Operations & Management

Candidates who successfully complete a district-level educational leadership preparation program understand and demonstrate the capacity to promote the current and future success and wellbeing of each student and adult by applying the knowledge, skills, and commitments necessary to develop, monitor, evaluate, and manage data-informed and equitable district systems for operations, resources, technology, and human capital management.

STANDARD 6 COMPONENTS

Component 6.1 - Program completers understand and demonstrate the capacity to develop, communicate, implement, and evaluate data-informed and equitable management, communication, technology, governance, and operation systems at the district level to support schools in realizing the district’s mission and vision.

Component 6.2 - Program completers understand and demonstrate the capacity to develop, communicate, implement, and evaluate a data-based district resourcing plan and support schools in developing their school-level resourcing plans.

Component 6.3 - Program completers understand and demonstrate the capacity to develop, implement, and evaluate coordinated, data-informed systems for hiring, retaining, supervising, and developing school and district staff in order to support the district’s collective instructional and leadership capacity.

Buildings and other capital assets of a school district are vital to the overall operations and support the teaching, learning, and achievement by staff and students every day. New buildings can be exciting, but require an enormous amount of time to plan, design, implement, and fund (NELP 6.1).

It’s no small task for a district to envision a new structure, as each structure is very much part of the system that makes school what it is. Instruction can happen anywhere, but a school building is synonymous with effective public education, and part of what makes school recognizable by society.

Most districts go years, if not decades, without any capital improvements, and some districts in Ohio have buildings that still date from the early 1900s. The districts that can improve, and can manage to raise enough funds through levy cycles, bonds, or other capital assets sources are lucky to provide for their community the very best learning environments it can.

A school building, then, becomes a system of its own - one that houses learning, technology, human resources, and provides the basics like heat and cooling, shelter, running water, emergency escapes, lighting, parking lots, and more - an extremely complicated system, to say the least (NELP 6.2).

Part of the projects in the course was to create, over the span of the course, a recommendation for a real Board of Education regarding a capital improvement project (such as building new or renovating a building) with all of the aspects such a project would comprise.

The course, EDLE 76515 Facilities Planning & Administration with Dr. Giancola, really challenged what I thought I knew of buildings and facilities, and the course came at a time when the district had just completed construction of its new High School, and renovations were underway of its future middle school.

At the time, due to student growth predictions (that never materialized), there was a possibility that we would have to reoccupy space for instructional purposes. From that lens, I approached the work in the course (NELP 6.2).

Here's the final project, a document (48 pages) that details such a plan, and is based on best practices and research at the time.

📌 A Facilities Project in Streetsboro City Schools