The Scenario

You are a member of a school board for a medium-sized middle (junior high) school in a major western city. The city has experienced tremendous growth in the past 5 years, and as a result, the student body increased by 20 percent without much change in facilities and relatively limited increases in funding. The classrooms are overcrowded, much of the equipment is old, teachers have limited resources to enrich the curriculum, and the sense of direction is unclear. During the same time period, the school slowly developed one of the poorest records for student academic performance and drop-out rate.

Earlier to the past few years, however, the school held a well-established reputation as one of the most creative and academically sound schools in the city. Traditionally, parent involvement and interest in the school varied greatly. Similarly, the faculty is diverse in their approach, tenure, and backgrounds, but the majority demonstrate dedication to their students and are committed to the improvement of the school.

Because of a number of recent threats of lawsuits from parents over equal opportunity issues, several violent incidents among the students, and the poor academic performance, the principal was asked to resign. Many parents, teachers, and board members blame her for a laissez-faire attitude and what appears to be a total lack of direction and focus. Problems and complaints were simply not addressed and no plan articulated for dealing with the changes that the school was experiencing.

After a 2-month multistate regional search and interviews with a number of finalists, the school board narrowed its search for the new principal to two candidates.

Jerry Popovich is 40 years old. She holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in education administration with an undergraduate degree in computer science. She worked in the computer industry several years before teaching science and math. She worked as assistant principal in one other school and is currently the principal of an urban middle school on the West Coast. She successfully involved many business and community members in her current school. The board is impressed with her creativity and her ability to find novel approaches. She considers one of her major strengths to be the ability to involve many constituents in decision-making. She describes herself as a facilitator in the education process.