Decentralized Dollars and Decisions - central office support of site-specific programmes within Edmonton Public Schools system

School Administrator, May, 2001 by Angus B. Mcbeath

Reshaping Edmonton's central office to support principals and site-specific needs

One of Emery Dosdall's first acts as the new superintendent of the Edmonton Public Schools in January 1995 was to ask teachers, principals and parents what they thought central-services staff could do to improve the performance of schools. Their responses confirmed we needed to do a much better job to support site administrators, improve student achievement of the mandated curriculum and ensure the central office truly supported the work of the schools.

More than 15 years earlier, when Dosdall's predecessor, Michael Strembitsky, introduced site-based decision making, schools had been granted significant dollars and authority. Yet many principals did not feel they controlled enough of the levers at their schools to meet the targets for student achievement and other crucial goals. One barrier blocking principal autonomy was how we operated the central office.

In central services at the time, we still decided what services schools required, when they would get them, who would provide them and how much service would be rationed by central to the schools. In other words, like most public school districts, we were product oriented, not service oriented.

Agenda Setters

Before we had school-site decision making in Edmonton, central-office staff were the powerful elite class in our organization. They maintained enormous control over the amount and nature of the services schools could access from the district-even after the district introduced site-based decisions. Two pilot projects that had been slowly feeding out service dollars to schools for consulting services and operational maintenance had not substantially improved the quality and timeliness of services provided in these two areas.

In 1995-96, the superintendent brought several fundamental changes to the organization. Over two years he allocated the majority of the central-services funds to the schools--about $20 million at that time. As the administrator responsible for designing and overseeing this sweeping change, I can tell you we confronted quite a few challenges during a short time frame.

The movement of all the consulting services (curricular consultants, district psychologists, social workers), in-service programs, daily maintenance (trades work), technology, marketing, administrative support, the outdoor education center, the district bookstore, products' warehouse and other service dollars to the schools left many units within central office without any centrally allocated funds.

The district attached few rules to this innovation. Schools could purchase services and products from the district or outside vendors and they could commit any amount on program expenditures at the school level.

Shock to the System

Central staff were quite taken aback by this innovation, although many staff saw it coming with the two pilot projects. With the advent of true, cost-recovery central services, many central staff responded with fear for their jobs, and many claimed you could not trust the schools to use their money wisely. Others looked forward to operating in a much more entrepreneurial work environment.

Some central staff also indicated this move would confirm that our principals would be no more than building managers instead of instructional leaders. Some central staff also claimed they did not have the know-how to market and deliver services for which schools would be willing to pay. While many principals welcomed the additional leverage this move would give them to achieve results, others felt their additional responsibilities would far outweigh any benefits that might accrue.

During this time of unsettling change, a significant part of my role was to nurture the attitudes of central staff relative to the work we do as well as the work of the schools. I continually had to remind central staff that the most important work of the district takes place in the classroom and that the principalship is the most crucial leadership position within the organization.

After cost-recovery central services were put in place, I needed to reinforce with staff that rather than focusing on what central had lost and schools had gained, central staff should ensure that their knowledge and skills were such that they could assist schools when needed. Toward that end, I reminded central staff that if we truly helped schools achieve their results, the schools would view us as indispensable to their success.

I believe we would not have introduced cost-recovery central services were we not confident that we had high-quality and talented central staff who were up to this challenge. I spent a lot of time with principals asking for their patience as we struggled to work out the bugs in our new service system.

Reinventing Ourselves

The six months between the superintendent s announcement that he would be moving the service monies to the schools and implementation left central staff with little time to resist this innovation. There was an enormous amount of work to be done in order to be ready for start up.