Organizational Analysis: School Structure and Student Behavioral Support

Organizational Structure and Chain of Command

The structure of the organization is hierarchical and pyramidal, with a two-way communication flow that allows information to move both bottom-up and top-down. The chain of command is as follows: the principal occupies the top position, followed by the vice-principal. Under the vice-principal are the counselors, guidance committee, academic deans of various subjects, department heads of special education and of all grade levels, faculty and staff, and finally students. Formal authority rests with the principal and administrators, all of whom are overseen by the board of directors. Economic authority also rests with the board of directors, which assumes legal, contractual, and collegial authority. In the daily monitoring of business affairs, however, the school's HR department is responsible for hiring, contracting, and financial matters. The board operates primarily as an oversight committee.

Span of Control, Departmentalization, and Decision-Making

The span of control in the organization is based on tenure-track services. All faculty members report to academic deans and department heads once a week during teachers' meetings, and these reports are filed with the principal's staff. There are four levels of management in the school: the principal level, the dean and department head level, the teacher level, and the staff and administration level.

The departmentalization structures of the organization consist of administrators, counselors, deans, humanities, mathematics, sciences, special education, trade, health, and sports. These departments are each structured with heads and leaders, teachers, assistants, and staff, and the whole reports through the department head to the principal level.

Centralized and Decentralized Authority in Practice

Decisions are made at teachers' meetings in a democratic fashion, in the form of recommendations that are then passed to the principal level for ratification. If approval from the oversight committee is needed, decisions are passed to the board of directors for confirmation. On the centralized end of the continuum, major administrative decisions are made by the principal — including policies regarding teachers' freedoms in the classroom, meeting hours, testing requirements, and disciplinary actions. On the decentralized end, a teacher is free to conduct his or her classroom in a manner of his or her choosing, so long as it falls within the parameters of guidance provided by the principal and the oversight committee.

In terms of disciplinary action, the guidelines for assessing behavioral situations and conducting functional behavioral assessments are stipulated by the board. These guidelines allow teachers room to recommend actions; however, for suspensions issued at the principal level, the board stipulates automatic behavioral assessment implementation in line with nationwide research on the subject (Chandler & Dahlquist, 2014; Drasgow et al., 1999; Sugai et al., 2000).

Staff and line distinctions are clearly made within the organization and are outlined in the departmental structure, meeting protocols, and overall organizational communication flow.

Applying Organizational Theory to Student Intervention

With regard to James in the case study, the primary level at which intervention begins is the decentralized level of the faculty and teachers who work directly with him in the classroom. These teachers will make recommendations for his high school teachers and administrators in the file that accompanies him to the next academic level. Teachers will record their observations and data in this file, which will be used for the functional behavioral assessment that the school will rely upon going forward in order to best understand how to help James.

The functional behavioral assessment is not used to determine manifest determination, but rather to identify the reasons for the behavior. This is achieved through observation and interviews with James, family members, teachers, staff, and administrators. Every level of the organization is thus involved in the process of helping James — an approach that is in line with the IDEA concept promoted by the Department of Education, which encourages schools to utilize all tools at their disposal to address the needs of struggling students (Chandler & Dahlquist, 2014).

By viewing the organization as an organism that lives and breathes and that depends upon all of its parts working together to achieve a positive outcome, the school can better apply itself to the principles of IDEA, No Child Left Behind, and the general spirit put forward by the Department of Education in helping young students like James to overcome obstacles. As Morgan (2006) points out, the organization can take a cue from nature and allow contingency theory to play a part in the intervention designed to assist James. The notion of establishing shared futures — in which the organization as a whole depends upon the well-being of James, who as a student is a member of the organization rather than someone to be marginalized or discarded — enables the school to rise to the challenge of assisting him and to engage teachers, faculty, department heads, and counselors in identifying the best options for his development.

This approach would necessarily include obtaining support from his family, parents or guardians, and peers, since it is important that a suitable support structure be established that can assist James when he is not in school. The goal of the organization is therefore to reach beyond the sphere of its immediate influence and provide guidance and support to its members at all times — not only within the walls of the school.

References

Chandler, L., & Dahlquist, C. (2014). Functional assessment: Strategies to prevent and remediate challenging behaviors in school settings. Pearson.

Drasgow, E., Bradley, R., & Shriner, J. (1999). The IDEA amendments of 1997. Education and Treatment of Children, 22(3), 244–266.

Morgan, G. (2006). Images of organizations (2nd ed.). Sage Publications.

Sugai, G., et al. (2000). Applying positive behavior support and functional behavioral assessment in schools. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 2(3), 131–143.