Command decision making

There are too many variations in situations to make it possible to write a policy that covers every situation. There are situations where there is not time, nor it would make sense, to try to assemble stakeholders and allow them to participate meaningfully in the amendment of the policy. Command decision making is a necessary and useful tool in leadership.

However, in the APS, command decisions are not subject to review.

There is no good and ethical reason to except the decisions from review except the arrogance of the decision makers.

Take for example the "weasel clause" in the Student Behavior Handbook;

Nothing in the (Student Behavior Handbook) is intended to prevent a staff member, teacher, principal or other administrator from using his/her best judgment with respect to a particular situation.

First, let's clean up the text. The operative principle here is;

Nothing in the Student Behavior Handbook is intended to prevent a principal or other administrator from using his/her best judgment with respect to a particular situation.

Anyone who supposes that "a staff member or teacher" has the authority to exercise their own "best judgment" with respect to a particular situation, is ignorant of the workings of schools in this school district.

The phrase was written and included in the Student Behavior Handbook for the exclusive use of administrators. It was written in order that principals would not be required to assign the Minimum Mandatory Consequences for misconduct which are outlined in the Handbook. Principals are allowed, and expected, to avoid making waves with parents or in the community when consequences are assigned to students for their misconduct, and will assign the "safest" consequence available; often, no consequence at all.

The net result is that when a teacher takes a student to the administration for the assignment of consequences for misconduct; the principal is not compelled to assign the mandatory minimum consequence. And their "best judgment" is not subject to review.

The failure of the administration to assign meaningful consequences to students who misbehave, is central to their continued misbehavior. It is also central to the trend for teachers to simply ignore the misconduct rather than intervene. And student misconduct is central to the failure of schools to educate effectively.

There is no reason in this context to insulate command decisions from review except in accordance with the arrogance of this particular group of command decision makers.

In good ol' boy organizational structures, the good ol' boys are insulated from accountability to anyone except other good ol' boys. In the APS there is no system provided for subordinates who feel the need to review a command decision. No system is provided that provides a principled resolution of complaints that the command decision making authority has been abused.

The down side of all of this is that command decisions in effect, change policy. Command decisions change policy without recognizing the rights of stakeholders to participate meaningfully in policy making; fundamental stakeholder rights according to the principles of the student standard of conduct.

Either that, or the standards of conduct and competence that apply to students; the Pillars of Character Counts!, are simply a bunch of crap that is fed to students in an effort to make the leadership of the APS look good in the paper.

No one in the leadership of the APS is actually accountable as a role model of standards of conduct that respect the rights of stakeholders to participate meaningfully in policy making.

Unless Winston Brooks (and every other administrator) is honestly accountable to the student standards of conduct and competence as a role model, none of those standards is worth a hill of beans.

Winston Brooks cannot even be compelled to explain, defend, or even acknowledge that he is not accountable as a role model, though he is the senior most administrative role model in the entire APS.

His refusal to even acknowledge the question is a manifestation of (poor) command decision making.

And it is not subject to review.

If you don't like it, tough shit.
Like I said, it is not subject to review.