Although some schools have a few unusual positions like our guest this week (Director of Innovation) most stick to the basics when it comes to staffing. The day to day work may be different for a Director of Communications or Assistant Principal from one school to the next but without clearly defined titles designed to push innovation, there may not be a strong incentive to do so. A Tech Coordinator may be expected to innovate to a degree but a Director of Innovation likely needs to provide data showing progress in this area.
I'd argue it's time for us to rethink roles and titles altogether. Some are just flat out missing and need to be added. Bob seems to imply having strong support around both internal and external communications would be helpful. And what about his suggestion of Director of Partnerships? (that's one I wouldn't mind doing) And I will have to continue to insist that we need professional bullshit sniffers (most companies call this their research and development division). What data is being gathered and, as Bob points out, is it the right data we need to make a specific decision? How are we sure we're not engaged in confirmation bias or cherry picking the stats we need to support our own view?
All this is only related to staff as our current structure would have it (of course it wouldn't surprise any of us if this all eventually got dumped into teachers' laps as it often does). So what about the faculty roles? I've worked in all levels of education and I've often wondered why P-12 doesn't have a hierarchy of teaching roles as higher ed does. Why is a first-year teacher's title exactly the same as one who has been doing the job for 20 years? Why is the only way to move up in a school through the administrative route? That's a whole separate piece so more on that later...
Comments