In any organization, it helps employees to remain committed and effective if confusion about the lines of authority is minimal.
Sound organizational structure determines how roles, powers and responsibilities are assigned and controlled, and how information flows among different levels of management. That’s good business practice.
When people tell me that public education should be run more like a business, they seem surprised when I agree.
There was a time in the 1970s and early ’80s when school districts and schools operated along relatively simple, understandable and predictable organizational lines. Curriculum was prescribed in fairly general terms by the Ministry of Education.
School districts were governed by an elected board of school trustees. The professional side of the operation was directed by the superintendent, and the daily operations of the schools were the responsibility of the school principal. Teachers ran classrooms.
That’s a simplification, but it provides the general idea of the how lines of authority governing school districts and schools operated. There was some certainty about who was responsible for what and how the lines of communication operated. Teacher morale and commitment were generally high.
In 1982, teachers, by a vote of 60-40, indicated they had no interest in striking.
In 1987, when the then-Social Credit government granted full bargaining rights to the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, the organizational structure of school districts changed.
Teachers were encouraged by the BCTF to consult with their local union rep rather than the principal before making significant decisions about issues, even curriculum matters.
The local union president, in turn, consulted with BCTF office. The primer on policy and practice from head office became increasingly influential on how schools were run.
Today, the organizational structure of public education would be almost impossible to chart.
The question of who runs public education and who makes the major policy and practice decisions has become increasingly obfuscated to the point where a June 12 document from the Labour Relations Board, dated and signed by Susan Noble, senior executive assistant to Bruce Wilkins, associate chairman of adjudication, directs trustees what to do in the event of a work stoppage by union personnel.
“The employer shall utilize the services of its management and excluded personnel who are qualified to the best extent possible … the employer shall not hire replacement employees, engage additional volunteers or assign any bargaining unit duties to volunteers.”
Trustees could be forgiven for thinking that, until the LRB memo, their responsibilities were clarified not by a memo from an LRB executive assistant but by section 74 (1) of the B.C. School Act: “A board is responsible for the management of the schools … and for the custody, maintenance and safekeeping of all property owned or leased by the board.”
Apparently, that broad scope of authority granted by the School Act to the elected representatives is now circumscribed by an LRB decision.
I use this as an example of what happens when, for example, the government, in 2002, unilaterally ripped from the teacher collective agreement some sections it did not like and then subsequently ignored two Supreme Court decisions.
Organizational structure collapses when unelected government appointees at the B.C. Public School Employers Association instruct elected school boards to arbitrarily ignore the collective agreement and dock teacher pay, lock out teachers and knock days off the prescribed provincial schools calendar.
Turmoil ensues when the BCTF bargains unremittingly for salary increases that are so far out of line with common practice that teachers are uncomfortable in social situations admitting that they are teachers.
Pandemonium and confusion can and have resulted when those who deliver the goods in public education do not know who is in charge, whom to trust any longer or who is governing public education: trustees, the superintendent, the principal, their own union, the B.C. Public School Employers Association, the Labour Relations Board or the government.
Try running a business under those conditions.
Geoff Johnson is a retired superintendent of schools.
