Case Study 3

Challenge Summary
The public school system in Washington, D.C. is suffering from problems with truancy, low student performance and crime. To make significant changes to the current state, a proposal to develop a new after school program to target these three problem areas.
The Woodson Foundation has extensive skills in raising private funds and coordinating community efforts with that of educational professionals. Utilizing the strengths of the Woodson Foundation will be paramount to creating a successful after-school program.
Assets to Successful Implementation: * All Parties have the common goal and benefit of student success. * The Woodson Foundation has a proven track record of raising funds to create a program that is self-reliant and not dependent on revues from the school board. Additionally, they have won several awards for minimizing costs and still proving excellent service. * National Coalition for Parental Involvement (NCPIE) is able to encourage parental involvement via the PTA by educating parents in constructive ways to assist the program. * Teaching staff is motivated by better student performance as it will result in a more positive working environment * Enhancing student performance will in turn help resolve truancy and crime

Hindrances to Successful Implementation: * Bureaucratic School Board wants to limit practices within existing policies and procedures with strict hiring guidelines. * Racial imbalance in diversity among members of the Woodson Foundation * NCPIE feels parents should have more control over educational concerns while school faculty feels they should have more control
Team Recommendations:
Strategies for successful team formation would be to find a balanced team that would represent all interested parties to reduce conflict and to create a diversified coalition. Fair representation will reduce feelings of resentment and reduce friction from outside sources so that the team may focus their energies on solving the problems with the students rather than solving problems with parents and the school board. It is for this reason I recommend selecting one member from the Woodson Foundation, one faculty member and one member to represent the community.
Once team members are selected, the candidate selected from the Woodson Foundation should lead the administration, execution and financial management. It is clear that the Woodson Foundation shows its greatest strengths in the areas of fundraising and being self-reliant. Financial independence will be paramount to success as funds from the school board will not be available. The leadership of the Woodson Foundation supplemented by the education expertise and the community representation.
The candidates from the Woodson Foundation are Meredith Watson and Victor Martinez. I recommend Meredith Watson to fill this role. Although Victor has more tenure with the Foundation, two major factors come to play if selecting Meredith. She has been a teacher before and can more closely relate to this particular situation. The other factor is her attitude toward waste. She says, “There’s so much waste in the system”. If we leverage Meredith’s strengths, we may likely be able to find alternative and supplemental revenue sources to relay directly to student education. She also wants to include parents so she can work closely with the selected community representative to coach parents on constructive ways to help.

One faculty member should be selected. The candidates are Victoria Adams, the superintendent of schools; Duane Hardy, a principle; and second-year teacher Ari Kaufman. The recommendation for this role would be Victoria Adams. She made first contact with the Woodson Foundation, has the most seniority and is most likely to be able to cut through any bureaucratic red-tape from the school board. Ari Kaufman lacks adequate experience but carries the most liability from his attitude and his proven inability to work cohesively in a team. Duane Hardy, although has more experience than Mr Kaufman, already feels defeated and pessimistic.

Finally, a candidate that represents the community and / or the parents should be selected. The candidates are Mason Dupree, a Community Organizer or Candice Sharpe, a social worker with NCPIE. Mr. Dupree appears too focused on the problems rather than the solutions and Candice is already working on the solutions. It would be a good recommendation to select Candice for this role as she already wants to lead parents. If she were selected, she could educate parents to tutor their children and more closely monitor their behavior, extracurricular activities, and classwork. Lastly, unlike Mr. Dupree, Candice already has ties with NCPIE which works closely with the PTA.

Action Planning:
Once the team has been selected and the hierarchy has been established, a plan for conflict resolution and negotiation will need to be in place.
Since Meredith Watson of The Woodson Foundation has most of the expertise in the program, she will serve as President while taking recommendations from the educational expertise of Victoria Adams and from Candice Sharpe whom is closely connected to the community’s and parents’ concerns. Meredith Watson will also be held most accountable for the success of the program. However, Victoria Adams will be responsible for the training of educators / tutors and Candice Sharpe will be responsible for working with the Parents and PTA for dealing with students at home.
As conflicts arise, the issue will fall on the shoulders of the selected candidate related to that role. Parental conflicts handled by Candice while school board issue will be handled by Victoria Adams, etc. However, issues can be rather complex and have conflicting interests among the team members for the areas they represent. It is for this reason that the team should agree ahead of time to select a knowledgeable person to act as a mediator whose sole role will be to help negotiate and find a compromise in the even they cannot work out the problem amongst themselves.
Additionally, these selected leaders all represent different areas of the program. I would highly recommend that once the team is selected and starting to work, that they meet together to educate each other on each of their roles. This way, they can anticipate potential hazards and work on finding resolution before the problems occur. They will also gain a better understanding of where each other stand and why they would defend their respective causes. This would result in better cohesiveness within the team and create common bonds and make teamwork more conducive.
As this team works together, they will gain better knowledge on the situation and how to resolve issues. For example, the issue of the lack of diversity among the Woodson Foundation may create a conflict among members of the community. So long as Meredith Watson of the Woodson Foundation continues a positive and inclusive behavior of all members, this should be a moot issue.
One challenge the team will face is that the community must believe that there is changes coming for the positive. This will need to be handled in the same way as a marketing campaign. Since Candace is already involved in the community, she can spearhead this campaign. As Candace discusses topics such as how parents can support and supplement educational programs, she can also discuss the new resources that are now available in the community for the sole purpose to help reduce crime, truancy and most importantly student performance.

Conclusion:
Selecting the right team and creating a way to manage conflict will allow the team to produce results. The recommendations herein should have positive outcomes. There should be a budget available for the new program and new resources will be made available to student. There will be better teacher and parent involvement. Truancy and crime will decrease as student performance increases and teacher morale will improve as students improve which will attract the best teachers and manage to keep them motivated.