The Board Book by Dr Philip SA Cummins

Author:Dr Philip SA Cummins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CIRCLE
Published: 2014-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

AVOIDING PRINCIPALS ONLY BEING IN THE ROLE SHORT TERM

If a Principal and a school part company after five years, which we would view as a premature separation, this means that the school has a very short period during which the Principal can devote sufficient time to strategic thinking and planning. The period is about eighteen months out of five years. Three years is taken building up to full strategic effectiveness and, presumably, there may be six months during which the Principal knows that s/he will be departing. The situation is compounded because the next Principal will most likely take three years to reach full effectiveness. Hence, the school will have a Principal at full strategic effectiveness for perhaps 3½ years out of ten, that is assuming that there is no period with an Acting Principal. No school benefits from this.

Financial consequences

There may be both direct and indirect financial consequences of an early separation. The direct financial consequences are likely to be surprisingly small. Certainly, the costs of selection and appointment of a new Principal are not insubstantial, ranging between a third and half of the Principal’s annual salary package, depending on the thoroughness with which the process is undertaken. However, this cost is similar to the cost of the Principal’s study leave either during or at the end of a five year period. While retaining the Principal beyond five years is much to be preferred, the cost differential is not great.

The indirect financial consequences are difficult to quantify, but may be great. If the school undertakes little in the way of strategic planning and thinking for 6½ out of ten years it is likely both to miss opportunities and not to respond appropriately to threats. Either of these can produce adverse financial consequences. If failure to take up an opportunity results in the school’s enrolling, say, forty fewer pupils, this could mean forgoing $300,000 to $1,000,000 per annum in income. Expenses are unlikely to be able to be reduced anything like pro rata. If the school enrols forty fewer pupils for a period of five or six years this makes a big financial dent. What steps can be taken to maximise the chance that the new Principal the Board is selecting will hold office for a reasonable period, i.e. eight to twelve years, rather than a short one of five years or less?

The first step is to ensure that the Board is clear, and of one mind, about the directions in which it wishes the school to be led. If the Board does not have a strategic plan in place when it is about to appoint a new Principal then it should take the time to agree at least the first parts of it. These will be to state clearly the school’s purpose, to undertake a SWOT analysis and to develop a series of strategies. These strategies will be designed to build on the strengths, minimise the weaknesses, take advantage of the opportunities and negate the threats.

It will be quite

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.