Introduction:
In this assignment, Change Makers interviewed former acting principal and vice principal of Coastal Christian School, Mr. Tee. The school closed prematurely due to several underlying issues. Mr. Tee provided background information of the school as well as allowing us access to the agenda and minutes of a spring general meeting (Appendix A). The following is a background of the school, interview notes, analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the organization, as well as a summary of findings and an unpublished agenda.
School Background:
Coastal Christian School, referred to as CCS, was a school of approximately 40 students from grades K- 9. Another Christian school founded CCS as a ‘school plant.’ The principal, secretary, and bookkeeper were all original members of the school board and they remained active in the school development and administration until its closure in 2014. The mission of CCS was “a community of learners growing in grace and knowledge.” A Christian worldview permeated throughout all of the areas of the curriculum and students practiced their beliefs in the community around them through outreach projects. The culture of the surrounding community was hostile to Christianity, though merely apathetic to the school. There were good relations between the public school district and the CCS administrative team. The school board consisted of five parent and parent alumni volunteers as well as the principal and bookkeeper. Most of the student body included church families, though at least three families were non-christian families seeking a Christian education for their children. Mr. Tee was a grade 7-9 teacher at CCS.
The principal went on medical leave due to stress in March 2012, and the board asked Mr. Tee to fill in as acting principal. Mr. Tee was acting principal for the remainder of the school year and he provided support and accountability to the principal the following year by serving as vice-principal. By joining the administrative team, he became aware of many previously unknown financial and relational issues within the organization as a whole. Through his work with an overarching Christian school organization, Society of Christian Schools of British Columbia (SCSBC), a plan developed to rescue the school from its financial struggles. Unfortunately, the school did not escape its troubles and closed down a year after Mr. Tee left. Mr. Tee stayed in contact with the chairman of the board and several families over the years since his departure. They often express interest in reopening and rebranding the school at some point in the future. There is a need for Christian education on the coast of British Columbia, and it would fill a Blue Water need (Ungerer et al., 2016).
Method:
Using a qualitative research method, Change Makers interviewed Mr. Tee collecting anecdotal data through a series of tools they developed. Through the use of Lepsinger (2010) and Hughes, Beatty and Dinwoodie et al. (2014), Change Makers developed a series of tools to research the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats present in the situation that developed at Coastal Christian School. Table 1 is a series of interview questions for Mr. Tee, the acting principal and vice principal of Coastal Christian School. Table 2 is a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis developed using procedures found in the LDRS 501 course syllabus (Atha, 2018). Table 3 represents an after action review of events as described in Hughes et al. (2014, p. 134). Change Makers further interviewed Mr. Tee using Exhibit 3.6 Accessing Organizational Capacity for Action (p. 131).
| Was the vision for CCS clear to all of the stakeholders? (Lepsinger, 2010, p.26) | The school mission statement was “A community of learners growing in grace and knowledge.” CCS’ mission statement needed to be bolder, reflecting the evangelistic and discipleship natures of the school. The lack of clarity in the school’s vision resulted in no long-term planning. |
| Was a strategic plan in place for the future growth of CCS? (Lepsinger, 2010, p.48). | No, Mr. Tee developed several strategic options for the school board and parent community to choose from (See Appendix 1). The plan was not adopted by the board, however. |
| Were the four strategic states model employed to ward off any unknowns at CCS? (Lepsinger, 2010, pp.28-33). | When Mr. Tee took leadership of the school, it was in a circle the wagons type situation, though few members of the community were aware of this. |
| Did the school have an action plan in place? (Lepsinger, 2010, p.44). | They did not have an active action plan nor strategies for further development. The school was reactive rather than proactive. |
| Would you say each administrator and teacher at CCS “brought their “A” game and delivered at a high level of performance?” (Lepsinger, 2010, p.51). | Members of the paid staff worked at a very high level of performance. The principal was also teaching in addition to her administrative duties, which lead to her stress leave. Board members were active in discussion, but they were not effective at implementing new ideas and strategies. When it came to implementing strategic options, there was no delegation of responsibilities and little was accomplished. |
| Did the entire leadership team at CCS contribute to the solution or was the bar set high for the leadership team for them to achieve high performance? (Lepsinger, 2010, p.53). | Mr. Tee created most of the solution then presented to the leadership team. Unfortunately, most of the participation on the part of the leadership team was discussion but there was little action to implement the solution. |
| What was the expectation from the leadership team? | The implementation of several strategic goals to prevent further financial crisis. |
| Did the leadership team at CCS try to break negative cycles of low expectations leading to low performance? (Lepsinger, 2010, p.56). | On the suggestion of the overarching Christian school organization and the chairman of the board, there was a discussion of dismissing the principal and replacing her with Mr. Tee. The chairman of the board determined the principal was medically unable to perform her duties. However, the principal and bookkeeper created several incidents and threatened to sue the school if this took place. No consultation with Mr. Tee occurred regarding this option until after the fact, and it created a challenging work environment for him. |
| Was the Strategic Leadership Team (SLT) at CCS limited in its collective thinking by failing to discuss the undiscussables? (Hughes et al., 2014, p. 212). | Many issues were undiscussable, including the cause for the principal’s medical leave. The most notable undiscussable was the financial state of the school and the manipulation of finances to cover a repeated annual deficit. Annual budgets were planned around the hope of fundraising $20,000 to $40,000 each year when in reality fundraising accounted for $8000 to $15,000 annually. Several members of the board and administrative team members held positions with a conflict of interest. |
| Was the SLT at CCS encouraged to take an appropriate level of risk to be successful (Hughes et al., p. 130) | The strategic goals were all varying levels of risk and reward. The school body, while supportive of the risk-taking during discussions, was unable to implement the goals. |
| What are some examples of appropriate risks CCS took in the past?(Hughes et al. p. 130) | Good-risk taking came in the form of moving from a church space too small to house the school into a three-room schoolhouse owned by the local public school district. Unfortunately, several costs were not taken into account in a move to the new situation, which played a role in the financial hardship of the school. |
| What are some examples of appropriate risks CCS did not take?(Hughes et al. p. 130) | Purchasing a property and building a school. Creating a distance education program. Increasing tuition. Implementing uniforms. Publicizing and promoting the school in the community and surrounding churches. |
| What could the leader have done more of (or less of) to encourage appropriate risk taking? (Hughes et al., p. 130) | The leader should have delegated roles to various members of the team to ensure the goals were accomplished. An action plan would have helped create more of a successful implementation of the strategic goals. |
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
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| Opportunities | Threats |
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| What was the intent? |
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| What happened? |
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| What was learned? |
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| What actions should be taken? |
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| What was the result? |
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| Disseminate the findings |
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| Descriptor
Negative Organizational Culture |
Rank
1 is “poor” |
Descriptor
Positive Organizational Culture |
Comment |
| Disagreements are avoided in order to keep the peace and not disrupt things | 1 2 3 4 5 | Disagreements among people between groups are used to help solve complex challenges | Most staff members keep to themselves or silently complain when there are issues, to not create more drama. There is a history of avoiding certain issues between parents and administration. |
| A person’s success is judged by how well the person’s boss thinks he or she is doing. | 1 2 3 4 5 | A person’s success is judged by how well he or she helps the whole organization work together | The students and parent community predominantly judge a person’s success. The ultimate boss of the community is the board made up of parents, so it is decided by the boss, while also being judged by how well he or she helps the whole organization. |
| Information is territorially guarded within this organization | 1 2 3 4 5 | Information is shared widely in this organization | Members of the board, including the chairman, were unaware of the financial duress of the school. Many issues were confidential between the principal and bookkeeper. |
| This organization never acts quickly | 1 2 3 4 5 | This organization can act quickly when it needs to. | In issues of finances, it was slow to act. However, a quick response to the needs of many events occurred when pressed. The parent community rallied around the school when it came to issues of learning and volunteering. The whole organization was slow to implement, though several parents were optimistic and willing to be supportive. |
| Collaboration across organizational boundaries is ineffective | 1 2 3 4 5 | Collaboration across organizational boundaries is effective | Staff, board members, and parents were all willing to meet together and work together to effect change. Unfortunately, leadership did not create an action plan to implement the strategic goals, and many of the ideas died in the discussion. |
| People in the organization feel a major disconnect between its publicly espoused values and the actual behavior of people within the organization (especially at the top) | 1 2 3 4 5 | The organization’s espoused values are widely embraced and practiced among all members | Most members held the values of the organization. Though some actions on the part of leadership might have seemed counter to the values of the organization, they were unintentional. The goal of the organization was to “be a community of learners growing in grace and knowledge,” and the school did it through high-quality Christian education. |
Summary of findings:
British Columbia is home to several Christian schools, and the majority are small in student population. It behooves strategic leadership teams of these schools to learn from the mistakes of others, to avoid falling into the same traps. Coastal Christian School suffered from financial difficulties, lack of transparency, and failure to implement a strategic action plan. The school board and parent community were willing to enact change to save the school. There was a need for strong leadership to guide the organization through the necessary steps to execute the strategic leadership plan. The founding members did not ask for timely advice or support from the overarching Christian school society, neither did they implement transparent practices to their board. Addressing these issues must occur should CCS decide to open its doors again in the future.
References
Atha, D. (2018, November). Strategic leadership team project [Web log post]. Retrieved November 12, 2018, from https://create.twu.ca/ldrs501/unit-7/
Hughes R., Colarelli-Beatty K. & Dinwoodie D. (2014). Becoming a strategic leader. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Second Edition.
Lepsinger, R. (2010). Closing the execution gap. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Appendix A
| The following notes were recommendations presented by Mr. Tee to the school board and the Coastal Christian School community at the Annual General Meeting to provide clarity on the financial difficulties of the school, strategic options to overcome financial difficulties, and immediate school needs. Spring 2012.
Budget Issues
Strategic Options for Financial Success
Planning for the future
Short Term Needs:
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