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Abstract
The objective of the study was to determine the magnitude and scope of the decision-making dimension of school-based management in a rural Florida school. The focus was on the personnel involved in the decision-making process, and the identification of the factors which affected the implementation of school-based management.
The ethnographic technique of participant observation provided qualitative data about the interdependent behavior of school persons that affected a school's implementation of school-based management. Unobstrusive observations, unstructured interviews, and documents and records enabled the researcher to capture the totality of the school system and community environment. An observation model provided the basis for recording and analysing the actions of school faculty and staff relative to school-based management, distinguish policy formulation from routine administration, and determine both the mode and the breadth of the decision-making process.
A number of hypotheses were generated from the study. First, the social system of a school is influenced by both state laws and regulations, and the subtle authoritarianism of the hierarchial structure of a school district.
Second, school site personnel can be involved in a consentaneous decision-making process within the constraints of external factors that place certain responsibilities for school operations on the principal. Third, a horizontal decision-making process can exist at a school without the overt or negotiated actions of hierarchial organizational structures, and within the parameters of state laws and regulations.
Fourth, consentaneous decision making in a school can be an effective step toward limited implementation of school-based management. Fifth, a participant observation study of a school will reveal the scope of the decision-making process as related to school-based management.
Sixth, policies can be formulated by the day-to-day decision-making process, which have implications for school-based management. Seventh and last, a school can be involved in a consentaneous decision-making process which establishes policies and procedures for the implementation of both state laws and the broader concept of school-based management.
