Public Relation Role of School Leaders

Introduction

Effective public relation programs in schools can improve the performance of students and as a result, public relation is something that the schools and the community should engage in. Every teaching staff should make an effort to contribute to the public perception of the school system. The school system should be designed in such a way that the teaching and the non-teaching staffs can discuss topics that should include increasing family involvement and formation of a positive school culture. Quality leadership can be effective when the school administrators can implement an effective public relation program. For effective public relation of school leaders to be achieved, all school administrators should foster positive school-community relationships at all levels, including the teaching staffs and the support personnel. The paper will identify seven articles discussing the public relation role of school leaders and attempt to identify some of the weaknesses of each article. All the school leaders should be involved in planning, implementing and evaluation of the public relation programs so as to promote positive student-community relationship.

Scott, N.M. (2008). School Public Relations: Personnel Roles and Responsibilities. Journal of School Public Relations, 29(3), 345-359

The article emphasizes the importance of the functions of the human resource in the school system. In particular, the article explains that effective implementation of public relations can be achieved when there is quality leadership among the administrators, the education professionals and the classified staffs. More emphasis is given to the school administrators to engage in positive school-community relationship at all level of the school administration, that is, teachers, principals, support personnel, and school superintendents. As a result, the article proposes that effective public relation can be achieved by employing certified and qualified human resource directors, school principles and classroom teachers.

The article is effective in addressing public relation leadership through involvement of qualified teaching personnel. However, one of the articles weaknesses is that the research findings were based on few districts; as a result, the conclusions made from the research were not based on empirical findings.

Gardiner, M.E., & Enomoto, E.K. (2006). Urban School Principals and Their Role as Multicultural Leaders. Urban Education, 41(6), 560-584

The article focuses on the role of the urban school leaders as the multicultural leaders. The article focused on six practicing principals and evaluated their role in relations to the multicultural leadership. After conducting research, the authors of the article found that the six leaders lacked the preparation for the multicultural leadership; despite they were involved in promoting diversity in their daily activities. All the six leaders were involved in reaching out to the refugee communities, and developing learning programs for each individual for assisting them in the learning process. The article found that because of the multicultural program leadership that they were extending to the refugees and immigrants; this had a positive impact on the students’ achievements. The main limitation of this the study was the use of a general example to support the findings. In order to strengthen the study, Gardiner and Enomoto should have given an example of a situation where the multicultural leadership strengthened the school-community relationship.

 

Stevenson, H. (2006) Moving towards, into and through principalship: developing a framework for researching the career trajectories of school leaders. Journal of Educational Administration, 44(4), 408 -420

The article focused on the increasing tension and pressure on the school principals to meet the meet the diverse range of social objectives. The article focused on the accountability of the school principals in meeting the high-pressured expectations of the students’ parents, by using the limited resources and, in the increasing uncertainty of the complexity of the education system. The article argued that the beginning principals experienced tension when trying to meet the demands of the parents, and that the principal’s ability to reconcile these tensions depended on their public relation skills. The paper suggested that skills such as individual career path and personal socialization were the factors that would strengthen the leadership skills of the principals in managing the expectations of the parents. However, the article was based on some findings that were two decades years. There may be many changes that could have occurred on leadership developments over those years. The paper should have relied on current research findings for it to be credible.

Erzikova, E. (2010). University teachers’ perceptions and evaluations of ethics instruction in the public relations curriculum. Public Relations Review, 36(3), 316-318. DOI: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2010.05.001

The paper focused on the present state of teaching ethics that applied to public relation leadership in university public relation departments in the United States. The study was done on an online survey and Erzikova found that 249 number of public relation teachers thought that ethics were important in PR. They believed that a close tie between professional ethics and general morality would provide favorable attitude between them and the public participants. Overall, the article concludes that the value of ethic in PR teachers will improve the academic performance of the students. One notable limitation is that the study was conducted on one university, and the researcher used it to come up with the general conclusion for all the teaching practices. The study could have been strengthened by conducting similar studies in different schools.

Maxcy, B.D., & Nguyen, T.S.T (2006). The Politics of Distributing Leadership

Reconsidering Leadership Distribution in Two Texas Elementary Schools. Educational Policy, 20(1), 163-196

The paper focused on democratic school governance using case studies from two schools in Texas. The paper indicated that the school administration problematizes the conventional distributed leadership by practicing a managerial slant leadership in the school frameworks. It was found that the primary concern of leaders of the two schools was to portray accountability to the stakeholders (community), than was often true. The paper found that the school leaders were giving the notion to the community that the overall performance was as a resulted distributed leadership. However, this was not true. The article proposed the school leaders needed to get involved in deliberative community building activities so that they could ensure responsiveness of the distributed leadership. However, the article used two case studies to generate their finding which makes it to be unreliable. The research should have been based on different case studies in order to generate empirical findings.

 

 

Erdogan, B., Liden, R.C., & Kraimer, M.L. (2006). Justice and leader member exchange: the moderating role of organizational culture. Academy of Management Journal, 49(2), 395–406

Erdogan, Liden & Kraimer hypothesized that organizational culture maintained the relationship between the leadership-membership exchange and the justice perception. From a sample of 516 in 30 high schools in Turkey, they found that some leaders maintained an organizational culture based on respect for other people. They emphasized that effective public leadership relied on respecting people. In other schools, they found that team orientation resulted in leader-member exchange between the teachers and the people. One weakness of the research is that it relied on sources which were very old such as some from 1967; making it unreliable since it does not reflect on the current issues. The article should have relied on current sources to make it more credible and reliable.

O’Reilly, F.L., & Matt, J.J. (2013). Public Relations Opportunities for Schools Utilizing Innovations in Virtual Communities. Journal of Education and Learning, 2(2), 139-143

The article emphasize on the importance of schools and organizations for being able to communicate information in public. In qualitative national study that was conducted in the United States, the researchers found that the comments of the virtual communities influenced the image of the school district public relations. They identified the school superintendents as examples of the virtual communities and proposed the school leaders to take a proactive approach to improving school’s public relation by involving the virtual communities. The researchers used linear sampling method for the qualitative research; as a result, this could lead to false responses from the respondents and subsequently, subjective interpretations. They should have used random sampling method of collecting information in order to avoid subjective responses of the superintendents.

Comparing and contrasting the seven articles

All the seven articles share some similarities; on the other hand, each article is unique in its approach to public relation role of the school leaders. Some common features present in the articles include the emphasis on the involvement of all the teaching and the non teaching staff. They propose that effective public relation image can be attained when all the school leaders participate in creating positive relationships with the communities. All the seven articles also share the same goal. They propose that effective public relations by the school will leader to improvement of the students’ performances.

However, there are contrasting characteristics among the seven articles and which make them to be unique from each other. Scott (2008) suggests that employing quality leaders who are skilled and certified in the school’s human resource department, can lead to positive school-community relationships. Gardiner & Enomoto (2006) uses the multicultural leadership in relation to refugees and immigrant communities and suggest that student academic performance can be improved by integrating these aspects in school leadership. Stevenson (2006) develops the argument that the principals’ social skills and career path are the most essential elements pertaining to the ability to reconcile the rising tensions and pressure of the expectation of the students’ parent. Erzikova (2010) explains that school leaders can develop good public relations by following ethics such as showing respect to the people. Maxcy & Nguyen (2006) encourage all school leaders to ensure they express accountability involving in community building activities. Erdogan, Liden & Kraimer (2006) argue that school leaders should portray good public relations by developing a school culture that is based on respecting people. Lastly, O’Reilly & Matt (2013) argue that school leaders should have effective communication skills in order to strengthen the school relationship with local stakeholders.

Conclusion

Overall, school leaders can develop effective public relations by ensuring accountability of their actions correspond with the expectations of the communities. Other element of public relations such as, communication skills, effective school governance and involvement of the virtual communities can foster good relationships between the schools and the communities.

References

Erdogan, B., Liden, R.C., & Kraimer, M.L. (2006). Justice and leader member exchange: the

moderating role of organizational culture. Academy of Management Journal, 49(2), 395–406

Erzikova, E. (2010). University teachers’ perceptions and evaluations of ethics instruction in the

public relations curriculum. Public Relations Review, 36(3), 316-318.

Gardiner, M.E., & Enomoto, E.K. (2006). Urban School Principals and Their Role as

Multicultural Leaders. Urban Education, 41(6), 560-584

Maxcy, B.D., & Nguyen, T.S.T (2006). The Politics of Distributing Leadership

Reconsidering Leadership Distribution in Two Texas Elementary Schools. Educational Policy, 20(1), 163-196

O’Reilly, F.L., & Matt, J.J. (2013). Public Relations Opportunities for Schools Utilizing

Innovations in Virtual Communities. Journal of Education and Learning, 2(2), 139-143.

Scott, N.M. (2008). School Public Relations: Personnel Roles and Responsibilities. Journal

of School Public Relations, 29(3), 345-359

Stevenson, H. (2006) Moving towards, into and through principalship: developing a framework

for researching the career trajectories of school leaders. Journal of Educational Administration, 44(4), 408-420 DOI: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2010.05.001