Boards of education throughout the country are cognizant of the shortage of well qualified elementary school teachers. There has been considerable competition among school boards for the limited supply of teachers, so much so that teachers have been tempted to move from place to place, standards of teaching proficiency have been lowered, and little relief of the general shortage has been achieved. When a school system has succeeded in filling all teacher vacancies, too frequently complacency reigns until the beginning of another school year. When the quantitative shortage of teachers is compounded by a recognition of the persistent qualitative shortage, the situation becomes critical, and its solution is a challenge to the best professional and lay minds in the country. Boards of education and public school administrators have a major responsibility, one that they dare not ignore. Their chief business is to employ competent teachers and to create a favorable situation in which these capable teachers can work.

The purpose of this study is to examine if school or community characteristics correlate with suspensions and expulsions. The data examined in this study were drawn from Riverside County schools. The schools were examined to determine if school or social disorganization characteristics correlate with suspension and expulsion rates.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI/Dissertation Abstracts International.

Thesis (D. Ed.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 194-201). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

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This study investigates the relationship between the school climate, as perceived by the professional staff, and specific leadership behavior, as reported by the school principals in a selected school district in the state of Washington, The purpose of the study is to determine the extent to which the leader behavior of the principal correlates with- the total school climate as well as with the individual factors comprising the school climate. There are no statistically significant relationships among the variables studied. The hypothesis that the higher the leadership skills of the principal the more beneficial would be the climate of the school is not supported. The results suggest that the school climate is independent of the leadership behavior of the principal. Since no difference was found when the factors of climate were considered cumulatively, the individual factors were analyzed for significance. The seven factors of climate, identified by James Tunney and James Jenkins from the CFK Ltd. School Climate Profile, were independent of the leadership ability of the principal.

No description available.

This investigation was concerned with the relationships between the superintendent of schools, the board of education, and the local teachers' professional organization in Tucson School District One for the period 1941-1978. Because it was the largest school district in the state of Arizona, as well as one of the largest in the United States, School District One may be considered a microcosm of many older school districts throughout the country. Many problems encountered by District One for the first time during the late 1960s and 1970s had been experienced by other large school districts in earlier decades. The relationships between the school board, superintendents, and the local teacher organization moved through three distinct phases in the years covered by this study. The first phase was a period of consensus during the years when Robert D. Morrow was superintendent of the school district. The second phase, under the administration of Morrow's successor, Thomas L. Lee, was one of transition. The harmonious relationships between the superintendent, trustees, and teachers' organization began to become strained. The third phase, under Wilbur Lewis, Lee's successor, was characterized by conflict and ended in a teacher strike in 1978. During the years 1941-1978, the superintendents' relationships with both the school board and the teacher association changed from that of close cooperation to one of increasing hostility. Among the school board members themselves, little effective dissent existed prior to 1972. In that year, the first of two major critics of the school trustees was elected to office. When she was joined on the board in 1975 by the second dissenter, the community realized that the era of cooperation and quiet disagreement was at an end. The local teachers' organization, the Tucson Education Association (TEA), began in 1917 as little more than a social and educational arm of the school district. As the teacher groups nationally became more militant in the 1960s, the TEA developed a more aggressive attitude towards educational and professional conditions in Tucson. In 1978, relationships within the school district had deteriorated to such a degree that two of the most dramatic incidents in the school district's history occurred: the teacher strike in October, and the resignation of the superintendent the following December. Years later, the effects of these two events could still be observed.

This research provides a systematic, analytical examination of the evolutionary development of labor relations in a large public school district in the southwestern United States. The Kerchner and Mitchell (1981) generational framework of labor relations has been utilized in this study to evaluate its explanatory power. Research questions included: (1) Does the evolution of labor relations in this district follow the generational patterns specified in the framework developed by Kerchner and Mitchell (1981); and (2) What has been the impact of teacher collective bargaining on governance of this disrict? This work constituted a detailed case study of the school district. Method included analysis of data gathered through board minutes, newspaper and other publications, census data, contract and arbitration history data and semi-structured interviews with persons who played key roles in district labor relations. Findings indicate that generational development in this district has evolved along the lines of the Kerchner and Mitchell framework. The district is idiosyncratic, however, in the nature of coalitions formed, stimuli for change, and the continuing unresolved legal questions regarding collective bargaining in Arizona resulting from a lack of legislative guidance in this area. Generational movement of labor relations in this district is traced through two generational periods and two periods of intergenerational conflict. Findings suggest that relations appear to be suggestive of early third generation as the district enters 1987. With regard to impact, findings of this study generally support those of Kerchner and Mitchell (1981) that: (1) "accidental" policy is made through the bargaining process and contract implementation; (2) collective bargaining, contract making and contract enforcement in this district have enhanced the "laboring" aspect of teacher work; and (3) substantial change has occurred in this district in managerial beliefs and operations as a result of the consensus agreement. Further, findings suggest that although public participation in the district has been episodic, it has greatly influenced generational movement, as has partisan politics. Variance from Kerchner and Mitchell findings and intradistrict variance is also addressed.

This investigation was designed to discover the reported patterns of perceptions and behaviors of building principals involved in the 1978 Tucson Unified School District teacher strike. The theoretical framework developed for this study was based on perceptual psychology and included the following areas: (1) perception; (2) empathy; (3) adequacy/self-concept; (4) relationships; (5) stress; and (6) perceptual framework. An interview schedule was developed, based on the theoretical framework, employing a Likert-type attitudinal scale together with an open-ended comment format. Quantitative data were collected based on the principals' responses to the scale items and qualitative data were collected based on the principals' comments on the scale items. Forty principals who were principals during the strike were interviewed in-depth regarding their perceptions and behaviors on the following aspects of the strike: (1) issues and causes; (2) influences; (3) stress; (4) relationships; (5) post-strike views; and (6) attitudes. All the data were collected during the field interviews. The principal sample was a volunteer sample selected from the total population based on their willingness to participate. Among the findings, the following appeared to be the most significant: (1) salary was perceived as the major strike issue and the way the School Board and District Office handled the issues as the primary cause of the strike; (2) the principals perceived themselves and the Tucson Education Association as having the most influence on the teachers' decisions to strike and the teachers' strike behaviors; (3) the principals reported experiencing the most stress during the strike and the least stress before the strike. As a group, the high school principals experienced the most amount of stress and elementary principals experienced the least amount of stress; (4) a break in relationships with significant others, especially teachers, was a major strike concern of the principals; (5) most of the principals perceived the strike as successful in terms of the teachers achieving their goals but costly in terms of relationships; and (6) the majority of the principals were opposed to the act of striking.