How would participatory management impact instructional duties?
As most are painfully aware, there are currently too many demands on a teacher’s time and more than enough committee meetings. Teachers need more time to plan and prepare, not less. Given this, how will the addition of site-based management responsibilities impact on an already full load? One teacher in a school district where site-based management was instituted referred to SBM as “a black hole in terms of time.” How much authority would be granted SBM teams? There is a distinct difference between participatory decision making and shared decision making. While the District’s alleged goal is to “involve” all stakeholders in decision making, they also place ultimate authority with the building principal, District administration, and the School Board. The District’s repeated returning of school-created SIP goals until they conformed to what management wanted them to be is evidence of this. Unless the participants are given the authority to implement their decisions, site-based management
