By Earl Moxam, Senior Gleaner WriterSOME SCHOOL principals, reeling from the impact of a recent report on generally poor academic performance, want to be afforded more time to focus on instructional leadership in their schools.
To accomplish that, many of the principals believe the Ministry of Education will need to approve the appointments of specialist plant managers for each school, freeing the principal to concentrate on the academic side of the school's administration.
The lobby is being led by the Reverend Barrington Buchanan, principal of Black River High School in St. Elizabeth, whose thesis on the issue has been well received by his colleague principals.
The Rev. Buchanan, in his doctoral thesis for the University of Bath in England, supports previous findings, internationally, that "the effectiveness of the school depends on the availability of the principal to lead the staff in planning, implementing and evaluating improvements in the school's curricular and co-curricular activities".
Regarding the local situation, he argues that the principal is engaged in "so many aspects of life in the community and the school that we have had to delegate the role of instructional leadership to somebody else, like a vice-principal or a senior teacher."
BRIEFED FROM TIME TO TIME
Under those circumstances, he claims, the principal is only briefed from time to time as to what is happening "and we ourselves occasionally get the time to really observe classroom teachers at work and to make suggestions as to how we think things could be done differently, in the interest of improving students' performance."
Asked whether this was a choice the principals made, the Rev. Buchanan told The Gleaner that engagement in other activities was not optional.
"It is the various demands which the educational regulations make on the time of the principal the crossing of the Ts and the dotting of the Is; gathering of data, working finances, and seeing to the upkeep of the school plant," he said.
The solution, he argued, rested with the Ministry of Education "delegating ultimate responsibility for these aspects and leaving the principal, not exclusively with, but primarily with the instructional leadership function".
Dennis Kelly, principal of Charlie Smith High School in Kingston, agrees with the Rev. Buchanan's argument.
"The reality of the situation forces us to be fund-raisers and all kinds of other things, leaving us little time to be the instructional leader," he said.
Paul Adams, former president of the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) and the current principal of Herbert Morrison Technical High School in St. James, vigorously supports the call for specialist plant managers to be appointed for each high school.
"The solution to the instructional leadership problem is definitely to be found in a modernisation of the organisational structure in schools, in whereby plant management is done by a separate individual with a specific job description," he told The Gleaner.
Mr. Adams is already being guided by the conclusions of the Buchanan thesis (which the author will be returning to the University of Bath shortly to defend) at Herbert Morrison.
"I have used the study to the benefit of the school in that I am putting my assistant bursar in charge of the plant and my two vice-principals will take administrative management while I do the senior instructional leadership and supervision, starting with those students who will be doing the external exams next year."
IN THE TOP 10
Hampton High, the St. Elizabeth-based boarding school for girls, emerged in the top 10 of the 148 schools ranked last month by Dr. Dennis Minott and Keisha Martin of the A-QUEST education group, based on results in the CXC examinations.
Nevertheless, Heather Murray, principal of the Hampton, agrees wholeheartedly with the Rev. Buchanan that she and her colleagues need more time for instructional leadership.
"I find that in the majority of our schools that the principal has to spend so much time attending to disciplinary matters, development of the plant and other matters that we don't spend enough time developing the curriculum as we should. We frequently have to have one of our vice-principals acting as curriculum leader and this I think the principal should be spending time doing because this is what schools are primarily about."
