Relationships between administrators, teachers may make a difference

School board candidate Bill Longworth suggests “mending relationships” within the NKSD after yet another no confidence vote in the superintendent. It's a good idea, however, it has been 30 years since a Gonzaga University study (1994) suggested mending relationships because an “unhealthy administrative culture” and the superintendent’s management style “created an atmosphere of fear” at NKSD. In 1998 Gonzaga gave NKSD a “passing grade” but concluded that “few hold hope for improvements”, and the superintendent resigned.

In January 2005, the new superintendent’s autocratic management style led to a high school student walkout and a climate study by the staff.

In 2008, a third superintendent was hired and resigned in 2011 for lack of “meetings of the minds.”

A fourth superintendent, hired in 2012, was accused in two climate studies (2013 and 2015) of “top-down leadership” spreading “fear of speaking up . . . disrespecting teachers . . . creating a negative work environment.” Some 280 Poulsbo residents signed a “Support Change in NKSD Leadership” petition. In 2017 that superintendent resigned.

And now, another no confidence vote. What are the problems? Why are superintendents and teachers so often at loggerheads?

A big source of frictions are top down rules and “reforms.” I still have nightmares remembering when the “Small Schools”, “Mainstreaming” and “Differential Instruction” were one superintendent’s short-lived holy grail of education.

No central administrators, school board member, or superintendent ever visited my class room just to talk, to see what I was teaching, how the various reforms were working. They did not know me, I did not know them. Not an ideal working relationship?

James U. Behrend, Bainbridge Island

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Relationships between administrators, teachers may make a difference