Examines the dynamics of conflict and anger expressed by irate parents and offers principals a simple, effective method to resolve conflict and reduce anger in an integrative way. Well-managed conflict helps improve interpersonal relationships, promote healthy interaction, and develop creative, synergistic solutions to undesirable situations. (MLH)

To apply the participative model successfully, school administrators and supervisors must adopt a new management and supervisory style; teachers must be convinced of administrative commitment; and the principal must wholeheartedly support the program. This article describes a New York City high school's creation of a collaborative supervision…

Focuses on three urban secondary principals who were effective in turning schools in crisis into effective schools. Identifies the barriers the principals encountered and overcame in the process. Describes how these principals' authoritarian styles ceased to be effective when the schools were no longer in crisis. Points to a need for a new type of…

Recounts a fictitious high school's steps to build support for whole school change. To create a framework for change, Farragut High developed a vision statement of organization characteristics and a profile of current school characteristics and assembled people to coordinate the change process. A hands-on leadership role for the principal was…

Principals desiring to make their schools more responsive to change need to establish a flexible management system, decentralize decision making, redefine job descriptions, and develop achievable goals to equip schools to meet new challenges. Pushing authority downward allows those closest to the environmental change to observe, analyze, and react…

To help establish clear, comprehensive communication channels with the school community, principals must recognize the primary dangers to good communication and periodically conduct teacher polls or surveys depicting the human realities of the school organization. Such surveys will not explain or improve low morale, but can serve as a springboard…

First step toward creating staff interest in and capacity for change is realizing things could be wrong. Second is recognizing growth-inhibiting factors, such as narrow job and role definitions, evasion of responsibility, focus on events instead of long-term patterns, intellectual isolation and quick fixes, and structural fragmentation. True…

In most schools, restructuring involves a fundamental, comprehensive reformulation of school operations accompanied by intense scrutiny of everyday activities. This article traces a high school social studies teacher's growing bitterness and feelings of powerlessness as mandated restructuring efforts progressed at his school. A transition plan is…