Instituting Change in a Catholic School I love change, in fact, I thrive on change. I love trying new curricula and learning new ways to do things. I also recognize that for most people, however, change is not easy, and seldom welcome. As principals we are in a position to bring change to our schools, whether it is a large-scale policy change from an external source, or a change from within the school itself, it falls on us to “sell the idea” to our staffs. School reform is the term used to describe change that is on a large scale, and originates from state legislatures, or other sources external to our individual schools. It’s the reform born of critics of the public school system who “have a propensity to depict schools as static bureaucracies,
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These strategies attempt to link the research and justification for change with the “practice of education” (Owens, 2015, p. 222), in an attempt to encourage collaboration and support for the change, and thereby ensuring success. The purpose of using an empirical-rational strategy for dealing with change is that by relating the research to the reality of educational practice, the time to effectively adopt the change is shortened. While power-coercive strategies impose sanctions on those who do not comply with the change, power-coercive and empirical-rational strategies are similar, as both believe that the best ideas come from sources outside of the organization. Normative- reeducative strategies embrace the idea that in order to affect change, the belief system in the organization has to change. Individuals within the organization will change in order to adapt to the new belief system. (Owens, …show more content…
No matter how excited we are, as principals, over some truly needed change, it is important to remember that we are in the business of managing people, each of whom is a child of God and should be treated with respect. So, we provide clear expectations. By doing this, we show our respect for our teachers by indicating who a change effects individual responsibilities and duties. We also give future certainty to the extent we can. As principals we understand that teachers need their jobs and any change that upsets this expectation requires effort on our part to allay fears. Furthermore, we need to allow our teachers some social interaction to reduce anxiety. As leaders of Catholic schools, we understand, maybe even better than our secular counterparts, the need for community and coming together in times of turmoil, to turn to each other and to God for guidance and support. Lastly, we need to allow our teachers some amount of control over the change and some participation in the
These strategies attempt to link the research and justification for change with the “practice of education” (Owens, 2015, p. 222), in an attempt to encourage collaboration and support for the change, and thereby ensuring success. The purpose of using an empirical-rational strategy for dealing with change is that by relating the research to the reality of educational practice, the time to effectively adopt the change is shortened. While power-coercive strategies impose sanctions on those who do not comply with the change, power-coercive and empirical-rational strategies are similar, as both believe that the best ideas come from sources outside of the organization. Normative- reeducative strategies embrace the idea that in order to affect change, the belief system in the organization has to change. Individuals within the organization will change in order to adapt to the new belief system. (Owens, …show more content…
No matter how excited we are, as principals, over some truly needed change, it is important to remember that we are in the business of managing people, each of whom is a child of God and should be treated with respect. So, we provide clear expectations. By doing this, we show our respect for our teachers by indicating who a change effects individual responsibilities and duties. We also give future certainty to the extent we can. As principals we understand that teachers need their jobs and any change that upsets this expectation requires effort on our part to allay fears. Furthermore, we need to allow our teachers some social interaction to reduce anxiety. As leaders of Catholic schools, we understand, maybe even better than our secular counterparts, the need for community and coming together in times of turmoil, to turn to each other and to God for guidance and support. Lastly, we need to allow our teachers some amount of control over the change and some participation in the