London, Mike L. Dishman, and
Jessica L. Lewis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission
from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leading schools during crisis : what school administrators must know / Matthew J. Pepper . . . [et al.].
p. cm.
“Published in partnership with the American Association of School Administrators.”
ISBN 978-1-60709-343-5 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-60709-344-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
— ISBN 978-1-60709-345-9 (electronic)
1. School crisis management—United States—Case studies. I. Pepper, Matthew J., 1977– II.
American Association of School Administrators.
LB2866.5.L43 2010
371.2’07—dc22 2009029552
(cid:2) ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO
Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
To my parents, my first and most influential teachers—mjp

To my coauthors, for helping to make my first book something to be proud
of; to the family I am lucky to have; and to all of my teachers—in title and
otherwise—who helped me get to this point in my life—tdl
To Leland and Rita Dishman, who dedicated their lives to the education of
children—including this one—mld
To my husband, two beautiful children, and mother for supporting me in
this endeavor. They provided me with the utmost encouragement, as they
have done countless times throughout my life. And to my coauthors, for their
invaluable insight and hard work—jll

Contents
Foreword ix
Preface: Leading Schools During Crisis xiii
Acknowledgments xvii
1 Understanding Leadership During Crisis 1
Moving from Common Notions of Crisis Toward a School Context
External-Unpredictable
2 “The Birds Were on Fire” 17
How Manhattan’s P.S. 234 Functioned on 9/11
3 “It Was an Area That Was Highly Devastated—
It . . . Received Eight or Nine Feet of Water.” 35
How New Orleans’s George Washington Carver High School
Rebuilt After Hurricane Katrina
4 “A Student [Came] Down and Said, ‘There’s a . . . Guy in the . . .
English Classroom with a Gun.’” 53
How Platte Canyon High School Survived a School Shooting
v
vi CONTENTS
Internal-Unpredictable
5 “I Thought, ‘Oh, God. This is Bad.’ Then I Found Out It Was
Much, Much Worse.” 73
How Greenacre High School Addressed the Discovery of Systemic
Grade Fraud
6 “He Kept Returning to ‘She Cost Me a Cow!’” 93
How H.W. Smith K–8 School Struggles to Integrate Somali
Bantu Students
Internal-Predictable
7 “I Think That We Finally Have the People That We Need to Get
the Job Done.” 113
How Johnson Elementary School Addressed Annual
Teacher Turnover
External-Predictable
8 “Very Typical Teaching Within a Large District—
Dysfunctional and Comfortable.” 131
How Sobrante Park Elementary School Capitalized on NCLB
9 “There Weren’t Enough Affluent White Kids to Spread Out.” 147
How Accountability Pressures Pushed Manual High School to
the Brink of a State Takeover
10 “ If You Want to Do Good, But You Don’t Want to Fight for It,
Then Go Raise Puppies.” 165
How LEAD Academy Overcame Bureaucratic Obstruction
11 “ You’re Not Going to Need That Money This Year, Right?” 181
How Franklin Career Academy Operated Without Promised
State Funding
12 “ You Begin to Make Progress After Three Years, and,
All of a Sudden, That Is Taken Away from You.” 201
How Woodland Elementary School Survived a Rezoning of
95 Percent of Its Students and Parents
CONTENTS vii
13 “It Was like a Steamroller. We Sort of Saw Things Coming
and We Couldn’t Prevent . . . It.” 221
How John Dewey High School Fought to Uphold Its Identity
Despite the Threats of District Policy
14 Six Principles for Leading Schools During Crisis 237
Appendix/Self-Audit: A School Crisis Inventory 253
Endnotes 265
About the Authors 283

Foreword
It is difficult for a school to shelter itself from the threat of crisis. Some schools
may enjoy relatively long periods of time without having to confront a cri-
sis, but no school is immune. As I write this foreword in the winter of 2009,
the United States as a nation is confronting a financial crisis of unknown,
but clearly momentous, proportions. Every institution of our society is be-
ing challenged, and the depths of those challenges remain to be seen. K–12
schools are no exception. As budget shortfalls mount, every school leader will
be challenged to keep their school effective. Schools are in for hard times.
How will school leaders manage these crises? I predict that school leaders who
study this volume will be more successful than those who don’t.
Leading Schools During Crisis is written for practicing or aspiring education
leaders—school leaders, superintendents, and school board members. The
authors offer a simple but useful typology for organizing the cases, applying it
as a lens to twelve school crises faced by school leaders. The authors’ approach
is analytic yet pragmatic, and the lessons to be learned are timely and power-
ful. They culminate in an ultimate message that an ounce of preparedness is
worth a pound of response. In the dozen cases examined, each school admin-
istrator successfully managing a crisis was ready—even for the unpredicted.
Forecasting and minimizing the unpredictable is a proven strategy to employ
in dealing with crisis. Toward that end, this book should go a long way.
ix