The organization and administration of the Atlanta Public School commission on accountability and rights in discipline, 1974

Treadwell, Harold M.

1970-1979

This project The Organization and Administration of The Commission on The Study of Discipline for the Atlanta Public Schools, involved the establishment of a fifty member commission to survey the Atlanta commun ity concerning their recommendations for policy changes to the Beard of Education on discipline in the Atlanta schools The project was conceived by the superintendent of schools, Dr. Alonzo A. Cries as a result of input from a series of "town hall" meetings sponsored by the superintendent's office in the Fall of 1973. The goal of the commission was to provide the Atlanta schools with a discipline policy flexible enough to be utilized by all schools in the system yet consistent enough to assure a uniform discipline policy for the total system. The goal of the project recognized a broad based community concern regarding disciplinary procedures as they existed in Atlanta and the need for persons affected by the policies, students teachers, parents and community, to be involved in making recommendations on policy to the Board of Education. The project focus was on the organization and the administration of the commission and the role the write played as the executive secretary to the project during the first phase* and the role that the writer played as an observer-analyst during the second phase of the project The project did not focus on the research techniques of the study but upon administrative and organizational skills fundamental to this type of study. As the executive secretary the writer was responsible to a commission chairman appointed by the superintendent of schools. Organizational decisions included: the developmet of a planning document for the project staffing the commission developing goals and objectives for the commission pre-service and in-service training for the commission staff, and keeping the superintendent advised of organi zational progress. The administration of the project involved decision making, planning alternatives the gathering of survey data and the implementation of the approved planning document. Both responsibilities organization and administration, were viewed from the perspective of the executive secre tary of the project and as a student of educational administration. The project was divided into two phases. The organizational phase was successful while the administrative phase was not successful. The project should define for the reader some organizational procedures: the development of a planning document the development of a broad-based commission team, the use of pre-service and in-service training in this type of project, and define project areas that can cause administrative problems. The primary cause of the lack of success in the administrative phase of the project was in the field of communication with the Board of Education and the superintendent. There were several issues of organization and administration that were not answered In the project. The role of the superintendent in this project was never clearly defined and led to some insurmountable administrative problems Another important Issue was the use of public funds to pay teachers and community people for service on this type of commission. Finally, no strategy was developed to deal with the power of the Board of Education to function outside of a public meeting. The project illustrated the difficulty of implementing innovative programs without first getting the support of the Board of Education. Also, it demonstrated that community involvement, a coup lex issue in any setting, had not reached a functional level, for this type of study, in the city of Atlanta, Georgia In summary, the study provides the reader with some criteria for pursuing a project In the field of educational administration.

text

application/pdf

1974-08-01

thesis

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Atlanta University

School of Education

Clark Atlanta University

Georgia--Atlanta

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/cau.td:1974_treadwell_harold_m