Literature review methodologies and applications

Decisions by School Superintendents

Improper Attitude and Unprofessional Conduct of Teachers

To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society - President Theodore Roosevelt.

That teaching is at one and the same time an intellectual as well as a moral endeavor, is an idea that is well entrenched in the minds of men since centuries past. The sayings of great teachers of ancient times bear ample testimony to this premise, which continues to hold sway across nations and vastly differing civilizations over the years.

In the sense that it takes care of the general well being of young students entrusted to the care of an educational institution and ensures that they are treated fairly and accorded the respect they are due as persons, teaching is most certainly a moral activity. It is concerned with building and maintaining relationships of trust with pupils and colleagues in schools and with others in the wider community. Teachers ought therefore to have those qualities and forms of personal and professional conduct that are consistent with their calling.

The words and actions of a teacher can assume moral expression and can influence a young individual during his scholastic years, which are the most impressionable stage in his life. In society's view, the teacher is in turn parent, educational state agent, police state agent, social welfare agent, employee and, finally, omni-competent educator. By this token, a teacher must of necessity be able to fit these roles and must maintain the standards of ethics that are set out for teachers and educators alike.

It is taken for granted that the school - and by extension its teachers - make the well being of young people entrusted to their care central to their very existence. It follows that the school's ethics philosophy should be so inextricably woven into the fabric of its existence as to be reflected in the everyday activities of the school.

Where then, does the problem lie? As in any setting where there is considerable interaction between human beings, schools are also at risk of falling short of ethical standards. Most schools and colleges across the U.S. have therefore a clearly defined code of conduct for their teachers and other employees, the intent of which is to address just such a deficiency.

Code of Conduct and Code of Ethics

Many organizations develop a code of conduct, which prescribes a set of guidelines for their employees. However such a code may be silent or unclear in certain instances, when a code of ethics may be found to be more appropriate. Such a code of ethics would serve to ensure long-term commitment to important values, because it demands something more than mere compliance. It calls for people to exercise judgment and take responsibility for decisions they make. It is clear that regulations cannot alone cover every case and that situations will sometimes arise where a choice would have to be made between competing or conflicting values. To this end, teachers must be helped to reflect upon and internalize ethical standards, which includes understanding the purposes of the regulations and a commitment to those purposes.

School administrators can contribute to an ethical school culture by leading by example, particularly in their relations with the other members of the school community. Such relationships should be characterized by mutual respect, trust and consideration.

Historical Perspective on Code of Conduct for Teachers and Changes in Code of Conduct for teachers over Time

The teacher's role has grown in complexity and sophistication over the last fifty years. The role of the teacher was fundamental and clearly defined in the 50's, but the educator of today has a variety of roles, each one more complex than and sometimes in conflict with the others. Teachers' terms of service were governed by certain well-defined regulations, which reflected the values and expectations of the local community. In the early part of the twentieth century, teachers were required to abide by a code of conduct that was quite strict, especially for female teachers. "In some communities, a teacher's contract became null and void if he or she married, left town without the permission of the chairman of the board of trustees, stayed out after 8 p.m., wore bright colors, or smoked."

In some schools in Canada, teachers were instructed to scrub the classroom floor at least once a week and to clean the blackboards daily. Such regulations seem to indicate a desire to place the teacher on a high moral plane. While it is clear that community values have changed over the last fifty years, the idea that teachers should be held to a higher level of ethical and moral conduct than other members of society still prevails today.

The old order changeth. There has been a sea change in the role and responsibilities of teachers over the past few decades. Constantly rising demands from parents and from members of the public have made the job of a school administrator none too easy. Expectations range from improvements in curriculum and better methods of teaching, to guaranteeing school safety. All of these issues must and do engage the attention of educators today. An educator must not only have an abiding interest in and commitment to the goals and values of the teaching profession, but must also rise to meet expectations in a way that is commensurate with the extent of trust placed in teachers by parents, school systems and by society as a whole.

The history of education is replete with instances where people have been disappointed with the performance of educators. Today, those who are disappointed can have their voices heard and can exert pressure for change that can benefit everyone in the educational system.

Moral education is streaking back to the top of many education wish lists." In a recent survey of parents for U.S. News and World Report, "teaching children values and discipline" ranked as the No. 1 priority for education. Much more is now being expected of teachers to fulfill their obligations as role models. They have not only to teach morals, but also to model good behavior. Pressures are mounting for character education, and teachers are also increasingly being held accountable for their behavior.

That they should serve as role models for students is an axiom that is readily accepted by teachers. But in the present day context, when heightened accountability for teachers and educators is the demand from all quarters, the dividing line between the rights to freedom of speech and the standards of conduct that teachers have to maintain, seems to have narrowed down so much as to seem almost imperceptible. Many teachers today believe that the demands made upon them in the name of accountability for ethical standards infringe their constitutional rights as individuals.

As a role model, the teacher is expected to 'wear the mask as it were' and remain the picture of propriety even out of school hours. Complaints about the use of inappropriate language by teachers both on and off school grounds have been a cause for concern for school administrators in recent times. For example a teacher who confronted a student and his mother at the mall was brought to book for using inappropriate language in public.

In Collinsville, the teachers' union protested a new policy on obscene language that calls on teachers to serve as "positive role models" and "ambassadors for the school district." The union chafes at the "vague" policy especially because it's not clear if it applies after school hours.

In Santa Ana, Calif., teachers balked at having to wear suits and dresses after a tough dress code was put in place for students.

A gay teacher in Salt Lake City sued the school district after it removed her from coaching volleyball and told her not to talk about her "lifestyle."

In Florida, an unmarried teacher was reassigned after becoming pregnant.

In another situation, the Collinsville School Board fired a junior-high math teacher after the police found a group of 16- and 17-year-olds drinking at his apartment.

In some cases, the courts have supported schools that discipline teachers for conduct outside of school. The Indiana Court of Appeals, for instance, sustained the firing of a teacher who drank beer in front of students at a restaurant and then drove them home from a field trip.

Even though the teacher may be on his or her own time, misbehavior that can reflect on the ability to act as a role model is within the purview of the school district and doesn't violate free-speech and association rights," says Gwendolyn Gregory, deputy general counsel at the National School Boards Association.

The Arizona Board of Regents prescribes a set of standards of professional conduct for its faculty members. The Board reminds faculty that as teachers, it is their responsibility to encourage the free pursuit of learning in students. They should therefore hold before students as best they can, the scholarly standards of their discipline, make every reasonable effort to foster honest academic conduct and to assure that their evaluation of students reflects the students' true merit. Members of the faculty are also exhorted to recognize that students are individuals and are entitled to an atmosphere conducive to learning and to even-handed treatment in all respects of the teacher-student relationship.

Improper Attitude and Unprofessional Conduct

It is no use to preach to children if you do not act decently yourself - Theodore Roosevelt in a speech to Holy Name Society, Oyster Bay, August 16, 1903.

Most educational institutions develop a set of rules governing teacher behavior that reflect the district policy. They summarily ban the obvious: harassment and sexual contact with students.

Improper attitude or unprofessional conduct. Conduct that bases a person's employment, enrollment as a student, or participation in scholastic activities on that person's age, color, disability, sex, national or ethnic origin, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status; employment or academic decisions made in retaliation for a person's unwillingness to submit to such conduct, or benefits or privileges provided as a result of such submission; or Conduct of any type, whether oral, written, graphic or physical, directed against a person because of his or her age, color, disability, sex, national or ethnic origin, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, veteran status, and which also unreasonably interferes with the person's work or academic performance or participation in scholastic activities, or creates a working or learning environment that a reasonable person would find threatening or intimidating.

Harassment can take many forms like:

Ridiculing a person's religious beliefs; directing racial or ethnic slurs at someone.

Touching that goes beyond acceptable workplace or classroom interaction, in a way that a reasonable person would find it objectionable.

Repeated references to sex in lectures or class assignment when there is no relevance to the content of the course

Evaluating an employee or student more critically than performance warrants because the employee or student objected to a sexual advance.

Sending unwelcome e-mail containing sexual jokes.

Telling persons they are too old to understand new technology.

Mocking a person with a disability.

The importance of consistency in the interpretation of terminology

Teachers are admonished to avoid not only impropriety but also the appearance of impropriety in their actions towards students and colleagues. But what is improper to some teachers is not so to others -- or to their students.

Most teachers instinctively know right from wrong without needing it spelled out. But there is a gray area between the caring teacher who offers a pat on the shoulder and the teacher whose calculated motives and designs are those of a sexual predator. What makes the student-teacher relationship all the more confusing is that not all students or teachers are alike. Also, what makes one student uncomfortable seems normal to another. A Physical Education instructor may have a different relationship with students than a Science teacher does with his. An elementary teacher can offer more hugs than a teacher in junior high school. And finally, some teachers are warmer by nature than others. A teacher should be a nurturer and must be able to express caring without threatening students or allowing the relationship to grow beyond the boundaries of what is proper.

In 1998 there were two U.S. Supreme Court rulings according to which districts can be held liable for teachers who harass students. Cases in which teachers clearly abused the teacher-student relationship have been given so much publicity, as to render more acute the dilemma of teachers who are troubled by the thought of having to be constantly on their guard lest they step beyond the boundaries of what is appropriate.

The Utah Professional Practices Advisory Commission has suspended or revoked 139 educator licenses since 1992. Seventy-four of the cases involved some kind of sexual misconduct. Those cases ranged from sexual harassment or contact to having too-familiar relationships with students, such as talking about sex, writing letters with sexual connotations, making sexually charged remarks in class or inappropriately hugging and touching students. Teachers accused of such misconduct typically use the same defense: "I'm just a caring, loving teacher and you're keeping me from being that way. I'm trying to show approval, trying to show I care."

Parents do caution children against the dangers of talking to strangers in general and teach them to look out for people who might harm them. But sometimes, the unexpected happens when children come to harm from teachers or employees of their own school.

Cases of sexual misconduct by teachers have been known ever since the very existence of an institution named school, but it has remained a sensitive subject that is rarely talked about or publicly acknowledged in the past. Many instances go unnoticed until the situation balloons up to such grave proportions that action against the errant teacher cannot be postponed.

Accused teachers represent a small percentage of our nation's educators. But those who indulge in indecent behavior often cause harm to more than one child and the damage so caused can be devastating.

A national study of 1,600 students done in 1993 by the American Association of University Women found that 85% of 8th- through 11th-grade girls had experienced some form of sexual harassment.

1995 survey done by Connecticut officials found similar results and further revealed that 22% of harassment reports in that state involved touching, 1% rape and 1% attempted rape.

Both studies found that many students had reported harassment from teachers. The AAUW study showed 25% of harassment was from adults at school; the Connecticut researchers found 22% of all harassers were teachers or coaches.

Meanwhile, key court decisions are holding schools increasingly liable for protecting students from harassment that occurs in hallways and classrooms.

A 1992 Supreme Court decision in the case of a Georgia teacher who had sex with a 15-year-old student cleared the way for school districts to be sued for monetary damages and has prompted many states to require schools to address sexual harassment.

Accusations of sexual misconduct surface from time to time in schools across the nation. In a decision that sent ripples across the country, the California Supreme Court ruled that school districts could be sued for "negligent references" or failing to report harassment allegations to a new school district. That case involved a teacher who molested a student and later received a job recommendation that made no mention of the allegations.

That type of quiet, out-of-sight handling of a problem is common," said an official who had worked for the Massachusetts Department of Education for several years and has testified as an expert witness in several sexual harassment cases.

Such incidents are referred to in common parlance as "the mobile molester syndrome,"

Many incidents of this nature are carefully swept under the carpet in an attempt to relegate them to the status of a bad nightmare to be forgotten about as soon as possible.

There is no clear policy on what needs to be done in such circumstances in most educational institutions, and school administrators often face the dilemma of whether or not to take the issue a step further and inform a potential new employer of the allegations. However, school superintendents do have an obligation to let prospective employers know about the questionable behavior of a former employee, from a purely ethical point-of-view.

According to Massachusetts Department of Education spokesman Rick Atkins, the state does not require a school district to inform another of allegations against a teacher. "The situation really dictates what has to happen," he said. "There is no blanket policy."

Joseph Doherty, an Avonworth School District teacher, was cleared of criminal charges but resigned under pressure after being accused of sexually assaulting a student in 1997. He was able to get a teaching job in Maryland this year even though Avonworth school officials had sent his case to the state Department of Education for review.

Dennis L. Bair, a music teacher in Burgettstown Area School District, Washington County, was convicted in June 1997 on two counts of indecent assault of a female student. However, he was allowed to surrender his license last year rather than have it revoked. That action effectively sealed his records and could enable him to teach again outside the state.

Gary Serlo taught elementary school in Westmoreland County in the early 1970s before being sent to a Greensburg prison in 1974 for child molestation. His license to teach in Pennsylvania wasn't revoked until last year, though, when he was convicted of molesting three boys in his new school district in New York. Because of an incomplete background check, school officials who hired Serlo never knew that he had served prison time for molestation.

Larry Mihalko, an elementary school teacher in Gateway School District, was charged earlier this year with indecent assault and other crimes. The charges stem from allegations brought by former students.

The Post-Gazette has examined 727 cases across the U.S. In which an educator has lost his or her license for sex offenses during the past five years, and has found some disturbing trends. Among them:

The number of teachers who have lost their licenses because of sex offenses has increased nearly 80% since 1994.

Several of those who lost their licenses were caught only after they had been molesting students for many years.

Passing the trash. More often than not, school superintendents resort to the tactic of quietly easing the offending teacher out of their school, and actually even assist them in securing employment elsewhere. Such a practice is well-known among educators and they refer to it as "passing the trash."

The approach of individual states towards identifying and weeding out offenders varies. Some states do not perform any background checks on people applying for positions as teachers, and their schools may sometimes have to pay the price for this laxity in approach.

A more alarming aspect is that teachers against whom there are allegations have recourse to appeal procedures, and they get to retain their teaching certificate while the appellate procedure is in progress. This process can take up to three years, during which time the offending teacher is free to seek employment in another school located in a different state. This continues until the appeals have run out.

The lack of clear cut policy or regulations on such a sensitive issue means that such offending behavior often goes unnoticed, and the miscreant moves from one institution to another leaving behind him a trail of young people devastated by his victimization.

In Pennsylvania, 38 teachers lost their certificates for sex-related offenses from 1997 through 1998, compared to 21 in the two years before that. But even the growing numbers don't reflect the actual toll, experts say.

The problem is not so much the number of offending teachers; it's the number of students a single bad teacher can victimize.

The Post-Gazette also found that it commonly takes two to three years, and sometimes longer, before education officials catch up to a license revocation made in another state. This sometimes gives the person time to find a teaching job in another state -- at least until their past offenses emerge.

In 1996, an Oregon agency that oversees teacher certification separately revoked the licenses of two teachers who were accused of making sexual advances toward students. The incidents had occurred as much as 12 years earlier, when the two men were teaching in different school districts in California. As California officials moved to take away their licenses, the two landed jobs in Oregon by falsely stating on their application that they were not under investigation.

Officials in Oregon learned of the first case when a parent in the teacher's former district tracked his whereabouts, then tipped Oregon officials. They found out about the second teacher when a reporter at a California paper called to ask about his teaching status.

Too often, a bad teacher is quietly relieved of his or her job, only to show up in another unsuspecting school.

Hofstra University professor Charol Shakeshaft, in a national survey of 225 school superintendents in 1994, found that 221 teachers accused of sexual abuse quietly resigned or retired from their district. Of those, superintendents were aware of 22 teachers who then were hired in other districts. While they didn't know the whereabouts of the rest, the superintendents conceded that many of those teachers could be employed in other schools "and that it would be easy for them to get other teaching jobs," Shakeshaft said.

In a 1991 survey of 65 superintendents in North Carolina, a Winston-Salem University professor found 26 cases of sex-related offenses by teachers over the past three years. In 12 cases, the teacher was fired or forced to resign, according to the researcher, Dr. Dan Wishnictsky. In the other cases, the teachers were simply reprimanded. Only one case was marked "charges not proven."

The Professional Standards Commission (PSC) of Georgia has a set of standards for teacher conduct. For instance, failure to report the criminal act when it occurs constitutes a breach of Standard 9 - Failure to Make a Required Report - and may result in serious disciplinary action. In many cases when an educator reports a recent single misdemeanor or conviction, the PSC may order that the educator's conduct and performance be monitored for a short period of time. Monitoring consists of quarterly contact with the educator and his/her employer to ensure that further unethical activity has not occurred. Monitoring may also include periodic criminal history checks.

When false allegations are made. Moral standards are thus higher for educators than for the average person, and an educator's reputation could be his best defense against false allegations. Some of the ways to avoid being falsely implicated would be for teachers to stay away from purely social relationships with students and to distance themselves from students who appear older than their real age. Inappropriate behavior of a student should be reported by a teacher so as to establish his bonafides and to guard against false allegations by the student that might surface later.

Impact of community values on Code of Conduct

The teacher should become intimately acquainted with the conditions of the local community, physical, historical, economic, occupational, etc., in order to utilize them as educational resources - John Dewey

The community is the source of the values that govern ethical and responsible behavior, whether of students or of teachers. It includes all citizens of the towns that use the local schools. The idea of providing a safe and friendly atmosphere for the young is a central theme of community standards and values. Children are therefore entitled to a learning environment that is conducive for them to function ethically, responsibly and successfully in the complex world we share.

Roland Barth envisions schools as communities of learners, places "where students and adults alike are engaged as active learners in matters of special importance to them and where everyone is thereby encouraging everyone else's learning" (1990, p. 9). Learning communities can also be viewed as "communities of inquirers," where "expert" and "learner" have become artificial distinctions and "everyone is asked to venture into the realm of curiosity together." These communities "value the collective process of discovery and people within them value living with their questions. These communities are sustained by a continued commitment to share this journey of exploration with one another on matters people care deeply about" (Ryan, 1995, p. 280).

In the context of the school environment, the aims of a collaborative endeavor between the school and the community should be to provide high-quality education and student care programs and services, to promote cooperation among agencies and professions concerned with the welfare of young children, their families, and their teachers, to work through education, research and advocacy toward an environmentally safe world in which all children receive adequate health care, food, and shelter, are nurtured, and live free from violence.

A sustaining relationship between schools and their communities, and a climate in which schools work effectively with parents, agencies and businesses to form sustainable partnerships, are the key factors that ensure the well being of students, their families, and their communities. There is well-researched evidence on the positive impacts that community values have both on student achievement and on the ethics philosophy that is imbibed by the school.

Rising concerns over school violence led the New York State Legislature to adopt Project SAVE legislation during the year 2000. It called for school districts to work with parents, teachers, students and members of the community in developing standards for student behavior and crisis management plans by July 1, 2001."

Recent studies reveal that schools that show consistently high performance have a vision of teaching and learning. There is concrete evidence of superior student achievement when schools work in tandem with the communities they serve, holding that vision in common with their communities.

Educators and parents are constantly seeking more effective ways in which to provide a safe environment for learning to children. To this end it is essential that communities come together to identify those values that matter to them, and then translate those values into standards of behavior for teachers, educators and all those connected to the education of young children. Emphasis needs to be placed on core values, such as honesty, fairness, freedom, tolerance, responsibility, compassion and respect for life.

When each school district and community initiates the process of defining its own core values, the students, teachers and other members of the community will develop a sense of ownership with respect to local codes of conduct. Arising from such an endeavor will be communities, schools, and students committed to practicing them wholeheartedly.

A plausible set of guidelines aimed at instilling community values could be to:

Identify community members.

Discuss and identify values and expectations for behavior.

Obtain from each member a list of values that he believes to be the most essential from an ethical point-of-view.

Narrow the choices down to a final list that represents a consensus view.

Set several behavioral standards for each value.

Envision and document how these standards should translate into a real, live, running school.

Develop an action plan for ways to put the values into action.

Examples of successful school-community collaboration. "Fort Fairfield had wanted to work on character education since 1994. When UNUM agreed to support such an initiative, they were the first to sign onto the project. Community members and teachers each attended a one-day facilitated seminar. A follow-up session for teachers was held in September 1996. A total of twenty community members and twenty teachers took part in the program. Both groups agreed on the following list of core values: honesty, responsibility, respect, compassion, justice, and cooperation. One lead teacher was identified in the elementary school and one in the high school. These two teachers continue to lead the values work in the schools to this day.

The Orono community first got excited about character education after hearing an evening presentation by Dr. Rushworth Kidder.

Following that evening, the community asked the Institute for Global Ethics to engage three groups in the process: a group of community members, the class of 1998, and all middle school teachers. With the advent of the UNUM-funded project, another group of twenty participants engaged in the process, as did all forty high school teachers. Common values selected on all five lists included respect and responsibility. Honesty was on four lists. Fairness, caring, and tolerance were common to three lists. Since that time, the values process and ethical decision-making framework have been integrated into the ninth grade curriculum and into Orono's service learning program."

Nurturing vs. Punitive Leadership Decisions & effects on the Organization

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy - General H.Norman Schwarzkopf, 1991

Much has been written about the different styles of leadership and the impacts they have on an organization's functioning. Broadly speaking, leadership styles could be either formal or informal. The informal leader portrays the qualities of compassion, people- orientation, friendliness, and sensitivity to the needs of his students, colleagues and others around him, and is also more likely to adopt a caring and nurturing approach to the work ethic. He emphasizes that values of belonging, respect, service, and learning are valued in the school setting.

Rather than rely on punitive models of behavior control, effective leaders today adopt positive behavior management methods that foster and promote self-discipline as an ideal. In such a system, the ultimate responsibility for choosing the correct behavior rests with the student. The objective is to help students make appropriate choices as to social and academic behavior and responsible decision-making. "In the long run, however, positive management systems encourage better teaching and learning, decision making, and critical thinking as well as more appropriate behavior." (Curwin & Mendler, 1988).

Behavior management in schools has been ranked as an educational concern at the top of the annual Gallup Polls of the Public's Attitudes toward the Public Schools for the past 20 years. Dealing with behavior consumes a great deal of teachers' and administrators' time and energy."

Behavior management has a profound effect on students' attitudes toward themselves, towards school and learning, towards the adults in their environment and on their future behavior. While it may take longer to produce results through a nurturing, positive behavior management style, there are compelling reasons why efforts need to be taken to modify unacceptable behavior through the use of these methods. The benefits are many and include better student achievement, development of responsible behavior in students, a boost in morale both among students and members of the staff, and reduced violence and disruptive behavior in the classroom, leading in turn to improved attendance and fewer suspensions and expulsions.

Thus, positive approaches that are responsive to student needs and yield more responsible, appropriate behavior should be the focus of management programs.

At the other end of the spectrum is punitive discipline, which limits the range of options that educators can pursue in response to student behaviors. Shame, ridicule, sarcasm, humiliation, dwelling on past behavior, and exclusion are frequently associated with such systems, which are self-defeating and nonproductive. Measures such as suspension and expulsion can only result in truancy and dropping out, leading to missed learning opportunities. In contrast, a nurturing style would serve to foster self-control and increase appropriate student behavior.

Students can be helped to identify emotions associated with negative behaviors and loss of control. Teachers and educators can monitor feelings of anger, frustration, depression, or fear and help such students develop a plan to cope more constructively. Critical issues confronting students in their daily lives can be dealt with more effectively through positive behavior management systems. Leaders who adopt positive management systems bring out the best in their staff and the students and help them to believe in themselves.

The positive outcomes of such a positive management style are substantial and easily justify the initiatives needed to be taken by all concerned.

The Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) was formed for the purpose of developing model standards and assessments for school leaders and is comprised of personnel from 24 state education agencies and representatives from professional associations. The group has researched and developed a set of standards for school administrators. The standards present a common core of knowledge, dispositions and performances that will help link leadership to productive schools and enhanced education outcomes. They aim to stimulate vigorous thought and dialogue about quality educational leadership among school administrators and provide raw material that will help state agencies, professional associations, and institutions of higher learning enhance the quality of educational leadership in the nation's schools.

The standards are enumerated below:

Standard 1: A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by the school community.

Standard 2: A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by advocating, nurturing, and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning and staff professional growth.

Standard 3: A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by ensuring management of the organization, operations, and resources for a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment.

Standard 4: A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by collaborating with families and community members, responding to diverse community interests and needs, and mobilizing community resources.

Standard 5: A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by acting with integrity, fairness, and in an ethical manner.

Standard 6: A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by understanding, responding to, and influencing the larger political, social, economic, legal, and cultural context.

Ethical responsibilities of leaders in decision-making

To he a professional, means to accept responsibility... responsibility for actions and results - Robert Mager