EDUL 639 Human Resources Development!

Michael Johnson!
Personal Reflection!

S3f,g,h: A school Administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all!
students by advocating, nurturing, and sustaining a school CULTURE and instructional
program conducive to students learning and staff professional growth. !

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If anything can be said about districts and how they develop and maintain their

school culture, it would have to be variety. Through the process of research during
EDUL 639, it became clear that districts clearly went about building and adopting staff
handbooks in multiple ways. It also appears that depending on how a district chose to
develop it, resulted in differences in how the teaching staff responded to the adoption.
Advocate, nurture, and sustain are words in Administrative Standard #3 that are
important to the learning environment of our children; some districts are failing to
emphasis those benchmarks.!
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It was interesting to me to learn how the School District of La Crosse had went

about its handbook development. I appreciated the fact that much of what was found in
our former contract can still be found in the handbook. It appears to me that many
districts chose not to include any staff members in the development of such an
important document. As a future administrator, if outside the District of La Crosse, I will
most likely be coming into a situation were the document has been in place, whether it
is a positive for the district employees could be something I will need to educate myself
on. Defending a document that you may not be fully apprised of will require a certain
amount of tact.!
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It became clear through our discussions and activities that district hire differently

as well. It appears that screening tools are an important part of the La Crosse process,

but not necessarily as important in other districts. Smaller rural schools are having a
more challenging time getting candidates to show interest in their school system. Not
that they desire to hire less effective educators, but when you are only getting one or
two candidates to even show interest it requires a different process from when you have
double digit interest. !
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Consistency in the hiring process is something that I felt like I was aware of but

now I have a much clearer picture as to why you have to be so diligent in the hiring
process. I have learned that it is critical to protect yourself and your district from
lawsuits based on preventable events. At the end of the day we all want what is best for
the students and that will mean using the tools available to the profession to correctly
and efficiently put the best person in place to do what they have been trained to do.
Once we have them in place we can use out staff development to help them be even
better.!
S4f: A school Administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all!
students by ensuring MANAGEMENT of the organization, operations, and resources for
a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment. !

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To be an effective administrator I found I will need to be able to translate district

initiatives established by the upper management in a way that leads to an efficient and
effective learning environment. It was stated several times this past week that we would
need to act as buffers to our staff in order to protect them form the things that get in the
way of them doing their job in the most effective manner. !
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Education is the first step to success. When initiatives come down from upper

management, I would need to fully understand them myself before I present them in a
way that requires action by my staff. I would want to be able to answer question in a

manner that allows for efficient implementation of effective strategies. If it appears to

my staff that I am not familiar with the goals and direction set by upper management;
the effectiveness of the school will suffer, learning will suffer.!
S6f,g: A school Administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all!
students by acting with INTEGRITY, with fairness, and in an ethical manner. !

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I heard several times over the past few days that good people make bad

decisions that need to be dealt with in a way that is just and ethical. Stick to the
problem and solution; stay away from personal attacks, as those will get you and the
district in a lot of trouble. We discussed the NEAT method of informing your staff
member of problems should they arise. NEAT stands for Notify, Explain, Assist, and
Time. Notify your employee that there is a problem and explain what the problem
behavior is. Offer assistance to help them avoid future problem behavior and establish
the amount of time they will have to correct such problems. !
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Districts put a lot of time and money into the hiring, training and retention of staff.

It will do us no good to call people out in front of others and expose issues to the
general public. If we handle our discretions in private, focusing on the problem not the
person, there is a better chance that the individual who made a mistake will continue to
help the school realized its mission/vision. The opposite could lead to dissension
among the staff and a much longer path to fulfilled goals.