Administrators' workload and worklife
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Date
2004
Authors
Tink, Garry C
University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Education
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Education, 2004
Abstract
The primary purpose of this project was to investigate the extent to which schoolbased
administrators in Foothills School division spend their time attending to matters
of instructional leadership, organizational leadership, and human resource leadership.
A secondary purpose was to ascertain whether the expectations for school-based
administrators are consistent with the roles and responsibilities outlined in policy; if
policy actually guides administrators' work lives; and the scope and quality of any
discrepancies between expectations and reality. Administrative participants in this
project completed an initial survey, and then engaged in writing a journal of daily
activities for a period of two consecutive weeks. Data were analyzed qualitatively
(thematically) and quantitatively. The study findings show that the job of a schoolbased
administrator is unique to its context, multifaceted, and unpredictable. The
results also show that policy is in place to provide structure and legitimacy, but does
not appear to have much influence on the day-to-day events of administrators'
worklives. School based administrators spent the greater part of their day focusing on
instructional leadership but, for a majority of the participants in this study, over half
of this time was spent in their own classrooms, teaching in isolation. Teaching loads
for administrators are increased in smaller rural schools, making it even more difficult
for them to spend the amount of time they felt they should spend on the other areas of
instructional leadership. Organizational leadership time was focused on student
supervision and discipline, building school-community connections, school plans, and
internal communication with staff. Human resource leadership time was mainly
focused on the school's professional development plan and the hiring and orientation of new staff members. Personal professional development was reported as being
sparse, most often occurring in isolation from individual schools and staffs. The study
shows a need for administrators to set time aside in their daily schedule for
instructional leadership, and to have this instructional leadership evolve from system
goals, filtering down into school goals, and into individual growth plans. An
unanticipated outcome of this study was that, before they paid close attention to their
use of time, most administrators were unaware of how much time they spent on
certain activities, and most were unaware of just how much work they attempted and
accomplished in a two-week period. The results of this study have implications
particularly for all school jurisdictions in which administrators have teaching
responsibilities.
Description
ix, 71 leaves ; 29 cm. --
Keywords
School administrators -- Alberta -- Workload , School personnel management -- Alberta , School administrators -- Alberta -- Time management , School management and organization -- Alberta