DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 311 543
EA 021 310
AUTHOR
Daresh, Jell': C.; Playko, Marsha A.
TITLE
The Administrative Entry Year Program in Ohio: A
Resource Guide.
PUB DATE
Oct 89
NOTE
101p.; Project paper of the Ohio Lead Center,
Westerville, Ohio.
PUB TYPE
Guides - Non-Classroom Use (055) -- Reports -
Descriptive (141)
EDRS PRICE
MF01/PC05 Plus Postage.
DESCRIPTORS
*Administrators; Elementary Secondary Education;
Improvement Programs; *Inservice Education;
*Management Development; Mentors; Professional
Development; Professional Training; *Program Design;
*Program Development; Program Evaluation; Staff
Development
IDENTIFIERS
*Entry Year Programs; *Ohio; Ohio State Department of
Education
ABSTRACT
In nine chapters, this guide provides planners of
professional development programs for school administrators,
directors, and supervisors with background information for assistance
with the design of local entry-year programs at,; activities by
employing school systems. In chapter 1, the legal basis for entry
year programs is examined through a statement of the Ohio Department
of Education Standard in which these learning experiences are
mandated. The research bases for the development of induction
programs for Aeginning administrators are presented in chapter 2. A
discussion of-tile development of programmatic wholeness and integrity
is covered in chapter 3 for the purpose of indicating how entry-year
programs might be able to fit other school district inservice and
professional development activities. Chapter 4 reviews a model for
developing an entry year program and offers an outline to assist
planners of entry year programs with design, adoption, and eventual
evaluation of a written entry year support plan. Chapter 5 considers
curricular relevancy issues directly related to design and
implementation of plans for the induction of administrators, with
particular attention to mentoring arrangements. Chapters 6, 7, and 8
describe the mentoring and protege components of entry-year programs.
Chapter 8 specifica.Uy focuses on curricular issuer, Agys.Jiated with
the development of mentor training programs that might be established
throughout the state of Ohio. Assisting planners with assessment
pro:Jedures for their entry-year programs is discussed in chapter 9.
Particular attention is placed on the use of the Ohio Department of
Education model for the evaluation of its own inservice programs.
(JAM)
aN**A
Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made
*
from the original document.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE ENTRY YEAR PROGRAM IN OHIO:
A RESOURCE GUIDE
U 8 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Office of Educational Research and Improvement
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
)
INFORMATION
CE NTEER
This document hes been reproduced
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"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS
MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED
BY
TO 1 HE EDUCATIONAL
RESOURCES
INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)"
John C. Dar,sh
Associate Professor and Director
Division of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
University of Northern Colorado
Greeley, Co]orado
and
Marsha A. Playko
Associate Director
Ohio LEAD Center
Westerville, Ohio
A PROJECT PAPER OF THE
OHIO LEAD COTT'
WESTERVILLE, OHIO
October, 1989
2
BEST COPY AVAiiiit..
THE ADMINISTRATIVE ENTRY YEAR PROGRAM IN OHIO:
A RESOURCE GUIDE
INTRODUCTION
The certification standards for certificated
educational personnel adopted
by the Ohio Department of Education in 1987 state
that all individuals in their
first year of employment under a classroom teaching
certificate or an educational
personnel certificate must be provided with a preorm
of learning experiences by
4eir employing school systems.
These experience:,
:... turn, are to be designed
to increase the likelihood that individuals
will idtA..eed during their first year
on the job.
This Resource Guide is designed to provide planners
of professional
development programs for school administrators, directors,
and sppery sons with
background information for assistance with the design
of local entry year programs
and activities.
The focus here is on the development of programs
for school administrators.
Many ideas associated with induction programs for
teachers may be helpful to those
who use this Resource Guide, and readers of this book
might also apply some of what
is included to programs designed essentially for
teachers.
Nevertheless, there
are characteristics of the
roles of the school administrator, director or supervi-
sor that are unique to the extent
that this Resource Guide has been developed.
It should be noted that two terms used throughout this
Resource Guide are
protege and school administrator.
Protege refers to the individual falling under
the entry year standard and working with a mentor.
School administrator is a
broad term that incorporates entry level building administrators,
central office
administrators, directors and supervisors.
2
A strong view expressed both here in the Introduction
as well as throughout
scr
all the chapters of this Resource Guide is that the Entry Year
program mustibe
viewed as performance appraisal systems, and mentors should
not be viewed as
evaluators.
Mixing personal support with personnel evaluation will impede
posi-
tive program development.
The Ohio Entry Year Standard, as clarified by the Ohio Department of Educa-
tion, requires only two training programs for
an entry-level individual since
the standard is broken down into two categories which
are entry-level classroom
personnel and other entry-level education personnel.
The readers of this Resource Guide are encouraged "to
go beyond" the minimum
expectations of the standard.
Later in this Resource Guide, examples will be
provided of programs that have been designed to meet the needs of beginner admin-
istrators.
One clear assumption is that beginners in any field need additional
support and guidance as they first move into a new professional role if they
are
to achieve any degree of success.
An effective program needs to not only meet,
but surpass thr. basic requirements of the standard.
4
3
PART I:
NEED FOR ENTRY YEAR SUPPORT
In this section, a rationale for the development of local
entry year pro-
grams is taken from three major areas:
A legal basis, a research basis, and
a basis derived from a view of comprehensive professional development planning.
Each of these areas will be described in detail in the chapters
that follow.
In Chapter 1, the legal basis for Entry Year Programs is examined through
a
statement of the Ohio Department of Education Standard in which these learning
experiences are mandated.
The research bases for the development of induction
programs for beginning administrators are presented in Chanter 2 where informa-
tion is provided concerning the nature of a number of studies related
to begin-
ning administrators and their needs.
Included are some of the critical needs
that have been identified for school administrators who wish to survive their
first year on the job.
Also provided is a brief description of the limitations
of Entry Year Programs.
The third basis for the rationale for special Entry
Year Programs -- the: development of programmatic integrity and wholeness
-- is
covered in Chapter 3 :,here a general discussion of professional development
and
growth for school administrators is provided.
Here, the goal is to indicate how
Entry Year Programs might be able to fit other inservice and professional
develop-
ment opportunities that may be made available within a local school district.
5
4
CHAPTER 1
STATEMENT OF OHIO'S ENTRY YEAR STANDARD
The certification standards for teachers and all other educational per-
sonnel in the state of Ohio, effective July 1987, require that all people hired
by school systems must be provided with a planned program of learning experiences
in their first year of employment under a classroom teaching certificate or an
educational personnel certificate.
It is believed that these experiences will
increase the likelihood that the newly-hired individuals will achieve some degree
of success.
As the chart provided in Figure 1.1 indicates, the Entry Year
Standard suggests that districts which employ professional educators without
previous experience need to include seven components:
1.
Statement of assurances signed by the superintendent and filed with
the Ohio Department of Education indicating that the district has
complied with the Entry Year Standard (Bla);
2.
A description of the entry year program shall be nn file at the office
of the superintendent of the schucl district (Big);
3.
A method for providing specific orientation to school system expecta-
tions and practices to new employees (2b);
4.
A process for the identification, training, and assigning mentors for
new employees (2e, f, g, h);
5.
A statement of how the local entry year program fits a larger effort
to enhance ongoing professional development for staff (2d);
6.
A strategy of self-evaluation of the program at the district level
(3a, b);
7.
Participation in a formal state evaluation of the program every five
years (4)
In relation to the chart, the pie shape is divided equally.
However, it is
likely that some aspects of the Standard may require %cal districts more time
for organization and implementation.
Therefore, the size of the pie slices may
vary from district to district.
6
5
STATE
EVALUATION
STATEMENT
OF
ASSURANCE
DISTRICT
SELF-EVALUATION
DEVELOPMENT OF
PROGRAM ON FILE
FOCUS ON ;NDUCTION
AND ONGOING
ASSISTANCE
ORIENTATION
TO DISTRICT
MENTORING
FIGURE 1.1
Components of the Ohio Entry Year Standard
(Administrative Code, Rule 3301-22-02)
7
6
The Entry Year Standard has grown from a perceived need by practitioners
across the state of Ohio who worked with the Department of Education to design
approaches to helping beginning colleagues.
The individual features of the
Entry Yiar Program reflect the concerns of school personnel teho want to see
educational improvement through the improvement of leaders.
A significant part of the Entry Year Standard calls for the designation of
experienced administrators to serve as career guides or mentors for beginning
school administrators.
It is desirable that mentors should have had successful
experience in the specific roles in which they are mentoring.
Mentors must be
provided with sufficient training and time so that they can carry out their
mentoring duties successfully.
Two primary issues underly the enactment of the Entry Year Standard:
1.
There is a clear recognition that, in the next few years, there will
be a need for many new school administrators to enter the field.
For
example, the Ohio Association of Elementary School Administrators has
noted that as many as 50% of the state's elementary school principals
may retire by 1990.
It is possible that this turnover will not be
quite this high, but it is clear that many newly-hired principals
will be called upon to join the field in the next few years.
2.
The second issue addresses the concern that many realities facing a
new administrator cannot be addressed within a college cr university
atmosphere, but need to be learned on the job.
Mere N:::t be planned
learning experiences provided to people when they take their first
jobs, or there will continue to be significant problems with "reality
shock" during the first year.
There is no single "Entry Year Model" that has been mandated for adoption
across the state of Ohio.
Beginning administrators encounter unique problems
on the job.
School systems are expected to look at their own needs, character-
istics, and priorities as a way to devise programs that fit the needs of their
particular districts.
This lack of prescription has led to some frustration
on the part of some leaders across the state as they attempt to fulfill the
state mandate.
This Resource Guide
will not provide a definitive answer to
those questions.
It will, however, address some of the important issues surround-
ing the development of an effective entry year program for school administrators.
8
(g)
A description of the entry year program shall be on file at the
office of the superintendent of the school district.
(h)
At least one fell-time equivalent mentor shall be assigned for
each fo'irteen full-time equivalent first year individuals employed
under a classroom teaching certificate or an educational personnel
certificate.
(2) STRUCTURE
(a)
Each entry year person shall be assigned a mentor for a period
of one school year.
(b)
Each entry year person shall be given an initial orientation
on the following matters: (i) the pupils and the community to
be served; (ii) school policies, procedures, and routines;
(iii) courses of study, competency-based education programs,
and responsibilities for lesson plans; (iv) the layout and
facilities of the assigned school building or buildings;
(v) the nature of the entry year program which will be provided;
and (vi) additional information an entry year person may need to
be adequately prepared for a specific assignment.
(c)
Each entry year classroom teacher shall be provided with the
following:
(i) assistance in acquiring knowledge of the school
curriculum, responsibilities for implementing that curriculum,
and the instructioral resources available for such implementation;
(ii) assistance with management tasks identified as especially
difficult for entry-year classroom teachers; and (iii) assistance
in the improvement of instructional skills and classroom management.
(d)
Educational personnel shall be provided ongoing assistance, with
such assistance differentiated to provide for professional needs
related to the specific assignment.
(e)
A mentor assigned to an entry year classroom teacher or teachers
shall be employed under a classroom teaching certificate, unless
otherwise agreed to by the entry year classroom teacher or
teachers.
(f)
A mentor assigned to an entry year person or persons employed
under a specific educational personnel certificate shall hold a
similar educational personnel certificate, unless otherwise agreed
to by the entry year person or persons.
(g)
Mentors shall possess the following eligibility requirements:
(i) experience and certification appropriate to the assignment
of the entry year person or persons; (ii) knowledge, skills,
attitudes, or values deemed essential for becoming an effective
mentor.
(h)
Mentors shall be provided with the following:
(i) an orienta-
tion to mentoring responsibilities; (ii) training in knowledge
and skills necessary to perform mentoring responsibilities; and
(iii) opportunities to consult with and otherwise assist the
10
9
assigned entry year person or persons on a regular basis, with
adequate time within the instructional day allocated for such
consultation and assistance.
(3)
EVALUATION AND REVISION
(a)
The school district shall evaluate the entry year
program at
le4:t every five years.
Program administrators, mentors, and
entry year persons shall be involved in the evaluation.
(b)
Program revisions shall be documented through the attachment
of an addendum to the original program plan or through the
creation on a new program plan.
(4)
AN ON-SITE EVALUATION OF THE ENTRY YEAR PROGRAM SHALL BE CONDUCTED
ONCE EVERY FIVE YEARS BY THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION TO DETERMINE
COMPLIANCE WITH THIS RULE.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
In this chapter, the Ohio Entry Standard was presented.
The Standard is
the product of a considerable amount of ongoing dialogue between the Ohio
Department of Education and practitioners in the field who have been
strong
proponents of specialized learning programs designed to assist beginning educa-
tors with their first difficult years on the job.
While the Standard exists
to serve the needs of all beginning educators in Ohio, Cie special focus of
this Resource Guide willbe on the role of the school administrator.
11
11
Only sporadically have activities been design
to assist new administrators
to come "on board."
Among some of the most recent investigations completed
have been small-scale studies conducted by Nockels (1981) and Turner (1981),
and doctoral research by Marrion (1983), Sussman (1985), and Diederich (1988).
4 common finding in all of these works, and also fa a broader study by Duke
(1986), ha; been that the administrative entry year may be best characterized
as a time filled with considerable anxiety, frustration, and self-doubt.
Another study of a considerably wider scale was the work recently done
in England by 'eindling and Earley (1987).
This ambitious project reviewed
the characteristics of the first years of secondary school head teachers
(principals) throughout the United Kingdom.
Surveys and interviews were
carried out to gain information from beginning principals, their teaching
staffs, and their administrative superiors regarding the ways in which princi-
pals were frustrated in their new positions.
Among the 'any recommendations
that came from this study was that beginning principals need to receive special
consideration and support from their employing scnool systems.
Weindling and
Earley noted that a major problem for head teachers has been isolation from
peers.
As a result of this, some ways nerd to be found to reduce the sense
of isolation that tends to be felt so strongly by novice administrators.
to a recent study of beginning principals in Ohio, Daresh (1986) found
that administrators' concerns may be seen in three d4stinct areas.
These were
(a) problems with role clarification (understanding who they were,
now that
they were principals, and how they were supposed to make use of their authority);
(b) limitations on technical expertise (how to do the things they
were supposed
to do, according to job descriptions); and (c) difficulties with socialization
to the profession and individual school systems (learning how to do things in
t particular setting--"learning the ropes").
Dan Duke found many of these
same themes to be present in his recent study (1988) of new prihcipels who were
r
1.J
12
considering leaving the principalship, despite the fact that they were generally
viewed as being quite effective in their roles.
In particular, Duke found
that these administrators experienced considerable frustration over the fact
that they did not understand the nature of leadership responsibilities.
Most studies of beginning administrators have found a rather consistent
set of themes that have obvious implications for the ways in which individuals
might be better prepared to take on 'leadership roles in schools.
It seems
clear, for example, that people should receive a good deal of "hands on" learn-
ing of administrative tasks and responsibilities before they ever get to their
first job.
Universities, as the agencies traditionally charged with the duty
for preservice preparation of administrators, need to find more ways to help
people develop skill and confidence about their work before signing their first
administrative contracts.
Second, entry year or induction programs need to
stress the development of strong norms of collegiality within those who are tak-
ing their first administrative jobs so that there can be a realization that a
sc.lool administrator will rarely be effective by trying to "go at it alone."
A lesson that needs to be learned early in a person's career is that success
as a school administrator is often based on the ability to seek support
from
mLny people.
Third, entry year programs must include a component where people
Ore able tc test some of their fundamental assumptions and beliefs concerning
the nature of power, authority, and leadership as they step into a principalship
or some other administrative role.
In general, there is not a rich tradition of research into the problems
faced by newcomers to the world of school administration.
What is known, however,
provides some useful insights into the fact that beginners need special assistance
and support, and that help should be directed toward some fairly clear and con-
sistent themes.
All of this should be seen as a supplement to the kinds of
things that local school systems determine to be needs for beginning administrators.
14
13
In a project sponsored by the Oregon School Study
Council, Anderson (1988)
set out to identify what some of the most important
themes related to the
design of induction programs for school administrators.
Anderson synthesized
many research findings to develop the following list of recommended
practices
for school systems that
are interested in establishing research-based entry
year programs for administrative personnel:
1.
Entry year programs will be more effective if
they are initizted
in conjunction with locally-developed preservice
prepar-tion
activities that are carried out for aspiring
administrators that
are identified in individual school systems.
2.
Local school systems which have in place sophisticated
techniques
designed to identify and select talented future
administrators
tend to have more effective programs for beginning
administrators.
3.
Entry year programs need to include comprehensive
activities de-
signed to orient new administrators to the characteristics
of
particular school systems.
4.
Mentor systems designed specifically for the needs of
beginning
principals -- and not adaptations of teacher
mentor programs -- are
critical components of successful entry
year and induction programs
5.
Effective entry year programs encourage and facilitate
reflective
activities.
Beginning principals as well as successful veterans
are prcvided opportunities to observe each other as
a way to reduce
newcomer isolation and improve their work through a process of
peer
support and observation.
Such activities need to provide time for
reflective analysis between participants.
6.
Successful induction efforts are part of
more comprehensive district-
wide programs designed to
encourage professional growth and develop-
ment for all administrative persoanel.
7.
Entry year problems of administrators
are minimized in school systems
where there has been a conscious effort
to structure beginners' work-
loads so that they would have sufficient time
to work in their build-
ings to develop productive working relationships
with staff, students,
and parents.
School districts should take care not to immerse
newly-hired principals in a bewildering
array of special district
projects and committees.
8.
Beginning principals have a special need for frequent,
specific, and
accurate feedback about their performance.
Furthermore, this feedback
should be of a highly constructive nature that
is made available
regularly throughout the school year
-- not only near the end of a
person's first contract year.
14
These eight ingredients of an effective entry year progrm are derived from
existing research on this topic.
Other sources are available to help guide
planners of induction programs by providing some insights into the issue of "what"
shall be included in an administrative entry year prograih.
CRITICAL NEEDS:
ALTERNATIVE FRAMEWORKS
In addition to the general areas of concern for beginning administrators
that have been identified through the research, there are some additional list-
ings of specific critical skills needed by new leaders.
Each of these lists
of skills further support the notion that some kinds of specialized entry year
training activities are needed.
Edwin Schiller, Assistant Superintendent of the Ross County Schools in Ohio,
recently asked experienced administrators in his region to list some of the most
important things that they believed beginning principals needed to know in order
to perform their job effectively:
1. The need to develop familiarity with local district policy manuals,
regulations, and the terms and conditions found in districts'
negotiated agreements.
2. Knowledge concerning the availability of special education and other
special students' support programs.
Particular emphasis should be
placed on the identification of appropriate resource personnel.
3.
Awareness of general principles of effective legal processes related
to student and staff personnel issues.
Among the specific topics
reeding focused attention are in the areas of due process concerns
and discipline procedures.
4.
Knowledge of effective staff evaluation procedures, both in general
terms and in relation to local school system practices.
5.
Appreciation of more effective relationships between administrators
and students, parents, and staff members.
6. Awareness of strategies that may be utilized to encourage greater
professional involvement of staff.
7. Development of general organizational skills.
16
15
A similar effort was also carried out by the faculty of Administrative
and Educational Leadership at the University of Alabama who worked with school
leaders across the state to identify "survival skills"
that are typically needed
by beginning school administrators.
Eight general areas of concern were identi-
fied, along with several suggested specific competencies
associated with each
skill area.
AREA I:
LEADERSHIP
1.
Plan and conduct a small group activity.
2.
Write an article about a phase of the school
program for publication
in the local newspaper.
3.
Present a program to the faulty based on the "effective schools
re-
search."
4.
Develop a faculty handbook.
5.
Carry out effective student-parent conferences.
6.
Prepare and deliver a speech to a local civic club.
7.
Irterview prospective teachers.
8.
Prepare operational plans for the opening of the school.
AREA II:
PLANNING
1.
Develop a student master schedule.
2.
Apply systematic planning concepts to specific school problems.
3.
Develop forms and procedures for reporting unusual incidents
that
may occur in the school.
4.
Develop a proposed school calendar for the school
year.
AREA III:
INSTRUCTION
1.
Develop a plan for evaluating the instructional
program of the school.
2.
Demonstrate the use of purposeful classroom observation that is de-
signed to improve instruction.
3.
Be able to demonstrate effective classroom management techniques
to
the faculty.
4.
Plan and conduct an insPrvice session for faculty
on the proper inter-
pretation and use of standardized achieftment tests.
AREA IV:
PERSONNEL
1.
Demonstrate knowledge of cert'fication requirements for teachers.
2.
Plan and conduct interviews with teacher. applicants.
AREA V:
LAW
1.
Demonstrate a knowledge of basic features of procedural due
process
as it relates to student and staff personnel issues.
2.
DemonstratAnderstanding of the basic features of
the local nego-
tiated agreement between the school board and the teachers' association.
3.
Demonstrate knowledge of PL 94-142 by explaining regula.ons
to staff.
17
16
AREA VI:
FINANCE
1.
Understand local school accounting procedures.
2. Keep accurate records of building level accounts.
AREA VII: FACILITIES
1. Develop a plan for energy conservation in the local school building.
2.
Develop an emergency evacuation plan for the school.
3.
Carry out an inservice session for janitorial and custodial employees.
AREA VIII: COMMUNITY RELATIONS
1.
Develop a community relations plan for the local, school building.
2.
Develop a plan to work effectively with community pressure groups
and professional organizations.
A third useful framework suggested by Rogus and Drury (1988) might also
be looked at by designers of administrative induction programs.
They suggest
that beginning administrators should be able to:
1.
Demonstrate understandings of system expectations, procedures, and
resources.
2.
Demonstrate increased competence and comfort in addressing building
or unit outcomes or concerns.
3.
Enhance their personWprofessional growth.
4.
Develop a personal support system.
5.
Receive personalized assistance in coping with building/unit problems.
6.
Receive formative feedback and assistance toward strengthening their
administrative performance.
During the 1987 -68 school year, representatives of the 17 institutions in
the state of Ohio chartered to prepare school administrators, the Ohio Department
of Education, and the professional associations representing principals, superin-
tendents, and school board members met periodically with support from the LEAD
Center of Ohio.
As part of its continuing discussions, the "LEAD Forum" identi-
fied a wide array of special critical skills for entry year administrators:
1. Assessing the Climate
- Human relations skills
- Communications skills
- Leadership style appreciation
- Understanding political structures
2. Orientation
- Basic administrative skills
- Problem solving skills
- Local procedures and expectations
17
3.
Individual Assessment
- Continuous assessment of the individual
on the job (internal to
the organization by supervisors
or colleagues, or through external
sources such as school visitors,
community representatives
or
parents)
- Specialized skills development (the identification
of new skills
needed to accomplish
more completely those job tasks and
respon-
sibilities for the present
and the future)
One additional framework that
has great potential for helping
planners of
administrative entry year
programs decide the types of skills
that might be
needed by effective practitioners
has been developed
as part of the work of the
Maryland LEAD Center (1988).
Among the skill areas identified
in this work were
interpersonal relations, instructional
supervision, staff development, goal
setting, problem analysis, decision
making, communication, coordination,
conflict
management, and stress management.
All five of these frameworks
have in common the fact that
they represent
needs of beginning administrators
from the perspective of the
skills and behaviors
that may serve to guarantee
success, or at least survival, in organizations.
They
are whit the school needs or expects in
terms of performance.
Needs have not
been discussed from the viewpoint
of personal concerns faced
by people who serve
in administrative roles.
There has been considerable
discussion regarding the
developmental characteristics of
classroom teachers at different
points of their
careers, and the types of training needs
that may be useful in addressing
these
characteristics.
Fuller (1968) and Hall (1976)
have suggested that inservice
education should be matched with
developmental needs and
concerns.
A good entry
year program for administrators must take
into account iarying individual
needs,
as well as organizational priorities.
All the lists provided
here of job-related skills
may be seen as excellent
ideas to be used as starting
points for the development of
the curriculum for an
entry year program.
Remembering that local
concerns and conditions might differ
considerably across the
state, a particular school system might
have very differ-
ent expectations regarding the desired
performance of new administrators.
19
18
Before starting an entry year program, planners are encouraged to carry out
their own research regarding the types of skills, knowledge, and attitudes that
are considered appropriate.
Entry year programs are more than simply helping people to acquire and
demonstrate discrete skills that appear on a list. Effective induction programs
should be designed in a way that makes use of identified skill areas that can
serve as a guide to the development of more expansive programs to address more
holistic concerns of beginning administrators. In other words, if entry year
programs become exclusively geared to the development of programs and strategies
that are to be followed in "surviving" the first year of administrative service,
a system will be created where survivors thrive.
Instead, a system should be
fostered that will lead to strong and effective leadership in schools.
REFLECTION
Special programs designed to support the work of beginning administrators
are clearly needed.
Evidence in the research shows that novice school leaders
will be served well when efforts are made to help them through their first
professional duties.
But, there are limitations to the value of formal induc-
tion programs.
For example, entry year programs roan never serve to reper
total imcompetence.
School districts must continue to be careful about finding
and selecting only the most talented individuals for administrative roles.
No
induction program can be designed to "fix" bad choices,
Entry year programs must be part of comprehensive professiona'i development
efforts.
Huling-Austin (1986) observed that induction programs for beginning
educators will likely fail to reach their full positive potential if they are
developed solely as a way to comply with the minimum requirements of a mandated
20
(
program.
Entry year efforts will only be successful
if they are viewed as
a
foundation upon which school districts
set out to build total professional de-
velopment programs that are designed
to meet the needs not only of beginning
administrators, but of all district administrators.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
An effective entry year program for beginning
school administrators can
be built upon a solid research base.
In this chapter,
some of +'e findings of
recent studies which may serve as the foundation for
effective induction efforts
were offered.
In addition, the existence of several
alternative frameworks
which present locally.developed lists of "critical
needs" for novice principals
and other administrators were noted.
These lists may also provide important
information concerning the content of entry
year programs.
21
19
20
CHAPTER 3
BASIC.FEATURES OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
As noted in the last chapter,
an emphasis on entry year programs for ad-
ministrators has a better chance of
being effective if it is part of a larger
view of the need to provide ongoing
professional development activities.
If
the entry year is viewed as something that is
addressed in isolation from
leaning activities throughout
a person's career, all of what is described
throughout this Resource Guide will not be much
help.
Conceptually, the entry year is but
one element of a comprehensive program
of professional development.
In addition to entry year or induction
concerns,
there are also periods of preservice preparation
and ongoing inservice education.
In this chapter, the characteristics of each of
these three phases are reviewed
as a way to indicate how some interrelationships must be achieved for
effective
professional development.
The model presented in Figure 3.1 represents
a view
of the three stages that must be addressed in
a comprehensive program of profes-
sional development.
FIGURE 3.1
PRESERVICE PREPARATION
One of the basic assumptions throughout this Resource
Guide is that entry
year programs can help indiviluals who need some extra help
at the beginning
stages of their careers.
Entry year programs cannot be viewed
as ways to repair
4'7 2
21
ACADEMIC PREPARATION
(Traditional University Courses)
FIELD-BASED LEARNING
(Internships, Planned
Field Experiences,
Practica, etc.)
PROFESSIONAL FORMATION
(Mentoring, Reflection,
Platform Development,
Styles Analysis,
Personal Professional
Development)
FIGURE 3.1
Three dimensions included in a framework describing
the professional development of school administrators.
4.0
22
wholly deficient or incompetent individuals who learned little through their
preservice preparation experiences.
Professional development begins with an initial training in their selected
field of practice.
In professional education, this usually refers to the under-
graduate and graduate level university coursework that is pursued by
an individ-
ual intending to receive a state certificate permitting entrance to
a given
occupational role.
Future teachers take courses in pedagogy and the content of
their teaching field, and aspiring administrators take
courses in educational
administration and supervision.
The exact number of required courses varies from
state to state, but the basic practices are relatively the same in all situations
across the nation.
Other issues beyond training are typically associated with this preservice
phase of professional development.
Here, there is also concern about the initial
identification, recruitment, and selection of people to move into roles in pro-
fessional education.
In the world of school administration, these concerns have
been handled in a somewhat haphazard fashion over the years.
People tend to
identify themselves and make the personal decision to try their hand at admin-
istration.
School systems have traditionally not viewed their duty
as one of
"tapping" people for leadership roles in the future.
When such identification
has taken place historically, it involved the selection of future administrators
for reasons other than for their potential to succeed and make a difference in
student learning outcomes.
As noted on a number of occasions in Chapter 2, the
business of identifying and promoting talented individuals toward careers as
school administrators is a critical ingredient for entry year programs.
No pro-
gram to assist beginners will be effective if the "entering material" is not of
a high quality.
24
23
INDUCTION
The primary interest in this Resource Guide is related to the improvement
of activities designed to improve the quality of the entry year program, or the
induction of school administrators.
The Dayton City Schools (1988) recently
developed an entry year program for new principals, and used the following
definition to guide their work:
Induction is defined
... as a process
for developing among new members
of an occupation the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values essential
to carrying out their roles effectively.
The aim of induction is to
create conditions so that the new members internalize the norms of their
role in a way that the primary locus of control is self control.
Another issue considered here deals with whether or not it is really worth
the effort to develop an entry year program targeted specifically at the needs
of school administrators. After all, why not simply use the same procedures
that are designed for teachers in working with beginning administrators? There
are a number of unique characteristics associated with the field of school ad-
ministration that make it necessary for a system to consider this group of
educators apart from all others employees.
Specifically, one can identify five
features of school administration that make it important to separate teacher
induction efforts from administrator programs (Daresh and Playko, 1989):
1. The research base on administration is not clear enough to guide
entry year programs and mentoring relationships.
As noted in Chapter 2, there is relatively little research that describes
very specifically the nature of behaviors of administrators that are associated
with effective performance.
While this knowledge base is growing, it is not
even close to what is now found in the area of teacher education concerning
effective teaching behaviors.
Without an equivalent research base, it is hard
to lead people in entry year programs.
2. Administrators do their lobs in isolation from peers.
Entry year programs designed for teachers can make certain assumptions
about the ways in which beginners have access to many colleagues each day who
can provide feedback regarding i
formance on the job.
There are many teachers
in a school building.
By contrast, there is usually no other administrator on
24
duty with a beginning principal, particularly in an elementary school.
This
results in administrators having very different needs for ongoing entry
year
support as they work far from their administrative colleagues.
3.
"New" administrators are not new to schools.
In Ohio, there is an expectation that administrators have at least three
years of teaching experience before taking their first jobs.
That amount of
time, of course, does nothing to guarantee that an individual becomes sensitive
to the demands that accompany an administrator's job.
On the other hand, the
rookie principal at least knows what a school looks like, how students tend to
behave, and what parents are likely to ask or demand.
In an entry year program
for administrators, there is less need for an initial orientation to the world
of schools and professional education.
4.
Administrators are bosses.
When people receive administrative assignments, they automatically take
on positions of legal and formal authority, power, and control.
A school admin-
istrator, even on the first day of a job, is a boss who has been appointed by a
local governing board to manage a part of the school district's programs and
facilities.
This makes it somewhat difficult to design programs of support,
whether it is for the entry year on the job, or even later in the administrator's
career.
5.
Administrative "peers" usually se not true equals to the beginner.
Administrators in all districts face the need to understand the "pecking
order" in their systems among the s:nool administrative personnel.
Although
all principals appear to be the same on the organizational chart, the fact is
that some have greater influence than do others.
Entry year programs which
assume that all administrators are equal, deny a reality of organizational life
found in school systems.
INSERVICE EDUCATION
Two generalizations might be derived from the vast amount of material
written about inservice education and staff development.
First, the majority
deals with staff development and inservice education exclusively for teachers.
In a recent review of the literature of this topic, Daresh (1987) discovered
that less than 10% of the recent research has dealt with inservice for school
administrators.
Second, literature on staff development other than doctoral
dissertations is not research-based and tends to provide descriptions of the
localized experiences of practitioners.
There are many descriptions of what
25
appear to work in District X and District Y.
Despite this situation, enough
has been produced to enable a number of reviewers (Lawrence, 1974; Nicholson,
et al., !976; Paul, 1917i McLaughlin & Marsh, 1978, 1978; Hutson, 1981) to
extract generalizable propositions regarding the planning and implementation
of effective inservice education:
1.
Effective inservice is directed toward local school needs.
2.
Inservice participants need to be involved in the planning,
implementation, and evaluation of programs.
3.
Effective Inservice is based on participant needs.
4.
Active learning processes, rather than passive techniques such
as lectures, are viewed as desirable and effective inservice
instructional modes.
5.
Inservice that is part of a long-term systematic staff developmeht
plan is more effective than a "one-shot," short-term pr gram.
6.
Local school inservice must be backed up by commitment of resources
from the central office.
7.
Effective inservice provides evidence of quality control, and is
delivered by quality presenters.
8.
Pr'grams which enable participants to share ideas and provide
assistance to one another are viewed as successful.
9.
Inservice programs are effective when they are designed so that
individual participant needs, interests, and concerns are addressed.
10.
Rewards and incentives, both intrinsic and extrinsic, must be evi-
dent to program participants.
11.
Inservice activities should be provided during school time.
12.
Effective inservice requires ongoing evaluation.
While the research base 7om which these generalizations come is predom-
inantly involved with teacher inservice, these features are also descriptive
of what should be the structure of administrator inservice opportunities.
Inservice for administrators will be more effective if participants are able to
select learning objectives or activities, and if inservice programs are compe-
tently designed.
n7
26
Administrator inservice comes in many different forms.
Daresh and LaPlant
(1983) identified five generic models of administrator inservice which are
generally available to practitioners:
traditional model, institutes, competency-
based programs, the academy, and networking.
Each has its own particular advan-
tages and disadvantages with regard to potential effectiveness as inservice
learning opportunities.
TRADITIONAL MODEL
This model consists of administrators enrolling in university courses.
The primary responsibility for determining the content and procedures in this
approach is with the university.
Administrators select this model based on a
desire to pursue course work in an area of particular professional interest,
to obtain an advanced graduate degree, or to renew or upgrade certification.
INSTITUTES
The institute consists of a short-term, topic-specific learning experience.
Practicing administrators are bombarded almost daily with numerous opportunities
to participate in institutes sponsored by professional associations and private
consultants.
Thus, the pervasiveness of the availability of institutes is such
that it cannot be ignored as a type of planned learning experience that may
have great impact on inservice for school administrators.
COMPETENCY-BASED TRAINING
In its broadest sense, competency-based administrator training can provide
a useful framework of knowledge, attitudes and skills toward which an effective
school leader may strive.
There are currently some competency-based programs
with great potential for use as administrator inservice strategies.
One is the
Assessment Center of the National Association of Secondary School Principals
(Schmitt, 1980) which suggests that persons possessing skills in problem analysis,
judgment, organizatilnal ability, decisiveness, leadership, sensitivity, range
of interests, personal motivation, stress tolerance, values clarification, and
28
27
oral and written communication skills make the best candidates for
administrative
positions.
THE ACADEMY
A fourth approach is the academy,
an arrangement wherein a school district
or state education agency provides structured learning experiences to educators
on an ongoing basis.
It is an "in-house" institute sponsored by and for
practitioners without reliance on outside agencies.
Many large city school
districts have long had such programs.
NETWORKING
Networking may be defined as the linking of individuals for
the purpose
of sharing concern on an ongoing basis.
Here, the primary control of the
learning experience rests with participants themselves.
Networks are informal
arrangements that emerge as the result of administrators seeking colleagues
sharing similar concerns and potential solutions to problems.
For specific
examples, one might take a look at Project Leadership
or the Principals'
Inservice Program.
Each of these models has some clear strengths and weaknesses.
The inservice
phase of any administrator's professional development might
include one or more
of these types of activities.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
In this chapter, some basic concepts related to
a comprehensive vision of
professional development for administrators
were reviewed.
The purpose of this
overview was to note that, while the primary focus in
this Resource Guide is specif-
ically on the entry year, such a focus must also recognize that
induction is but one
part of a larger developmental process that school administrators
go through
during their careers.
Other phases included in this
process include preservice
L.
1
preparation and eventually, ongoing inservice education.
Entry year programs
will ultimately be no better than the extent to which they are able to fit these
other stages.
Entry year programs cannot "fix" poor preservi-e preparation,
and they are far more beneficial if they are followed by a long-term commitment
to continuing support and learning opportunities for practicing administrators.
Again, if entry year programs are designed only as a way to comply with state
standards, they will never reach their potential effectiveness.
26
28
29
CHAPTER 4
DEVELOPING A PLAN
Whenever any new program such as the administrative entry year program
is to be formulated, developed, and implemented ;nto a school system, certain
sequential procedures must take place in order for the program to be accepted
by school personnel, thus increasing its likelihood of being successful. This
chapter, discusses a model that may be used in local school systems for develop-
ing an entry year program.
In addition, it presents an outline to assist
planners of local entry year programs with the design, adoption, and eventual
evaluation of written entry year support programs.
A MODEL FOR DEVELOPING AN ADMINISTRATIVE ENTRY YEAR PROGRAM
The model presented in Figure 4.1 is a variation of a model for developing
inservice education programs that is presented by the Ohio Department of Educa-
tion's Division of Inservice Education in its publication, Staff Development
Leadership:
A Resource Book. As is true for designs for effective inservice
education, the entry year program is cyclical in nature. It fits a planning
model which consists of nine steps which can be followed when developing support
programs for all entry year educational personnel.
FIGURE 4.1
Evaluate Program
I
T
Conduct Activities]
30
IDevelop Budget
Establish Board
Policy on Inservice
Education
1
Create a
Planning Committee
41.
[1:1Assess
Needs
1Specify Objectives
I
4,
'Identify Resources
I
Ile
'Design Activities
Figure 4.1
The Planning Guide's Nine Steps
31
Establish Board Policy For Entry Year Program
Local school board policy should include a statement of purpose consistent
with the terms of Ohio's Entry Year Standard as stated in Rule 3301-22-02.
In
this regard, a steering committee must be established to assist the superinten-
dent in preparing a proposal for board consideration.
A statement of purpose and ratlor
. or philosophy are also typically
associated with board policy. A statement of purpose declares the intent of
the local entry year program. It can be as brief as a single sentence.
The
program rationale or philosophy provides a logical explanation of why the
entry year program is needed and puts forward the principles upon which the
entry year program is based. It is typically several paragraphs in length.
Part of the rationale usually consists of statements of belief about areas
relevant to an entry year program. Beliefs about effective schools, effective
teaching, the importance of strong administrative leadership, professional
collaboration and mentoring, a focus on induction and ongoing assistance,
adult learning, effective inservice education, leadership, and professional
development could all be stated in the program philosophy.
Logical implications for the entry year program can be drawn from general
belief statements like those referred to above and stated as part of the program
rationale.
A belief that adults learn best when they are allowed to participate
in planning their learning activities, for example, could lead to a statement
that all first year educational personnel should be allowed to collaborate in
planning for entry year support activities.
The statement of purpose and program rationale can be part of the board
policy or addendums to the policy.
The board policy statement signifies the
school board's commitment to the entry year program and eventually provides the
program development team with a foundation upon which to build the induction
program.
32
Create An Entry Year Program Development Team
After a school board statement of support has been obtained, a critical
first step in the creation of an effective local entry year program involves
the creation of a Program Development Team.
Many decisions need to be made
relative to this team.
Perhaps the most fundamental involves the determination
of whether one team shall be created to develop entry year programs for all
newly-hired educators for a school system, or if there will be separate
groups
convened for each group .(i.e., one for teachers, one for administrators, etc.).
There are advantages and disadvantages found in either approach.
If the decision has been made to have one group represent the interests
of all entry year personnel for the district, that group should include at
least one representative of the type of roles that are to be addressed through
the local program, both at present and in the future.
Each individual is
charged with the responsibility of representing their constituent groups and
suggesting activities for the entry year that best reflects the needs of the
represented roles.
This makes a good deal of sense up to the point that one
must think about the potential large size of such a team.
Because the group that will likely be hired more frequently than any other
will be the classroom teacher, the development team should probably include a
substantially higher percentage of teachers.
In addition, the fact that admin-
istrators might be hired at the central office as well as the building levels,
the development team should also include representatives of both levels.
As a
result of all of these issues, the entry year development team formed to work
on all types of entry year programs might be quite large - -too large, in fact--if
it is formed in a way that it can address all possible needs of the district in
the present and in the future.
("4 A
An alternative arrangement might be to convene multiple entry year commit-
tees to reflect more accurately the particular hiring realities for a school
district at any one time.
In some school systems, the only individuals hired
for several years may be classroom teachers.
Three, four, or many more years
may pass before a school system brings a new principal on board.
It may be
much more practical, then, for a district to develop more than
one planning
committee to address specialized needs as new people are hired.
This does not
necessarily imply that committees should not include anyone but representatives
of the newly-hired role, however.
Committees addressing beginning teachers'
needs could also include administrative and supervisory personnel, and teachers
might be involved with the design of entry year experiences fir principals.
One compromise solution to this issue might be that, as school districts
across Ohio first establish local responses to the Entry Year Standard, one
development committee representing all parties might establish initial ground
rules.
This group could also involve parents and other respresentatives of the
community.
After the initial framework for entry year programs has been estab-
lished, planning teams with special expertise in a particular role might then
be established to work on the details of particular entry year needs.
Each
school sy"-,m must select a particular approach related to the composition of
one development committee or various specialized development committees, and
the selection should be made based on local concerns, conditions, and realities.
Conduct Preliminary Assessment
The first group of entry year administrators to be served by
an induction
program will not be available for a needs assessment during the early phase of
the program development.
Furthermore, some school districts may not have iden-
tified participants at this early stage of program development.
As a result,
J
33
a specific needs assessment
of these two
groups is not feasible
at this point.
Much information is
available to
use in determining general
induction
needs.
Educational personnel
who are currently
in their second
year in a new
position may be
seen as valuable
sources of information.
The research base
on beginning administrators
and also the frameworks
of critical needs
included
in Chapter 2 of
this Resource Guide
may be consulted
as a useful source of in-
formation.
Principals and other
educational leaders
can describe typical prob-
lems experienced
by beginning colleagues
with whom they
have worked.
The
philosophy, policies,
curriculum,
resources, norms, and
customs of the school
district all indicate
areas where first year
employees may need special
assis-
tance and support in
meeting those needs.
Literature, research
on common entry year problems,
and this Resource
Guide
can all provide purposes and
formats that might be
followed in the
establishment
of an entry year
support program.
Eventually, specific
needs assessments
can be
administered to mentors
and the entry
year educator participating
in the induc-
tion program.
Specify Goals and
Objectives
The two primary
sources for developing
program goals are school
district
needs, and needs of
entry year administrators
and "other educational
personnel."
One task of the
program development is to
integrate these two
types of needs
into a set of broad
goals.
Program objectives
are more specific than goals.
Several objectives
are
usually stated under
each goal.
Objectives should be
stated in observable,
measurable terms.
The program development
team may decide to
delay setting
some program objectives
until after the
particular needs of
the first
group
of entry
year administrators entering
the induction
program has been assessed.
3i
35
Objectives are often prioritized so that limited resources and activities can
be directed rirst toward meeting those objectives deemed most essential.
Identify Resources
Human resources can include university and private consultants as well as
local school district personnel who may have interest and expertise in working
with the entry year program.
Material resources include facilities (meeting
rooms, resource centers), equipment (videotape equipment, film projectors,
overheads), and consumables (paper, pencils, notebooks).
The program develop-
ment team has the task of identifying the resources that are needed and which
can be matched with program goals.
Design Program
The entry year program needs to be articulated in a written plan which
will state expected matches between induction resources and activities with
program objectives.
Sufficient flexibility will enable emerging needs to be
met.
An outline to assist the program development team design an entry year
support plan is provided later in this chapter.
Develop Budget
The next component of the model calls for the allocation of funds to pur-
chase resources required by the written plan but which are not already at hand.
Typical categories in an entry year program budget include salaries, benefits
or incentives, purchased services, supplies and materials, release time,
and
equipment.
Implement Program
36
The successful implementation of the program requires ongoing organizational,
technical, and interpersonal support.
It is suggested that the program develop-
ment team (or teams) be kept in place for the purpose of ongoing evaluation and
development of the entry year program.
Teams should be able to recommend revi-
sions to the program if ongoing formative evaluation reveals necessary changes.
While the establishment of a definite framework for the entry year program is
important, central office personnel and mentors should be allowed the flexibil-
ity to meet the unique and idiosyncratic needs of individual beginniag admin-
istrators and other educational personnel which might arise during program imple-
mentation.
Evaluate Program
Ohio's entry year standard calls for a summative and formal program evalua-
tion at least once each five years.
An evaluation addressed on the program plan
and beginning with the initiation of the entry year program is the most desirable.
Not only program outcomes but the program plan, needs assessments, and program
implementation can be evaluated.
A formal evaluation at the end of the first
year of the program will allow revisions to be made over the summer, and it is
likely to result in a far more effective program during the second year.
Evalu-
ation, revision, and implementation are best viewed as parts of a continual
cycle for improvement of the entry year support program or induction program.
A formal evaluation at the end of the first year of the program will allow
revisions to be made over the summer, and it is likely to result in a far more
effective program during the second year.
Evaluation, revision, and implemen-
tation are best viewed as parts of a continual cycle for improvement of the
entry year support program or induction program.
41-1
OL)
37
DESIGNING AND EVALUATING A WRITTEN ENTRY YEAR SUPPORT PLAN
Each major heading of the following outline represents a suggested com-
ponent of a written entry year ..upport plan.
The 14 suggested components are
summarized, and the elements under each heading can be used by the program
oa-
velopment team for ongoing evaluation of the plan during the writin:
prooss
(Gordon, 1987):
I.
Definitions
II.
Purpose
III.
Rationale
IV.
Goals and Objectives
V. Roles and Responsibilities
VI.
Mentor Selection
VII.
Mentor Training
VIII.
Mentor Support and Rewards
IX.
Mentor Assignments
X.
Professional Development Activities for Entry Year Administrators
XI.
Specific Needs Assessments and Program Modifications
XII.
Program Evaluation and Revision
XIII.
Dissemination
XIV.
Program Budget
Outline Detail
I.
Definitions
A.
Are critical terms used in the entry year support plan
clearly defined?
B.
Is the use of terms throughout the entry year support plan
consistent with their definitions?
31
II.
Purpose
A.
Is there a statement of purpose?
B.
Is the purpose compatible with
1.
Ohio's entry year standard Rule 3301-22-02?
2.
The school board's general philosophy of education?
3.
Other purposes of the school district's staff
development
program?
III.
Rationale or Philosophy
A.
Are fundamental reasons for the existence of
the entry year
program stated?
B.
Does the rationale include statements of belief
concerning
areas relative to entry year support?
1.
Does each such statement of belief have
an empirical or
rational basis?
2.
Are statements of belief compatible with each?
C.
Does the rationale include specific implications of
stated
beliefs for entry year support?
1.
Do the specific implications flow logically from
the
general belief?
2.
Are the implications compatible with each other?
D.
Is the rationale compatible with
1.
Ohio's entry year standard?
2.
The school board's general philosophy of education?
3.
The school board's philosophy of staff development?
4.
The purpose of the entry year program?
IV.
Goals and Objectives
A.
Are board program goals written?
B.
Are program goals appropriately related to stated
needs?
(If the goals are met, will needs be met?)
C.
Are specific objectives written relative to each
goal?
1.
Are objectives appropriately related to goals
under which
they are categorized?
(If the objectives
are met, will the
goal be met?)
40
39
2.
Are objectives stated in observable, measurable terms?
D.
Are goals and objectives compatible with
1. Each other?
2.
Ohio's entry year standard?
3.
The school board's general philosophy of education?
4.
Goals and objectives of other components of the school
district's staff development program?
5.
The purpose of the entry year program?
6.
The rationale of the entry year program?
E.
Does the plan in'Aude provisions for revising, adding, or
deleting program objectives as a result of needs assessments
administered to mentors and entry year administrators after
initiation of the entry year programs?
F.
Does the plan include provisions for mentors and entry year
administrators to set individual objectives?
V. Roles and Responsibilities
A.
If the entry year program involves a consortium with a central
agency, are the responsibilities of the central agency and the
responsibilities of individual school districts clearly defined
and differentiated?
B.
Are program responsibilities of the school district's central
office, building level responsibilities, and responsibilities of
other organizations involved in the entry year program clearly
defined and differentiated?
C. Are the roles and responsibilities of persons involved in the
entry year support program clearly defined?
Such persons
include:
1.
program administrators
2.
program developers
3. program evaluators
4.
mentor trainers
5.
building administrators
6. instructional supc-visors
7.
program consultants
8. mentors
9. entry year administrators
41
40
VI.
Mentor Selection
A.
Are eligibility requirement: for becoming a mentor stated?
B.
Are procedures for nominating mentors stated?
C.
Are criteria for selecting mentors stated?
D.
Are all
_.
,dents of the mentor selection component of the plan
compatible with:
1.
Ohio's entry year standard?
2.
The purpose of the entry year program?
3.
The rationale of the entry year program?
4.
The goals and objectives of the entry year program?
VII.
Mentor Training
A.
Is an orientation planned for mentors?
1.
Are goals and objectives for mentor orientation listed?
2.
Is theta a tentative schedule of activities for mentor
orientation?
3. Does the plan for mentor orientation include making mentors
aware of:
a.
Their roles and responsibilities?
h.
Mentor trainino activities in which they will participate?
c.
Support, rewards, and incentives for mentors which are
part of the entry year program?
d.
The school district's procedures for evaluating mentor
performance?
B.
Is there a plan for preliminary training for new mentors, to be
held following mentor orientation and oiior to the initiation of
mentoring?
1.
Are goals and objectives for preliminary mentor training
listed?
2.
Is there a schedule of activities for preliminary mentor
training?
3.
Do goals, objectives, and activiti °s in the preliminary
mentor training plan focus on knowledge and skills which
will ue needed by mentors during the first few weeks of
mentoring?
42
41
C. Is there a plan for long-range mentor training?
1.
Are goals and objectives for long-range mentor training
listed?
2.
Is there a schedule of activities for long-range mentor
training?
D.
Are there plans for mentor orientation, preliminary training for
new mentors, and long-range mentor training based on a preliminary
needs assessment being developed?
E.
Are all elements of the plan for mentor training consistent with:
1.
Ohio's gntry year standard?
2.
The purpose of the entry year standard?
3. The rationale of the entry year program?
4.
The goals and objectives of the entry year program?
F.
Are human resources identified to coordinate and implement each
planned mentor training activity?
G.
Are material resources necessary to carry out mentor training
identified?
VII.
Mentor Support and Rewards
A.
Support and Rewards
1.
Are provisions made for regular group meetings which focus
on affective support for mentors?
2.
Is a support person or "coach" identified for each mentor?
3.
Are mentors provided sufficient time to carry out their
mentoring responsibilities?
4.
Are provisions made .'or mentors to receive resources essen-
tial for carrying out their mentoring responsibilities?
B.
Rewards and Mentors
1.
Are there extrinsic rewards for mentors such as financial
rewards or additional release time?
2. Are there provisions for school district recognition of
effective mentor?
3.
Are there incentives for mentors to engage in individualized
activith, to promote their personal and professional develop-
ment?
4^a
42
C.
Are all elements of the plan for providing support and rewards
for mentors compatible with:
1. Ohio's entry year standard?
2.
The purpose of the entry year program?
3.
The rationale of the entry year program?
4.
The goals and objectives of the entry year program?
D.
Are human r- sources identified to coordinate support and rewards
for mentors?
E.
Are material resources necessary to provide support and rewards
for mentors identified?
IX. Mentor Assignment
A.
Are there criteria for assigning mentors?
1.
Are the criteria compatible with the knowledge base on
matching mentors with entry year administrators?
2.
Do the criteria reflect practical considerations of program
size, types, and number of potential mentors and projected
number and assignments of entry year administrators?
B.
Is there a description of procedures for assigning mentors to
7,,Itry year administrative personnel?
1.
Are the procedures compatible with the knowledge base on
matching mentors with entry year administrators?
2.
Do the procedures address concerns of those directly affected
by mentor assignment (i.e., entry year administrators, mentors,
district administrators, and supervisors)?
3.
Is the issue for reass.lment of mentors during the school
year addressed?
If reassignment is possible, are procedures
described for requesting, deciding the appropriateness of,
and making new assignments?
C.
Are criteria and procedures for assigning mentors to entry year
administrators compatible with:
1. Ohio's entry year standard?
2. The purpose of the entry year program?
3. The rationale of the entry year program?
4. The goals and objectives of the entry year program?
X.
Professional Development Activities for Entry Year Administrators
A.
Is there a tentative activity schedule designed
to provide initial
orientation on:
1.
The pupils and community to be served?
2.
School policies, procedures, and routines?
3.
Courses of study, competency-based education programs, and
responsibilities for lesson plans?
4.
The layout and facilities of the assigned school building
or buildings?
5.
The nature of the entry year program which will be provided?
6.
Additional information that entry year persons
may need to
be adequately prepared fo.' their specific assignments?
B.
Are ongoing professional development activities planned?
1.
Are activities planned to meet both entry year administrators'
*professional and affective needs?
2.
Is there a balance of group activities, one-to-one mentor-
protege activities, and self-directed activities?
3.
Is there a tentative schedule of activities for the school
year?
4.
Is there a list of activities which need not take place on
specific dates but are to take place periodically throughout
the school year?
5.
Does the plan contain sufficient flexibility to allow for:
a.
Changes in activities due to changes in program goals
and objectives?
b.
Individual objectives and activities to be set by
mentors and entry year administrators?
C.
Are planned activities appropriately related to:
1.
Ohio's entry year st5odard?
2.
The purpose of the entry year program?
3.
The rationale of the entry year program?
4.
The goals and objectives of the entry year program?
5.
The knowledge base on effective professional development
activities for entry year administrators?
45
43
44
D.
Are human resources provided to coordinate and implement
each
planned professional development activity?
E.
Are material resources needed for eac` planned professional
development activity identified?
XI.
Specific Needs Assessments ano Program Modification
A.
Mentors
1.
Are provisions described for administering and analyzing
an
initial formal needs assessment for mentors 30
to 60 days
after the initiation of the entry year program?
a.
Is the needs assessment designed to
measure both
professional and affective needs of mentors?
b.
Is a wide variety of data collection procedures
(such as surveys, interview,
groups discussions,
etc.) called for?
2.
Are provisions made for formal or informal ongoing mentor
needs assessment throughout the entry year?
3.
Are provisions made for modifying mentor training
or mentor
support and reward components of the plan as a result of
mentor needs assessment?
B.
Entry Year Administrators
1.
Are there provisions for administering and anal ring
a formal
needs assessment to entry year administrators 30 to 50 days
after the beginning of each school year?
a.
Is the needs assessment designed to
measure both profes-
sional and affective needs of first year administrators?
b.
Is a wide variety of data collection procedures called
for?
2.
Are provisions made for ongoing formal or informal beginning
administrator needs assessment throughout the entry year?
3.
Is a process described for making modifications
in the entry
year program based on results of entry year administrator
needs assessment?
C.
Are human resources identified to coordinate and implement
mentor
and entry year administrator needs assessment and
corresponding
modifications in the entry year program?
D.
Are material resources necessary to
carry out mentor and entry
year administrator needs assessment identified?
45
XII.
Program Evaluation and Revision
A.
Phases of Program Evaluation
I.
Context evaluation
a.
Is there a plan for identifying environmental factors
which may affect the entry year program or its outcomes?
(Examples of such environmental factors
are community
conditions, the financial status of the school district,
staff attitudes, end crisis situations experienced by
a school or the school district).
Does the plan include
methods for measuring the effects of these factors on
the entry year program and its outcomes?
b.
Are there provisions for determining if the program
needs assessments correctly identified the needs of
mentors and entry year administrators?
2.
Input evaluation
a.
Are there provisions for evaluating the written program
plan?
(This outline represents a set of guidelines for
such an evaluation).
b.
Are there provisions for evaluating the appropriateness
and adequacy of human and material resources assigned
to the entry year program?
3.
Process evaluation
a.
Are there provisions for determining if the entry year
program is implemented according to the program plan?
b.
If any components of the entry year program are not
implemented according to the plan, are there provisions
for identifying reasons for the lack of implementation?
Are there provisions for identifying effects of the
lack of implementation?
4.
Outcomes evaluation
a.
Is there a plan to measure whether or not program
objectives have been met?
b.
Is there a plan to measure (positive and negative)
unintended program outcomes?
B.
Are there provisions for analyzing data from each phase of the
program evaluation and synthesizing the results of that analysis
in a comprehensive evaluation report?
C.
Are there procedures for revising the entry year program in re-
sponse to the program evaluation?
46
D.
Are human resources to coordinate and implement program evalua-
tion and revision identified?
E.
Are material resources necessary for program evaluation identified?
XIII. Dissemination
A.
Are there provisions for disseminating information about the entry
year program to appropriate parties?
B.
Are human resources identified to coordinate and implement dissem-
ination of information?
C. Are material resources necessary to disseminate information identi-
fied?
XIV. Program Budget
A. Has a tentative program budget been created?
B. Are spending categories and amounts consistent with resource needs
identified in the written plan?
CHAPTER SUMMARY
This chapter has been designed to assist the facilitators in local school
districts to develop an entry year program plan for their newly-hired administra-
tors.
A model, consisting of nine steps to be followed in designing and evaluating
a program for all entry year educational personnel was presented first, followed
by an outline representing fourteen components of a written entry year support
plan.
Local planners can construct effective programs as they respond to the
questions posed in the outline presented.
48
4;
CHAPTER 5
CONSIDERING SPECIAL ISSUES
To this point, information related to the strategies that may be utilized
in a school system to develop a plan for an entry year program has been provided.
Once again, attention has been directed primarily to the design of plans for
assisting with the induction of school administrators.
In this chapter, attention is turned to a consideration of issues very
directly related to the design and implementation of an entry year program for
administrative personnel.
Included is a variety of background information that
a district planning team needs to consider as it develops its own entry year
program. The first issue considered is a determination of who should be included
as an "entry year administrator."
Next, various definitions of mentoring are
examined in describing the critical rule of mentors to beginning administrators.
The final issue involves how to secure necessary commitments by local education
agencies as a way to make certain that entry year programs for novice administra-
tors may be positive experiences.
A key concern is that these programs fit as
parts of a comprehensive professional development plans for all administrators
in a school district.
WHO IS THE ENTRY YEAR ADMINISTRATOR?
An entry year administrator is a person who is employed for the first time
under an educational personnel certificate, according to the Ohio Entry Year
Standard.
In this context, it is fairly easy to identify individuals who have
been classroom teachers and are not taking a first plunge into educational admin-
istration as principals or assistant principals as needing some type of specialized
40
4E
induction to help them over some initial
career hurdles.
In fact, the minimal
expectation of the Ohio Department of Education's
Entry Year Standard is that
districts must provide programs for such
inexperienced individuals.
However,
as is true of all other minimum standards specified by
the state department,
local school districts may, and
are encouraged to, exceed the basic expectations
of a policy to provide
more comprehensive programs. In this light,
it is suggested
that the answer to the question posed
at the outset of this section
may require
some additional review by local planners.
For example, when a school district
employs individuals with administrative
experience from another school system, it
may be highly desirable to require
those persons to participate in
some form of local entry year
program.
In all
probability, such a
program would not include some materials and activities
that
are designed to help newcomers appreciate the basic
expectations that are tied
to an administrator's role.
It is likely that newly hired principals
with years
of prior experience have already developed
some personal understandings and
philosophical stances regarding the
nature of their jobs.
On the other hand,
even the most experienced individuals have a need to
learn about the idiosyncra-
cies of a new school system.
While being a principal is essentially
the same
job description in virtually any school in
the country, the environments in
which one carries Lut that description
have as many different faces
as there
are school systems.
Being a principal in a semi-rural suburban
school of 5,000
students is not the same experience
as serving as a principal of an inner city
school in a district of 50,000 students.
In the same vein,
success as an urban
principal does not even guarantee survival in
a rural community.
The basic technical, conceptual, and human relations
skills required of an
effective aeministrator might be the
same from place to place.
But when the
setting is different, the translation of those
same skills also changes.
Fur-
thermore, even administrators moving from
a district that is apparently similar
5
49
to their new one (i.e., from small town to small town, or suburb to suburb) need
some specialized training and support to learn.lbout local practices, procedures,
and expectations
In short, an experienced administrator moving from one setting
to another may not need as much support provided in terms of initial socialization
or induction.
There is, however, a critical need for considerable orientation.
This need is made even more accute in cases where administrators transfer into
Ohio from other states.
While the assumption is often made that, at least in elementary schools,
a person's "entry year" into administration is through the principalship, the
state standards require school systems to develop more comprehensive programs
than those which are focused on this role.
In the development of an entry year program, the definition of who is re-
quired to participate in such an activity needs to be clearly understood.
The
Ohio Department of Educative has responded to this by noting that, as is true of
professional education certificates in general, there are two broad classifica-
tions:
teaching personnel and non-teaching personnel.
Those included in the
former group are obvious, and those included as non-teaching personnel include
school nurses, speech pathologists, audiologists, school' psychologists, covisel-
ors, supervisors, and administrators.
The rules related to required entry year
programs call for induction programs to be provided to individuals at only one
time during their career in either classification group.
In other words, an
individual who becomes a classroom teacher for the first time must be provided
with an entry year program.
If that same person takes a non-teaching position
(as a counselor, social worker, or supervisor), they must be provided with
a second support program during the first year of service in that role.
However,
if a person changes a non-teaching position and, for example, moves from the
role of a counselor to an administrative position, no further entry year support
is required.
The state standard requires only thaf two entry year programs be
51
50
provided during an educator's career, regardless of the number of positions
that might be held over time.
This is the most basic requirement of the standarws.
Individual school systems may, of course, exceed the minimum standard and call
for mandated entry year experiences whenever a person
moves from one job to
another.
Another group of "entry year" employees for whom
a district may wish to
provide a program (although not formally required to do
so by statute) :re in-
dividuals who might already have experience, but who have had
a gap in terms of
continuing experience.
For example, a district may appoint a person to a prin-
cipalship who had been in that role a number of years ago, left the field to
pursue other career or personal objectives, and now has decided to re-enter
professional education by applying for a new principalship.
Such a career path
in education administration is not often found, but
a district may find itself
in a situation where it would like to employ b person with this type of back-
ground and experience.
If it does, an entry year program might be made available.
One thing that deserves special mention here is that districts have many
options to follow in terms of meeting the requirements of the state standard.
As noted here, the basic expectation is that people who
are hired by a system
for a job that is new to them will be provided with opportunities to increase
the likelihood that they will succeed.
The "letter of the law" calls for those
who are working for the first time under any Educational Personnel certificate
to receive special support.
But, as was pointed out throughout this chapter,
each district in Ohio is able to go well beyond the minimal expectations of the
standard to develop localized programs that make sense in
a particular setting.
There are some districts where it is quite unlikely that anyone without prior
administrative experience will ever be offered a job.
Nevertheless, administra-
tor entry year programs in such systems might be quite important
as a way to help
people adjust to the policies, procedures, norms, and culture of
a new environment.
As indicated in the previous discussion of research
on beginning school admin-
istrators, these sorts of local concerns are often the most critical
issues to
be faced by superintendents and princirals.
Not appreciating the unique
characteristics of a new school system causes
many unsuccessful experiences.
Entry year programs developed by local school systems
might be a way to consid-
erably reduce the number of these failures.
WHAT IS A MENTOR?
As noted in the description of specific elements of
the Ohio Entry Year
Standard in Chapter 1, one of the central features is the
requirement that
mentors must be made available by employing school systems
to serve as resource
persons who may be consulted by newly-hire,' educational personnel.
This same
basic requirement is true of programs for all certificated personnel
-- teachers,
counselors, psychologists, social workers, supervisors,
and administrators.
Implied in the standard is the view that' the mentor is
a person who would
be able to provide advice and guidance to
a person brought into a professional
position for the first time in a school system.
However, the concept of organ-
izational mentoring
-- both as an unplanned occurrence as well as a structured
program -- has a considerably longer and more detailed history that might be
consulted as a school district begins to
move forward with their effort to de-
velop a local effort toward induction.
Throughout this Resource Guide, mentoring is understood
to be the process
of bringing together experienced, competent administrators
with beginning
colleagves as a way to help them with the transition
to the world of school
administration.
Mentors cannot be expected to guarantee that
persons with whom
they work (proteges) will succeed.
However, proteges should be encouraged to
c3nsider their mentors as resourceful individuals
possessing knowledge and
r 9
OLP
51
52
expertise that can be shared when consult. i.
Many other definitions and issues
related to mentoring beginning school administrators will be reviewed in Chapters
6 and 7 of this Resource Guide.
NECESSARY LOCAL COMMITMENTS
The best entry year programs in the world, along with the most sophisti-
cated possible approaches to mentoring, will be ineffective in the
long run if
there ;s a lack of systemic support for these programs.
In this section, two
basic commitments needed by school systems to develop and maintain successful
entry year programs are considered.
Commitment to Professional Development
As stated throughout this Resource Guide, the entry year program
will likely
only be successful if it is viewed as a component of a complete professional
de-
velopment program for a school district.
If it is viewed simply as an "add -on"
activity required by the Ohio Department of Education, it will not have
the same
long-term effect on the ways in which administrators in a school system are
supported in their work.
Chapter 3 presented information relating to how induc-
tion or entry year programs must be viewed as but one part of a three stage se-
quence of professional development.
The three stages were preservice preparation,
induction, and ongoing inservice education.
Without this ty
' comprehensive
view, a district is likely to develop only minimally satisfying approaches to
the entry year standard.
5:
Incentives
The 'rocess of mentoring beginning
administrators is ha -1 work.
Further,
it is the type of hard work that will
likely be assigned to
some of the more
successful -- and busy
-- administra'ors in a school district.
The old saying
about "the willing horses pulling the
heaviest loads" is appropriate in this
regard.
What, then, might a district do in order
to keep from burning out its
"horsepower?"
Several incentives might be possible
as strategies.
Chapter 3 included a
recommendation of the Oregon School Study Council
that beginning administrators
be saved from a lot of district committee
ass4gnments and other responsibilities
during their first year; on the jc;.
The same might be said about the 'merle-Iced
administrators who are assigned mentoring duties.
A person cannot function
effectively as a mentor if too many peripheral
duties are also assigned.
One
important incentive for mentors might be the release from
some other district
responsibilities.
A principal who serves as
an entry year mentor, for example,
should probably not be expected to
serve on the district's negotiating team
during the same year.
Mentors mights, depending on the financial
abilities of a scnool system,
be provided with some additional financial stipend
as a compensation for their
mentoring work.
With the limited funding available for school
systems across
the state of Ohio, it is realized that such
a form of incentive is not likely
to be readily available for most school districts.
The point made here is that
service as a mentor deserves a reward of
some type, and if money is available,
it would be a useful incentive.
Some school districts might work out arrangements with
local universities
so that administrators who serve as mentors might receive
some type of credit
from the institution of higher education in
recognition of their work. Also, a
school system designated as a CEU (Continuing Education Unit) provider may
grant credit to its own administrators who work in mentoring relatifylships.
Either of these alternatives is appealing for administrators wvo are seeking
renewal of administrative certificates.
Finally, school systems should not overlook the most obvious type of reward:
the recognition and acknowledgement to professional administrators who give their
time and energy to work with beginning colleagues.
Formal recognition by the
school board, a dinner, plaques, etc., are all ways of saying "thank you" to
educators vi:lo go beyond the confines of their normal job descriptions.
And these
forms of incentive can be very powerful indeed.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
In this chapter, a number of specific issues related to the development of
local entry year support programs were reviewed.
A rjor part of such programs
is the establishment of mentoring arrangements involving beginning administrators
and experienced colleagues.
Much attention was focused on this aspect of the
entry year concept.
Fundamental issues involved with mentoring
programs were considered.
In
the last section of this chapter two adoitional important features of effective
entry year and mentoring programs for administrative personnel were examined.
These two things concerned the extremely important issue of establishing local
district commitment to entry year programs, and also the need to identify apprc
priate incentives for mentors and others who work in entry year efforts.
Induc-
tion programs will rarely succeed if they are not treated officially as worth-
while activities, and if they are not designed to fit as parts of comprehensive
professional development programs at the local level.
54
55
CHAPTER 6
WHAT IS A MENTOR?
Throughout the earlier chapters of this Resource Guide,
the Entry Year
program for beginning school administrators involves the development of
many
different activities.
For example, dist-icts should establish planning teams,
critical skills for administrators need to be identified,
and local decisions
inust be made concerning the breadth of the Entry Year
program offered within
each school district.
In this chapter, a central ingredient in the Entry Year
standard -- the identification of experienced administrators to
serve as
mentors -- is described in detail.
First, general background information re-
lated to the concept of mentoring is provided.
Next, the characteristics of
effective mentors are suggested, followed by a review or the major responsibil-
ities of 'entors for school administrators.
Finally, the types of mentors are
described as they relate to Entry Year programs for school administrators.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON MENTORING
The image of the mentor being a person who is
a wise and patient counselor
serving to shape and guide the lives of
younger colleagues lives on through
many recent popular definitions of mentoring and mentors.
Ashburn, Mann, and
Purdue (1987) defined mentoring as "the establishment of
a personal relationship
for the purpose of professional induction and guidance."
Lester (1981) noted
that this activity is an important part of adult laming because of its
holistic and individualized approach to learning in an experiential fashion,
defined by Bova and Phillips (1984) as "learning resulting from
or associate°
with experience."
AoAtional definitions are found for "mentor."
Sheehy (1976) described
this person as "one who takes an active interest in the career development
of
another person ... a non-parental role model who actively provides guidance,
support, and opportunities for the protege ...
"
The Woodlands Group (1980)
called mentors "guides who support a person's dreams and help put [the
dreams]
into effect in the world ...
" Levinson (1978) noted that a mentor, :is a critical
actor in the developmental process, is "one defined not in terms of tue
formal
role, but in terms of the character of the relationship and the function
it
serves ... a mixture of parent and peer."
A mentor may act as host and guide
welcoming the initiate into a new occupational and social world and
acquainting
the protege with its values, customs, resources, and cast
of characters.
Another
definition by Del Wasden and his associates at Brigham Young University
(1988)
seems to be particularly relevant
when the concept of mentorship is discussed
in terms of programs for practicing school administrators:
The mentor is a master at providing opportunities for the
growth of others, by identifying situations and events
which contribute knowledge and experience to the life of
the [administrator].
Opportunities are not happenstance;
they must be thoughtfully designed and organized into
logical sequence.
Sometimes hazards are attached to oppor-
tunity.
The mentor takes great pains to help the [admin-
istrator] recognize and negotiate dangerous situations.
In doing all this, the mentor has an opportunity for
growth through service, which is the highest form cf lead-
ership.
An element that appears to be common to any view of mentoring
is that this
activity must be seen as part of a developmental relationship tied to an
appreci-
ation of life and career stages.
Kathy Kram (1985) examined mentoring as it is
carried out in private industry and observed that many different toes
of re-
lationships are likely to be appropriate at varying times in a person's career.
She suggested that people have vastly different mentoring needs associated
with each stage.
As she observed, "Research on adult development (Levinson,
et al., 1978; Gould, 1978) and career development
(Hall, 1976; Schein, 1976) has
57
established that, at each stage of life and career, individuals face a predict-
able set of needs and concerns which are characteristics of their particular
age and career history." Because of this emphasis on differentiated support
according to career experience, we believe that this is a strong statement of
support for the view expressed in the Ohio Entry Year standard which calls for
special mentoring support to be provided during the earliest stages of profes-
sional careers.
Mentoring has some drawbacks as well.
For example, Weber (1980) noted
that nenoring can be detrimental to growth if proteges develop too great a
reliance on their mentors who might be viewed as people who are "supposed" to
provide all possible answers to all possible questions.
In cases such as this,
mentorship no longer exists.
Rather, a dependency relationshir is formed, and
growth by the protege is virtually impossible. A -;onstant questiOn that must
be present in the mind of the protege must be, "What will become of me when my
mentor is no longer available?"
If that question cannot be answered with a
response that suggests a positive future direction for the protege, then some-
thing less than true mentorship would have been present in the first place.
Considerable discussion must take place in school systems that are planning
to develop mentoring programs in the future.
It is too easy to think solely in
terms of mentors serving as those who will "mold" the careers of their proteges
according to some type of preconceived model of what all administrators must
always look like.
Instead, true mentorship involves the assisting of an irdivid-
ual to grow in a highly personalized way.
Good mentors are able to work with
individuals with varying needs and abilities, with the good of helping those
individuals become "the best that they can be."
5 9
58
TYPES OF MENTORS
The literature on mentoring makes two things very clear about the types
of mentorship that might exist in organizations.
First, not all supportive
relationship, can be accurate;, defined as "mentoring."
Second, variations
exist within true mentorships.
With regard to the first issue, numerous authors have pointed to the fact
that many different titles may be attached to those who provide guidance and
support to others who work in organizations.
As noted earlier, mentoring is
an accepted and vital part of the developmental processes
in many professional
fields.
As Schein (1978) noted, the concept has long been utilized in business
organizations to connote such diverse images as "teacher, coach, trainer,
positive role model, developer of talent, openner of doors, protectors, sponsor,
or successful leader."
In fact, the current literature suggests that mentoring
needs to be understood as a combination of most, if not all, of these individual
role descriptors (Galvez-Hjornevik, 1986).
Thus, the practice of mentoring is
a crucial one to be included as a component of any
experiential professional
preparation program.
Guides, counselors, or coaches are needed to help neophytes
negotiate their way through a field and "make sense" out of what is happening
around them in an organization, and also what is going on in their personal
lives.
As a result, there is considerable potential tc be found in applying the
concept of mentoring to the professional development of school administrators.
Mentors are different from the types of role models that may have worked
with aspiring administrators during conventional field-based learning
activities
and preservice practice.
Kathy Kram (1985), for example, noted that the other
terms which might be used to describe developmental
relationships in work set-
tings include "sponsorship," "coaching," "role modeling," "counseling," and
even "friendship."
Shapiro, Haseltine, and Rowe (1978) suggested that there
Co
59
is a type of continuum of advisory relationships that facilitate access to
positions of advisory relationships that facilitate access to positions of
leadership in organizatiors.
On one hand is a "peer pal" relationship, and
on the other end of the scale is a true mentoring relationship:
Peer al:
Someone at the same level with whom a person shares
it
tion, strategies, and mutual support for mutual benefit.
Guide:
A person who can :xplain the system but is not usually
in a position to champion a protege.
Sponsor:
An individual who is less powerful that a patron in
promoting and shaping the career of a protege.
Patron:
An influential person who uses his or her power to help
another advance in his or her career.
Mentor:
An intensive paternalistic relationship in which an
individual assumes the role of both teacher and advocate.
These types of developmental relationships tend to focus on the business-
oriented concept of finding relationships that are designed to foster only one
variation of true mentoring, namely relationships that are directed primarily
toward career advancement.
Similar perspectives are offered in the literature
by many others, including Daton, Thompson, and Price (1977), Anderson and
Derannr (1980), Van Vorst (1980), and Clutterbuck (1986).
This view of the
value of mentoring finds the roots in private industry where younger members
of organizations are "shown the ropes" and led toward greater career success
through the intervention of others who provide the direction necessary to
achieve personal goals and ambitions.
Keele, Buckner, and Bushnell (1987) noted
that formal, organizationally-sponsored mentor programs have recently been
initiated in settings such as the Internal Revenue Service anl many large
commercial banks and insurance companies.
In these and other situations where
mentoring has been viewed as an effective strategy to promote personal and pro-
fessional development, the bringing of new leaders "on board" assumes many of
the following characteristics noted by Henry (1987):
GI
60
1.
Mentoring arrangements are a small but important part of normal
mahagement training for selected employees.
2.
What is typically referred to as "mentoring" often tends to be in
fact an activity of "coaching," or showing people "how to do it
around here."
3.
Organizational cultures support the development of future managers,
and thus there are typically certain formal or informal rewards
associated with mentoring as well as being mentored.
Career advancement, as a goal of mentoring relation-hips, is certainly
commendefle.
In the field of professional education, however, there is not
the same sense of urgency attached to career advancement that might be found
in private companies where people must proceed through a number of positions
on their way "to the top."
School systems, by contrast, do not typically permit
many intermediate positions as a person moves from one rola to another.
Further,
moving into administrative positions in schools is no longer viewed as an advance-
ment crom teaching.
No longer is movement from the classroom to the administra-
tive office viewed as a normal career path.
Nor is movement from the principal-
ship to the central office necessarily viewed as a normal pattern.
As a result,
"career advancement" is a very different type of activity in schools, as compared
to private corporations.
Mentoring programs for school administrators need to focus on an entirely
different set of objectives, namely those that are associated with the personal
and psychological growth of individuals.
Melanie Shockett and her associates
at Arizona State University (1983) noted that most mentoring relationships in
education are likely to be ones that focus almost exclusively on promoting
personality and professional development, rather than career development.
As a
result, mentors in the field of education must be able to work with proteges
during a period of personal transition from one role to another.
Emphasis in
this respect needs to be placed on the mentoring skills of encouraging
(demonstrating confidence in a protege's abilities), counseling (discussing a
61
protege's fears, anxieties and uncertainties), and assisting the protege to
perceive himself or herself as a colleague, peer, or friend whose assistance
and ideas are valued.
Whatever the variation on mentoring that might be selected as appropriate
in a particular school setting, what is most important, ;owever, resides in the
choice of the correct individuals to serve in that role.
Whether the primary
focus is on career advancement or personal development, and whether individuals
are able to serve as "true" mentors or "peer pals," it is clear that not all
practicing school administrators might serve as good mentors.
In the next
section, information is provided concerning some of the characteristics often
associated with effective mentors.
CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE MENTORS
A natural concern that emerges very quickly as part of discussions related
to the development of mentoring programs concerns the selection of individuals
who might serve as mentors.
Several individuals have made efforts to address
this issue in recent years.
Patricia Haensly and Elaine Edlind (1986) suggested the following character-
istics of "ideal" mentors:
1.
Outstanding knowledge, skills, and expertise ih a particular domain;
2.
Enthusiasm that is sincere, convincing, and most importantly, con-
stantly conveyed to their proteges;
3.
The ability to communicate to others a clear picture of their personal
attitudes, values, and ethical standards;
4. The ability to communicate sensitively the type of feedback that is
needed regarding their protege's development and progress toward
desirable standards and competence and professional behavior;
5. Sensitive listening ability to their protege's ideas, doubts, concerns,
and enthusiastic outpourings;
6.
A caring attitude and a belief in their protege's potential;
7.
Flexibility and a sense of humor;
8.
A restrained sense of guidance so that their protege may develop as
independently as possible.
John Daresh and Marsha Playko (1989) reflected on their experiences associ-
ated with the Danforth Foundation Program for the Preparation of
Principals at
The Ohio State University and suggested the following features that appear to
be
associated with individuals' ability to serve as effective mentors for
aspiring
school administrators:
1.
Mentors should have experience as practicing school administrators,
and they should be generally regarded by their piers and others as
being effective.
2.
Mentors must demonstrate generally accepted positive leadership
qualities, such as:
a.
intelligence;
b.
good oral and written communication skills;
c.
past, present, and future ut.'lerstanding with simultaneous
orientation;
d.
acceptance of multiple alternative solutions to complex
problems;
e.
clarity of vision and the ability to share that vision with others
in the organization;
f.
well-developed interpersonal skills and sensitivities.
3.
Mentors need to be able to ask the right questions of beginning
admin-
istrators, and not just provide the "right" answers all the time.
4.
Mentors must accept "another way of doing things," and avoid the ten-
dency to tell beginners that the way to do something is "the way I
used to do it."
5.
Mentors should express the desire to see people go beyond their present
levels of performance, even if it might mean that they are able to do
some things better than the mentors might be able to do
themselves.
6.
Mentors need to model the principles of continuous learning and
reflec-
tion.
7.
Mentors must exhibit the awareness of the political ana social realities
of life in at least one school system; they must know the "real way"
that things get done.
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63
Some characteristics which might serve as "danger signals"
for people who
would be very poor mentors:
1.
Ineffective mentors become so heavily involved with the internal
politics of a particular school district that their primary, or even
sole, purpose is to survive the system and increase their personal
status.
Newcomers must understand the political realities of a system,
not learning how to "play the game" of jockeying about for position.
2.
It is not really a wise move to arrange a mentoring relationship
between a novice and a person who is also new to his or her position.
This is true even if the mentor has many years of experience at another
position in the same system.
For example, a former experienced princi-
pal in his or her first year in a central office position frequently
has so many things to learn that he or she may need a mentor,
and
would have little time to spend with a beginning principal.
3.
Mentors should not be assigned because a school system believes that
such an assignment will serve to "fix" a marginally effective admin-
istrator.
There is some suggestion in the research that serving as
a mentor is satisfying to administrators on a personal
basis.
There
is no reason to believe that actual administrative performance is en-
hanced due to service as a mentor.
Further, it simply does not make
much sense to match 4 beginning administrator with someone who does
not demonstrate the very best behaviors associated with being an
effective educational administrator.
4.
Ineffective mentors are administrators who have a long history of
high staff turnover rates in their buildings or school districts.
5.
Ineffective mentors demonstrate "know it all" behaviors and attitudes
when discussing ther approaches to solving administrative problems.
Self-confidence is a desirable characteristic for a mentor.
Being
closed-minded about alternative solutions to complex problems, how-
ever, is probably a mark of someone's insecurity and lack of
confi-
dence.
Such features would not qualify a person to be a particularly
effective mentor.
POTENTIAL PROBLEMS IN MENTORING
The use of mentorIng relationships is widely-supported as a valuable
approach
to professional development for people in many different professional
fields, how-
ever, there are some definite potential problems tied to the use of this
practice
as well
1.
Mentors may become too protective and controlling.
5
64
2.
Mentors may have personal agendas to fulfill.
3.
Mentors may not 'Icknowledge the limitations of their
proteges.
4.
Beginning principals may get only a limited perspective
from a
mentor.
5.
Beginners may become too dependent on their mentors.
6.
Beginners may idealize and idolize the,, mentors.
7.
Beginners may become "carbon copies" of their mentors.
8.
Formal mentoring arrangements may be too structured.
9.
Mentors may compare all beginning principals to an
ideal vision or
standard of performance which may never be realized.
RESPONSIBILITIES OF MENTORS
Despite any apparent limitations on the use
of mentorship as a central
part of Entry Year programs for school
administrators, there are tremendous
values to be achieved through these types
of programs.
Most of these benefits
are achieved when mentors
become engaged in carrying out a variety of
special
functions and responsibilities.
Advisin
:
In this way, the mentor responds to a
protege's need to gain
additiona
information needed to carry out a job effectively.
Communicating:
Here, the mentor works consistently to ensure
that open
lines-5? communication are always available between himself or
herself and the
protege.
Counseling:
The mentor provides needed emotional support to
the protege.
0
Guiding:
In this way, the mentor works to orient and
acquaint the new ad-
minstrator to the informal and formal norms
of a particular school system.
Modelin
:
The mentor serves as a true role model to
the protege by consis-
tently
emonstrating professional and competent performance on
the job.
Protecting:
When needed, the mentor serves as a buffer
between the protege
and those in the school system who
might wish to detract from the beginner's
performance.
Skill Developing:
The mentor assists the protege in learning
skills needed
to carry out a job effectively.
86
65
In addition to these listed responsibilities, the mentor must also be
willing to provide the time that may be needed by a beginning principal to simply
talk about job-related concerns.
Perhaps the most important thing that anyone
can do as a mentor is to be available when needed by the protege, not to 'fix"
problems, but rather, to indicate that someone cares about what the beginner is
doing.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
In this chapter, information was provided about many aspects of mentoring,
a central feature of mandated Entry Year programs.
Among the specific issues considered were some of the basic concepts and
definitions of mentoring, followed by a review of some of the characteristics
often viewed as important for mentors to demonstrate.
Included in that discus-
sion was a review of some of the features associated with ineffective performance
as mentors.
Next, some of the problems often associated with mentoring were
enumerated.
The chapter concluded with a presentation of some of the most impor-
tant responsibilities of mentors who work with beginning school administrators.
C7
66
CHAPTER 7
WHAT IS A PROTEGE?
In the last chanter, information concerning the nature of mentoring was
provided.
The identification and selection of the right people to serve as
mentors is a critical first step in the establishment of an effective program.
This chapter includes information directed toward the second important
component of an effective mentoring relationship, namely the person being
mentored or, in more common terms, the protege.
The following sections will
contain information related to the types of things that need to be done by
proteges in order to ensure that mentorship arrangements will be successful.
Second, some insights are given regarding the ways in which mentors and proteges
might be matched.
Finally, the chapter concludes with a review of some of the
benefits that might be achieved by proteges when they participate in effective
and well-designed mentoring programs.
CHARACTERISTICS OF PROTEGES
As noted earlier, the people who participate in mentoring programs bear a
major portion of the responsibility for making such programs successful.
Mentors
must possess certain characteristics in order to be considered effective.
Essen-
tial characteristics for mentors were discussed in some detail in Chapter 6.
Pro-
teges also have certain responsibilities as partners in these relationships as well.
Haensly and Edlind (1986) identified some of the most important characteristics and
duties of those who are being mentored in formal programs.
They noted that "ideal"
proteges should possess:
1.
Enthusiasm about the domain in which they are working, and also about
their personal involvement in the study of that domain.
2.
The ability to demonstrate initiative along with a conscientious
effort to develop their own self-potential.
Cs
67
3.
A commitment to carry-through on suggested plans and activities,
and a desire to go beyond any established minimal levels of
performance.
4.
An open-minded, objective, and non-defensive attitude.
5.
A degree of insightfulness about self and others, often tempered
by a gcod sense of humor.
In addition to these types of commitments and personal characteristics,
proteges ;lave some additional duties to perform if mentoring arrangements are
to achieve the goals that are established.
There are several responsibilities
that pToteges nf.ed to be aware of on a day-to-day basis.
For example, they can
learn rrom the many people who work in their school systems, in addition to
their assigned mentors.
In this way, there is less likelihood that mentoring
arrangements would necessarily become dependency relationships.
Second, proteges
need to come forward to their mentors to seek advice regarding specific issues
and concerns.
Mentors cannot be expected to be "mind reiders" who will know
all the concerns that are faced by their less-experienced colleagues.
Proteges
have a responsibility to articulate their concerns in an open and honest fashion.
A th'rd duty of proteges is that they need to remain open to the suggest:ons
that are offered to them by their mentors.
If people act as if they know all
the answers before asking any questions, mentors will likely lose much of
their
enthusiasm to work with proteges.
Mentorship is an interactive and dynamic process that requires both parties --
mentor a,id protege -- to invest time and effort to make sure that a "mutually-en-
hancing" relationship can be developed.
If it cannot, the ideal of mentoring
might be reduced simply to a mandated part of a required program that will not
achieve its full potential to assist new administrators in the field.
68
MENTOR-PROTEGE MATCHING
Matching mentors with proteges is by no means an easy task.
It would be
highly desirable to match every beginning schLJ1 administrator with a mentor
who possesses a sincere and deep desire to spend time working productively
with a novice colleague
The fact is, however, that such commitment may not
always be available, particularly in very small school systems where few admin-
istrators are available to serve as mentors to Entry Year administrators.
The ideal matching of mentors and proteges should be based on
. dnalysis
of professional goals, interpersonal styles, and learning needs of both parties.
It is nearly impossible in the "real world" to engage in such perfect matching
?ractices.
Most mentoring relationships associated with _he implementation of
Entry Year programs will likely be formed as "marriages of convenience," and not
as ideal, naturally-dt..eloping relationships so oftcn presented in the
literature
related to mentoring practices in organizations.
However, if individual awareness
of the values to be found in mentorship, a regard for mutual respect and trust,
and a sense of openness and positive interaction are all present, then the men-
tor-protege relationship has the potential to be as strong as possible.
No magic ;e:ipes exist to guide the matching of mentors to proteges.
However,
some of the i:,s6es tht might be considered when a
,chool district begins to de-
velop a low program include the following:
1.
Cross-gender mentoring (Will it be possible for men to work with female
colleagues?
Women to work with men?)
2.
Mentoring across organizational levels (Can a superintendent serve as
a mentor to a beginning principal?)
3.
Differences in ages (Can younger, but more experienced, administrators
serve as effective mentors to older colleagues who are just beginning
their administrative careers?)
4.
Mentoring across school systems (Is it necessary for the mentor and
protege to be employed by the same school system?
Can productive
mentoring relationships be developed across school district boundaries?)
70
69
Answers to these and other questions related to strategies utilized to match
mentors with proteges must be addressed at the local level. Little research has
been conducted to guide program developers with making these choices. Further,
local conditions such as the personalities of mentor administrators and beginners,
traditions of cooperation, and other aspects of life in particular school systems
have a major impact on the way in which a program might be developed.
BENEFITS TO PROTEGES
Despite all of the difficulties that might be part of the design of a men-
toring program, it is necessary to remember that there are many benefits to be
achieved by the beginning administrator as a protege. These benefits outweigh
any disadvantages related to program design.
Among the benefits often cited by those who hive served as proteges in men-
toring programs for Pdministrator professional develcpment are the following:
1.
Working with a mentor is a w.ly to build confidence and competence.
Proteges enjoy working with people who sense that they possess skills
needed to meet new professional challenges.
They are able to receive
the type of "tapping," encouragement, and reinforcement from their
mentors that enable them to look to their future responsibilities
with a good deal more confidence.
2. The mentoring experience provides people with the opportunity to
blend the theory of administration learned through university courses
with real-life applications out in the field.
People can see ides
being translated into action on a daily basis in real school settings
by real school practitioners.
3.
Communication skills are frequently improved.
Working on a regular
basis with mentors gives people the ability to fine-tune their a.'ility
and to express important ideas to their colleagues.
4.
Proteges report that they are able to learn many important "tricks of
the trade."
They are often able to pick up a number of proven tech-
niques and strategiez that mentors have used successfully in different
settings.
As a consequence, they are able to build personclized "bags
of tricks" to use on the job at different times in the future.
5.
Perhaps most importantly, proteges express a feeling that they are now
"connected" with at least one other person who understands the nature
of the world in which they must work.
There is little doubt that one
70
of the most frustrating parts of the school administrator's life is
that he or she must often go about the business of leading while in
isolation.
A mentoring relationship reduces this type of situation
greatly.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
In this chapter, the responsibilities of proteges were considered as they
are related to the development and maintenance of successful
mentoring programs.
It was noted that effective mentorship must be understood Ps a dynamic and inter-
active process where both the mentor and protege are expected to contribute time
and skill if the relationship is to "work."
Next, issues associated with effective matching of mentors and proteges
were reviewed.
No single model is available to dictate proper matching.
Instead,
local conditions must be assessed to determine the proper way to bring experienced
and beginning administrators together on a continuing and productive basis.
The chapter concluded with a brief consideration of some of the major
ben-
efits ..
.* are likely to be derived by proteges as a result of their participation
in a mentorship program.
Such activities require a considerable amount of effort
to develop, but there is consistent evidence that suggests that
the work is worth-
while.
71
CHAPTER 8
TRAINING FOR MENTORS
The practice of mentoring serves as a very important part of planned efforts
to support Entry Year programs for school administrators.
School districts that
are about to implement programs designed to assist
beginning school administrators
will likely find it nece .isary to develop specialized training activities to help
those individuals who have been identified as mentors to carry out their respon-
sibilities as effectively as possible.
In this chapter, issues associated with the development of mentor training
programs that might be established throughout the state of Ohio on a
regional,
county, or individual school district basis are noted.
First, a number of fun-
damental assumptions concerning the conditions which must exist before beginning
any type of local training program are reviewed.
In many ways, these assumptions
represent the types of attitudes which need to be demonstrated by designers of
training activities.
Next, there is a presentation of some of the most relevant
skills that must be addressed as districts work to prepare individuals to serve
it their critical helping roles.
Most of these skills might be classified as
practices associated with the processes of mentoring.
Finally, the chapter con-
cludes with some suggestions concerning a knowledge base that needs to be addressed
as part of the professional development
for beginning school administrators.
FUNDAMENTAL ASSUMPTIONS
Four major conditions need to exist in a school or district if mentor train-
ing is to be effective.
Any system undertaking the establishment of a mentoring
program to assist beginning administrators will take steps to
establish trust
72
and openness among the administrators of the district, will invest sufficient
resources to support a mentoring program, will develop and maintain open and
honest communication patterns, and will show awareness and sensitivity to the
unique learning needs of adults.
Trust Building
In order for mentorship to be successful, positive rapport and trust need
to exist among the personnel involved in the program.
If working relationships
among administrators are marked by feelings of jealousy, disrespect, and fear,
administrative mentoring programs have little chance to succeed.
The best situation for the establishment of an effective mentoring program
would be one that is endorsed by all staff members working in harmony toward a
common set of personal and professional goals.
In such an arrangement, the
prevailing view might be that all individuals sincerely believe that no one per-
son crAn be any stronger than the weakest individual in the organization.
As a
result, there is a constant effort to make certain that everyone is as successful
as possible.
Unfortunately, such a norm does not always exist in school districts
or individual schools.
Several strategies might be utilized to promote the development of greater
rapport and more trusting relationships in schools.
Idol-Maestas, Nevin, and Paolucci-Whitcomb (1985) suggested the following
behaviors that might be carried out as a way to promote a more positive and
trusting wore climate:
1.
Each member of the organization needs to be conscious of his or her
commitment to treat others with respect, even when disagreement is
present.
2.
All individuals must demonstrate a willingness to learn from others.
3.
A commitment is needed so that everyone shares information that is
relevant to the goals of the organization.
4.
Individual differences among organizational members are recognized
and responded to in a positive fashion.
74
73
5.
All parties in the organization are invited to give feedback, and
also receive feedback when provided by others.
6.
Others are open)y given credit for their ideas and other contributions
to the organizatiins.
7.
Confrontation skills are utilized correctly and in a positive fashion.
The key to these ideas naving a discernible impact on the quality of life
in a school is the extent to which people are willing to follow through
with
their dedication to the development of a more open climate.
The seven steps
noted above cannot merely be tiped on a wall and forgotten.
Someone or some
group must accept the responsiblity for
making certain that a sincere effort
is being made to carry out earn practice.
Sufficient Resources
As noted throuyiout many earlier sections of this Resource Guide,
school
systems may comply with the requirement to provide support for beginning
admin-
istrators at one of two levels.
Superintendents might engage in token compliance
by simply designating someone to serve v a mentor when new
administrators are
hired.
On the other hand, district offici,ls miynt make use of the Entry Year
requirement as a way to promote a more effective approach to administrative
professional development in general.
In this second case, school districts will
have invested a reasonable amount of support for programs.
This support is not
confined to the expenditure of money but, even more importantly, in
terms of an
investment of time and talent by people who will participate in
Entry Year pro-
grams.
Clearly, this includes those individuals who are to be directly involved
as either mentors or proteges.
In addition, even those not participating on a
continuing basis -- people such as the district superintendent,
other building
administrators, school board members, and members of the Entry Year
planning
committee -- must continue to invest time and caring in the ongoing
activities
of mentors and beginning administrators.
For example, a district may enact a
policy which enables certain administrators to be relieved of other duties so
74
that they might have more time to devote tn the mentoring process.
Entry Year
programs should be given value and prestige if*they are to achieve their full
potential for being the basis of strong professional development for school
administrators.
Open Communication
Another fundamental assumption is that school districts develop and maintain
open communication patterns.
In this way, people will be able to learn about
how to perform their roles much more effectively.
System wide patterns of open
communication promotes similar patterns among the mentor and protege.
People can learn to talk to one another.
Understanding and enhancing the
communication process is also largely dependent upon the development of a set of
specific skills.
Richard Gorton (1986) has suggested some useful strategies for
this important effort:
1. Paraphrasing.
Restate the main ideas of others in order to clarify
those ideas.
("In other words, what you're saying is
...
")
2.
Perception Checking.
Check to see that one's perception of what has
been said is accurate.
("If I understand you correctly, you're
saying ... ")
3.
Relating Things to Personal Feelings.
Communication can break down
because receivers have a negative reaction to statements; what a per-
son says offends, often unintentionally.
A person must confront such
negative feelings openly when they occur.
("When you say that,
I
feel like ... ")
4. Using Objective Descriptions.
The use of highly subjective terms that
imply personal value statements hurts open communication.
It is nec-
essary to describe behaviors with objective terms, when possible, so
that people are less likely to say, "It's not what you're saying that
I reject, but rather how you're saying it."
5. Feedback.
People in organizations must learn to give and accept in
return constructive ar,d honest feedback to keep communication channels
open between and among all parties.
Adult Learning
Most educators have considerable experience and expertise in dealing with
children as learners.
Mentors need to appreciate that their role calls for them
76
75
to be sensitive to the concerns of adults as learners.
Adults have different learning needs from those of children.
Malcolm
Knowles (1970), a major contributor to the field of adult education, identified
four critical characteristics of adults and their patterns of learning:
1.
As a person matures, his or iier self-concept moves from one of
dependency to one of self-direction.
2.
The mature person tends to accumulate a growing reservoir of experience
that provides a resource for learning.
3.
The adult's readiness to learn becomes increasingly oriented toward
the developmental tasks of his or her assigned social roles.
4.
The adult's time perspective changes from postponed application
of
knowledge to immediate application, and accordingly his or her orien-
tation toward learning shifts from subject-centeredness to problem-
centeredness.
Predictably, Knowles's work encouraged others to research and write in the
field of adult education, and some researchers' work is useful in developing
effective mentoring programs.
Wood and Thompson (1980), for example, reviewed
some salient aspects of adult learning:
1.
Adults will learn the goals and objectives of a learning activity
which are considered by the learner to be realistic, related, and
important to a specific issue at hand.
2.
Adults will learn, retain, and use what they perceive as relevant tc
their immediate personal and professional needs.
3.
Adults need to see the results of their efforts and have frequent
and
accurate feedback about progress that is being made toward
their goals.
4.
Adult learning is highly ego involved.
When a person is unsuccessful
at a given learning task, it is like)y that he or she will
take it as
an indication of personal incompetency and
failure.
5.
Adults always come to any learning experience with a wide range
of
previous experiences, knowledge, skills, and competencies.
6.
Adults want to be the origins of their own learning, and they
wish to
be directly involved in the selection of learning objectives,
content,
and activities.
7.
Adults will tend to resist any learning experience that they
believe
is either an open c- implied attack on their personal or
professional
competence.
76
8.
Adults reject prescriptions by others for their learnings.
9.
Adult motivation comes from the learner and not from any external
source.
While this may generally be said of motivation of all in-
dividuals, it is true that, as a person matures, efforts to motivate
from outside the individual will decrease in probable effectiveness.
Taken together, these characteristics of adult learning should provide
ad-
ministrative mentors with some important insights.
First, the fact that adults
want (and learn best from) experiences that address immediate
problems suggests
that mentors should direct activities toward answering the
perennial question,
"What should I do on Monday morning?"
Mentors must be careful in this regard,
however.
Any tendency to try to provide proteges with too much advice can prove
to be counter-productive.
Knowledge about adult learning also provides important
clues to mentors
about adult self-concept needs.
As people become more mature, they become
increasingly self-conscious in situations where they believe
they might experience
failure in front of others.
Effective mentors practice confidentiality in their
encounters with their proteges.
They avoid public comparisons of their proteges
with others.
Finally, mentors should recognize the potential richness of
learning experi-
ences their proteges have accumulated.
Thus, these experiences could serve as
building blocks for positive relationships between mentors and
proteges.
SKILLS FOR EFFECTIVE MENTORING
When the assumptions above have been satisfied,
it is possible to begin to
develop a formal mentoring program in a school system.
At least three specific
skill areas have been identified as clearly related to
the types of activities
carried out by mentors, and as a result, training
needs to be directed toward
each of these.
They include problem-solving skills, conferencing skills and
observation skills.
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77
Problem-Solving Skills
The essence of effective administration involves the resolution of prob-
lems faced by people in organizations. As a result, mentoring relationships
for beginning school administrators must properly be directed toward the dis-
covery of ways to refine problem-solving skills.
One model that might be consulted as the basis for developing practical
skills associated with administrative problem-solving is suggested by Gordon
(1987).
It consists of the following seven steps wnich might be shared with a
novice administrator faced with considering an issue associated with his or her
job:
1.
Seek information about the perceived problem.
(If existence of a
particular problem is verified, this information car be useful for
the next steps in the process).
2.
Define the problem.
(Identify the desired situation and compare to
the actual one.
Moving from the actual to the desired situation is
the goal of problem solving).
3.
Propose alternative strategies to solve the problem.
Generate as
mai), potential strategies as possible, hold evaluations until later
in the process.
4.
Select strategies for implementation.
(After weighing the advantages
and disadvantages of each proposed strategy, choose the ones most
likely to succeed).
5.
Design an action plan.
(Translate strategies into specific actions,
agree on who is responsible for which actions, identify and secure
resources, set a time line, and plan to assess actions taken }.
6.
Implement the action plan.
7.
Assess the action plan.
(Did the action plan produce the desired
situation identified in the frst step of this process?
Continue,
modify, or abandon the action plan depending on the outcome of the
assessment).
The mentor might wish to review these seven basic steps prior to the first
time in which a beginning administrator might encounter a problem that might
call for this type of linear problem-solving model to be used.
Another effective
technique would involve the examination and review of these steps as a novice
78
administrator is asked to "work through" a particular problem issue that was
encountered on the job.
Conferencing Skills
Much of the interaction between mentors and beginning administrators will
take place during one-to-one conferencing situations.
Some information in the
general literature relate to supervision, and in particular clinical and develop-
mental supervision may be helpful to mentore
bo are seeking information for
appropriate ways of working with beginning administrators.
The majority of the
work currently dealing with the use o, conferencing practices between educators,
deals with strategies utilized by administrative or supervisory personnel who
are working with classroom teachers.
Therefore, administrative mentors will need
to adapt and modify information presented in the literature related to teacher
conferences to address the needs, concerns, and sensitivities found in administra-
tive mentor protege conferences.
As noted at numerous places in this Resource Guide, the nature of school
administration and professional development for educational administrators makes
it quite inappropriate to attempt any direct transfer of teacher supervision or
teacher mentoring practices into an Entry Year program for administrators.
For
one thing, conferences involving administrative mentors and their proteges
will
typically be apart from any immediate observation of performance, as is true of
conferences utilized for classroom teachers.
Further, it is absolutely essential
in programs of administrative mentoring that the notion of peer relationships
between mentors and proteges remain in tact.
Confeiencing between administrators
or supervisors and teachers will always contain a strong element of subordinate-
superordlnate matching, regardless of whether the conferencing takes place as
part of formative or summative evaluation.
Conferences between administrators
in a mentoring relationship must never be viewed in the same light.
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79
Two sources of information on conferencing include collegial decision
making, and Peer-Assisted Leadership (PAL).
Conferencing built on the notion
of collegial decision making might bE an appropriate strategy because collegial
decision making is Lased on the assumption that all partners in the process are
considered equals, and that there is a degree of openness, trust, and honesty
which prevails in the partnership.
Generally, collegial decision making may
be seen as a way of making incremental changes in the quality of things done on
a continuing basis.
The objectives of this approach are as follows:
(Hitt, 1978)
1.
To share experiences and ideas and to get support from one or more
colleagues who may be enlisted to work toward she achievement of
common goals.
2.
To promote active and open communication skills.
3.
To share problems, generate alternative solutions, evaluate alterna-
tives, and select the most appropriate and feasible alternatives.
4.
To provide assistance and encouragement to all parties in the collegial
process.
5.
To assist both mentors and proteges regarding particular administrative
problems.
6.
To provide a climate which promotes mutual support and stimulation
of
the professional growth of both the mentor and the protege.
Collegial decision making is by no means an easy process to implement in a
school setting.
It makes the assumption that all participants are able to engage
in continuing, open dialogue to achieve solutions that are shared.
As a result,
this approach to conferencing precludes behavior by mentors which suggests
that
they will tell the protege what to do.
No one partner is to act in a superior
way to the other; C.a mentor does not talk to the protege to
"fix" their problems.
The emphasis on a mentor-protege relationship is placed on parity,
mutuality and
honest discourse.
The Peer-Assisted Leadership (PAL) model for administrator inservice
that
was developed by the Far West Regional
Educational Laboratory in San Francisco
(Barnett, 1986) provides a strategy that might also be consulted in developing
80
conferencing skills by administrative mentors.
PAL, in fact, is a comprehensive
model that suggests that administrators will be provided with
effective profes-
sional development by engaging in a systematic process of peer observat4on and
conferencing.
The primary purposes of PAL involve reducing the isolation so
many principals experience by allowing them to gain greater
insights into their
own leadership behavior.
These general purposes are supported through the
specific goals of the program, which include helping principals to do the
following:
1.
Learn and apply new ways to think about instructional leadership.
2.
Analyze their own and another principal's behavior.
3.
Integrate the instructional leadership framework into their own
settings.
4.
Learn how other principals lead their schools.
5.
Form a collegial support system in which new ideas and insights are
shared and change is nurtured and supported.
Operationally, PAL works by pairing principals (perhaps as mentor and pro-
tege) to form a supportive team who agree to spend time in shadowing the other
partner, and then engaging in extended face-to-face interviews and
conferences.
The primary emphasis in these sessions is to enable both partners to
reflect on
the nature of the activities recently observed during the shadowing
chase.
The
following questions serve as the basis for the peer conference sessions:
1.
What did you see when you watched the other principal?
2.
What did you infer from his or her behavior?
3.
What insights did you gain into your own behavior after observing
the activities of another colleague?
4.
How would you change your own behavior as a principal after what you
have observed?
5.
In what ways do you believe that you are a more effective
instructional
leader after what you have observed in the behavior of a colleague?
The real value of looking at PAL may be that, as a model for professional
de-
velopment, it places great emphasis on the notion of mutuality by participants.
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81
This would seem to be a desirable goal in the Entry Year program setting where
participation should be as valuable for th. mentor as it is for the beginning
administrator.
Observation Skills
Observation skills for those who would like to see what administrators do
are considerably different from those used for teacher observations.
After
all, it is not possible to schedule a "drop-in" observation to see someone ad-
minister in the same way that an observer can slip into the back of a teacher's
class for just a few minutes.
A recommended practice for those who wish to see what other administrators
are doing is to engage in on-the-job shadowing.
In this approach to observation,
one administrator simply agrees to follow a colleague around during a typical
work day.
During that period of shadowing, the observer says nothing and avoids
any direct involvement in the activities of his or her partner.
The emphasis is
on complete non-participant observation.
The amount of time for the shadowing
may vary according to time constraints of the partner administrators.
However,
it should be of sufficient duration that the observer can go.. insights into what
a typical oeriod of time is like in the life of the other administrator.
The
most important feature of the siadowing experience comes after the period of
observation has concluded and the two parties engage ii the type of open, reflec-
tive conferencing described earlier.
Thz whole issue of observation of administrators is problematic in the
mentor setting.
As noted at earlier times in this Resource Guide, it is likely
that mentors and
oteges will be in different buildiois or, at times, other
school districts.
As a result, opportunities for observation may be limited.
S..rategies need to oe built in to effective Entry Year programs s,
that the
protege will be abls to get a valia response to the inevitable question, "How am
I doing?"
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82
A KNOWLEDGE BASE FOR PREPARING ADMINISTRATIVE MENTORS
In the earlier section of this chapter, information was presented concern-
ing the required skills and assumptions associated with administrative mentors.
In this section, another important issue is reviewed, namely the identification
of a critical knowledge base that needs to be addressed by those who will assist
in the forging of future administrative practice.
In summary, mentors need to
be aware of the Lharacteristics of effective schools, recent research related
to effective instructional leadership by principals, and the critical needs of
beginning adminstrators.
Effective School Research
During the 1970's and 1980's many researchers attempted to answer a very
simply _et important question:
What is an effective school?
The Ohio Department
of Education (1981) has reviewed the findings of many of these studies and sug-
gested that the following seven factors represent essential ingredients in
effective elementary and secondary schools:
1.
A Sense of Mission.
Effective schools make a conscious decision to
become effective schools and that is their mission.
A collegial de-
cision and commitment is made to assure minimum mas4;ery of basic
school skills for all pupils.
Pupil acquisition of basic school skills take: precedence over all
other school activities and, when necessary, school energy and re-
sources are diverted from other activities to achieve that end.
2.
Strop Buildin
Leadershi .
Effective schools have principals who
are, In fact, t e instructional leaders of the staff.
They are
creative, bold, supportive and dedicated to the mission of the school.
They are active and involved with all parts of their educational com-
munity.
3.
High Expectations for All Students and Staff. Effective schools ex-
pect teachers to teach and pupils to learn. Standards are high but
realistic.
No student is allcwed to attain less than minimum mastery
of the basic skills of the assigned level.
The teachers believe they have the ability to provide the required
instructional program and that all students can master the basic
skills they teach.
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83
4.
Frequent Monitoring of Student Progress.
Effective schools have
teachers and principals ire constantly aware of pupil progress
in relationship to the instructional objectives.
Frequent monitor-
ing of pupil progress may be as traditional as classroom testing
on the day's lesson or as advanced as criterion-referenced system-
wide standardized testing measures.
5.
A Positive Learning Climate.
Effective schools have an atmosphere
that is orderly without being rigid, quiet without being oppressive,
and generally conductive to the instructional mission.
The climate
is warm and responsive, emphasizes cognitive development, is innovat-
ing, and provides a student support system.
6. Sufficient Opportunity for Learning.
Effective schools emphasize
more time on task.
The more time spent in instruction, the greater
the learning that takes place.
Implications exist for improved use
of time, individualized instruction and curriculum content.
7.
Parent/Community Involvement.
Effective schools have broad support.
Parents influence their children in o number of ways:
through their
expectations for the children, through their own involvement, and
through direct instructions.
Other answers to the question of what makes a school effective are found in
the following chart (Figure 8.1) that was developed by Gerald Ubben and Larry
Hughes (19r7) in their work, The Principal: Creative Leadersrip for Effective
Schools.
The chart represents key characteristics of principals in effective
sLa..ols in a comparison analysis of three studies by Weber (1981). EdinLAs (1981),
and Brookover-Lezotte (1983).
Weber
Edmonds
Brookover-Lezotte
1. Strong leadership
2. High expectations for
students
3. Orderly atmosphere
4. Emphasis on reading
5. Frequent evaluation
Strong leadership
High expectations for stu-
dents
Orderly, but not rigid at-
mosphere
Emphasis on basic skills
Emphasis on student prog-
ress
Assertive instructional
leadership
Strong disciplinarian
Emphasis on achievement
Evaluation of objectives
FIGURE 8.1
85
Key Characteristics of Principals in Effective Schools: A Comparison of Three Studies
Research or Instructional Leadership
The current literature stresses the fact that it is the
principal who is
they "key" ingredient to developing and maintaining
effective schools.
Further
researchers have discovered that the key
this effectiveness is derived from
the principal's ability to serve as an
instructional leader.
More and more
has been written about the precise characteristics
of principals who have served
as instructional leaders.
Despite the amount of discussion about, as well as support
for, the concept
of instructional leadership, little has been done to
define that concept opera-
tionally.
Few studies have been undertaken to determine the
specific behaviors
of administrators who serve as instructional
leaders.
Early efforts tender' to
define leadership behavior in very narrow terms.
As a result, most early des-
criptions focused only on the ways in which
school principals became directly
involved with instructional activities, and the
perception grew that only those
principals who spent nearly all of their time either
teaching classes or observ-
ing teachers were legitimately serving as
instructional leaders.
This narrow
view has more recently been rejected for at least two reasons.
First, we low
recognize that ind,viduals (e.g. supervisors,
superintendents or department
chairs) might indeed engage in instructional leadership
behaviors.
Second, we
have increasingly realized that instructional
leadership can take forms that go
well beyond direct intervention in classroom
activities.
The definition of
instructional leadership suggested by Lui
(1984) is using in describing this
concept.:
Instructional leadership consists of direct or
indirect behaviors that significantly affect
teacher instruction and, as a result, student
learning.
Lui divides the tasks of instructional behavior
leadership into two cate-
gories -- direct and indirect.
In very broad terms, we might classify direct
Lis
85
leadership activities as staff development and teacher supervision and evalua-
tion, and indirect leadership as instructionaljacilitation, resource acquisi-
tion and building maintenance, and student oroblem resolution.
Examples of
specific behaviors related to each of these broad categories are shown in the
following list:
Factor I:
Staff Development
Work with a committee to plan and implement the staff development
program.
Survey staff members to determine topics and activities for a year-
long staff development plan.
Provide inservice training for the support staff on how their roles
relate to the instruction program.
Factor II:
Resource Acquisition and Building Maintenance
Maintain the building in order to provide a pleasant working condition
for students and staff.
Acquire adequate resources for teaching.
Allocate resources on the basis of identified needs according to a
priority ranking.
Factor III:
Instructional Facilitaticn
Establish priorities so that, by the amount of time devoted to it,
instruction is always first.
Work according to the belief that all students can learn and achieve
at high levels.
Support teachers who are implementing new ideas.
Factor IV:
Teacher Supervision and Evaluation
Involve staff members and people from the community in setting clear
goals and objectives for instruction.
Work according to the belief that all teachers can teach and teach well.
Have conferences with individual teachers to review their instructional
plans.
87
Factor V:
Student Problem Resolution
Assist teachers in dealing with discipline problems.
Enforce school attendance policies to reduce tardiness and absentee
rates.
Interact directly with students to discuss their problems about school.
Using these classifications and descriptions of instructional
leadership
behavioes, Lui (1985) studied two groups of high school principals, one
ileffecti.a"
and the other "not effective."
He found that the effective group engaged in in-
structional leadership behaviors more o..ten than the other group, and
that those
behaviors reflected both direct and indirect instructional leadership.
It is
suspected, then, that instructional leadership is as much a product of a person-
alized educational philosophy as it is of any particular activities that a
person
follows.
One of the most comprehensive recent efforts to gain a better
understanding
of what behaviors compromise instructional leadership was
carried out by the
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
(ASCD) which looked at
the work of numerous principals who had been identified as
instructional leaders.
Five behavioral patterns were identified in those individuals
who were viewed as
effective leaders:
1.
They provide a sense of vision to their schools:
They demonstrate the
ability to articulate what a school is supposed to
do, particularly
in terms of what it should do to benefit children.
Effective instruc-
tional leaders leave little doubt that the purpose of the
school is to
find ways in which children may learn successfully.
This vision, or
mission, guides all other actions.
2.
They engage in participative management:
They encourage a better
organizational climate in the school by allowing teachers and staff
to participate meaningfully in real decision making,
and not merely
in an effort to "play at" geWng people to be involved when
decisions
are already made.
The staff senses creater ownership in the priorities
and programs that are available to help children.
3.
They provide support for instruction:
Instructional leaders are so
committeo to maintaining quality instruction as their
primary organi-
zational focus that when decisions must be r-de concerning
priorities,
88
86
87
instruction always comes first.
These individuals make it clear to
all around them that energy will be expended to assure that resources
are available to enable the instructional program of the school to
proceed unabated.
4. Instructional leaders monitor instruction:
They know what is going
on in the classrooms of their schools.
This monitoring may take
several forms, from direct in-class intensive observation to merely
walking around the building and talking with students.
The critical
issue, regardless of the parti.uiar procedures followed, is that
instructional leaders are aware of the quality of instruction being
carried out in their schools.
5. They are resourceful:
Instructional leaders rarely allow circumstances
in their organizations to get in the way of their vision for quality
educational programs.
As a result, they tend not to allow the lack
of resources, or apparently prohibitive school or district policies,
or any other factors from interfering with their goals for their
schools.
Instructional leaders carry out these five behavior patterns very differently.
Thus, people with different personalities and philosophies, values, and attitudes
can be equally effective as educational leaders.
In addition, entirely different
schools can serve as settings for instructional leadership of the type identified
through the ASCD work.
Developing a Professional Identity
In addition to the general concerns related to effective schools and instruc-
tional leaders, mentors need to be aware of the research base regarding the crit-
cal needs of beginning administrators which has previously been discussed in
chapter two of this Resource Guide.
The one thing that stands out in the litera-
ture:
beginning administrators need to develop a strong professional self-identity.
Research clearly shows that beginners need to demonstrate self-esteem, self confi-
dence, and an appreciation of the wide range of responsibilities of the role.
In
short, the most critical need for a beginning administrator is to answer the
:ollowing two questions:
Who am I?
Who am I now that I am a leader?
The mentor,
then, has a particularly important role tc play in helping his/her protege develop
personalized responses to these important questions.
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88
This section has been directed towards providing information related to the
necessary knowledge base that might be shared with beginning administrators.
Many other items might also be included.
For example, every school district in
the state undoubtedly has special expectations for administrators to carry out.
Time management skills are important for experienced as well as beginning admin-
istrators.
Finally, if there is one clearly established area where school leaders will
always be expected to perform effectively, it is in developing a positive working
relationship with staff, students, parents, and co-workers.
Each mentor must
examine the local conditions to determine what these "other" areas should be.
SUMMARY
In this chapter, some of the most important issues that need to be addressed
as part of programs designed to prepare mentors to assist beginning school admin-
istrators were addressed.
These issues were categorized into three groups.
First, existing attitudes were reviewed in terms of some of the fundamental as-
sumptions and conditions that need to be addressed prior to beginning systematic
training for mentors.
Second, some of the critical skill areas associated witn
effective mentoring are presented.
These included problem solving skills, con-
ferencing techniques, and observation skills. The chapter concluded with a list-
ing of some of the issues that might be considered part of the important knowledge
base to be introduced to novice school administrators.
These included effective
school research, conceptualizations of effective instructional leadership, and
skills Mown to be needed frequently by beginning administrators.
There is no effort here to provide readers of this Resource Guide with a
step-by-step plan for introducing any of these topics as part of a mentor training
00
89
program.
The assumption is made that users of this Resource Guide may have
other approaches that they may wish to follow in introducing topics such as
problem-solving skills or conferencing.
This is not a "cook book" or a training
manual.
The goal here is to alert designers of some of the areas the. need to
be considered.
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90
CHAPTER 9
EVALUATING THE ENTRY 'EAR PROGRAM
Throughout the chapters of this Resource Guide, information was presented
to assist local program facilitators in planning, designing, and implementing
an Entry Year program for school administrators.
A persistent theme was that
Entry Year programs should be viewed as part of a larger commitment to ongoing
professional development.
One important way for nat goal to be realized is
through the development of procedures designed to evaluate the effectiveness
of a local school district's Entry Year program.
In this chapter, information will be provided to assist local planners with
the assessment of their Entry Year programs.
Particular attention will be placed
on the use of a model for the evaluation of inservice programs suggested by the
Ohio Department of Education.
EVALUATION AND DECISION MAKING
Evaluation has been defined as "the process and standard used to assign
worth or value to the evidence [or data] that has been collected."
(Bishop, 19/6)
Program quality is directly related to how effectively the evaluation plan
improves decision making.
Evaluation should be "a collaborative venture whose
primary purpose is to assist with the planning and implementing of programs"
(Burrello and Arbaugh, 1982).
Collecting input from mentors and proteges about their year's experience as
participants in the mentor training program, does not constitute a complete evalu-
ation.
Collaborative judgments about what has worked and why, and what has been
achieved and why should help to specify the standards by wt.tch programs should
2
91
be judged, modified and reconstituted.
If changes are to be made to Letter
accommodate the needs of both mentors and
proteges, and for program improvement,
then a collaborative decision making process
should be conducted frr selecting
an alternative approach to
the problem situation.
CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE EVALUATION
A strong evaluation plan should provide
systematic information about the
mentoring program.
This can take the form of formative
evaluation or summative
evaluation.
"A comprehensive evaluation should include
assessments throughout the ...
program.
Formative evaluations provide assessments of
effectiveness during the
program or activity so revisions can
be made.
This type of evaluation procedure
has a crucial diagnostic dimension;
positive results can be reinforced; problems
can be corrected; emerging
needs can be identified."
(Mertz, 1983).
Throughout
the year spontaneous written or
verbal feedback from the mentors and proteges
should be encouraged by the program
planners for continuous assessment of the
program.
The second evaluation plan taken at the
conclusion of the program, or at
the end of the school year, is referred to
the summative evaluation.
"This type
of evaluation supplies evidence about
overall program effectiveness, and it
'so
provides data for making decisions"
(Mertz, 1983) or modifications to the program.
BASIC CONSIDERATIONS
Three basic components should be a part
of all "well designed evaluations.
These components would include:
objectives, investments, and results and benefits.
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92
1.
Objectives - "A clear, concise statement of objectives is imperative.
The more specific the objective, the easier it becomes for partici-
pants to meet that objective and to evaluate how that objective is
being met."
(Mertz, 1983)
2.
Investments - "Once the objectives are established, the resources
and types of learning formats need to be planned."
(Mertz, 1983)
For the planners of the mentoring program, the component may include
sessions for the mentors that would review their roles and responsi-
bilities, as well as, their sharing of personal experience and ex-
rortise in helping the protege realize his/her own level of confi-
dence and competencies that he/she possesses in order to feel more
successful in their new professional role.
3. Results and benefits - The results of any ... program should be
examined in terms of the (program's) goals and the participant's
growth. Improvement should be evident !,t
he organizational and
individual level."
(Mertz, 1983)
Both mentors and proteges should benefit and "yield profitable results"
from their participation in this program if it is well planned ano flexible
enough to meet the needs of all participants. It is hopeful that 5oth sides
of the mentor/protege relationship will learn from each other, learn more about
their position, and develop personally as well as professionally as a result of
being a part of this program. The organization should also benefit as a result
of professionals working collaboratively, collegially, and in striving to create
a high quality education within a positive learning environment for all students
and educational personnel.
TYPES OF EVALUATIVE MEASURES
Evaluative measures are the "techniques or instruments used to collect and
ascertain the extent or nature of change that has occurred."
(Bishop, 1976)
"Researchers concur that the instrument or technique used for evaluation should
model the behavior being evaluated."
(Mertz, 1983)
It is important to keep in mind when evaluating the deficiencies or successes
of a program that the measurement instruments reflect the intended behaviors of
94
I
the participants.
"Different concerns, like different types of learning, will
influence the types of instruments used."
(Baden, 1980)
Planners of the mentoring program are encouraged to use a variety of evalu-
ative instruments in collecting meaningful data from the mentors and proteges.
Participants of the program can share their experiences and personal perspectives
in different ways such as:
group discussions, interviews, questionnaires, or
logs.
Planners of the program are encouraged to be more than just "planners."
If these individuals are actively involved throughout the course of the program
they also will get a feel for the way the program is developing and
personally
receive "signals" about changes that need to be made either immediately or
for
subsequent programs.
EVALUATION AS REASSESSMENT
The evaluation process can be time consuming, very detailed, and, at many
times, encouraging or discouraging as a result of collecting the
essential data.
However, even when this process is considered to be completed by the mentors
and proteges, the planners of the program are actively getting ready
for next
year's program, by projecting and prioritizing the basic components
for the
subsequent program in order for it to be more successful.
(Mertz, 1983)
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93
. Objectives
. Standards
. Criteria
Instruments
SUCCESS
Values
Participant
Curriculum
Institution
FAILURE
Reinforce
Redesign
--7
Figure 9.1
Generic Model for Decision Making
and Follow-Up in an Evaluation
94
Follow-Up
Activities
I
Reassessment
"From the perspective of long-range (planners),
...
the success or failure
of a particular program is in reality formative -- a midpoint measure or evalu-
ation -- to help assess future programming.
The evaluation results lead to the
next stage:
a reassessment of what has been strengthened, what needs improve-
ment, what should be done.
As part of the reassessment, the goals of the
...
program should be examined again. Major elements of
... the program -- such as
collaborative efforts, participant involvement, planning activities, delivery
systems, and implementation -- should be analyzed.
How do these elements con-
tribute to positive results?
How can these factors be improved?
The success
or failure of any specific program endeavor is not that significant.
Instead,
significance should be measured by what the participants do as a result of the
success or failure.
Those results are the ultimate criterion."
(Mertz, 1983)
96
SUMMARY
This chapter dealt with the evaluative issues of a mentoring program.
A
variety of measurement instruments and strategies can and should be utilized
by all participants of the program.
Just as each school district will plan
a mentoring program to reflect the unique concerns, needs, and realities of a
specific school district
it will also be true that the evaluation procedures
be different to reflect the individual school district as well as the individ-
uals in the school district.
Direct, collaborative input is essential in gain-
ing knowledge about the success or failure of the program.
This important data
is then analyzed, compiled and implemented in the reassessment process of
subsequent program planning sessions and pograms.
Planners should never be
satisfied with a completed program, but can be satisfied with a program that is
continuously changing, reflecting individual needs, and constantly becoming
better.
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95
REFERENCES
Anderson, C., and Devanne, M., (1981).
Mentors:
Can they help women get ahead?
Career Development Activities. 2
2.
Anderson, Mark (1988).
Induction programs for beginning principals.
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