PCA – Political Analysis

Kyle Craig

OGL 481

6/22/2021
 Situation Restatement

In my case study I am writing from the perspective of a Gilbert School District

member making the decision that was made January 5, 2021 during a six hour school
board meeting on whether or not the students would be returning to full time instruction
the following day as Winter Break came to a close. The district returned to a hybrid
learning model in December 2020, but teachers threatened a Sick Out in January because
they wanted to avoid potential exposure to SARS-CoV-2 after all of the traveling
students did over the break.

Political Influence

School districts are highly political organizations because they are tax funded.
This requires that the district is accountable to the governor of the state they operate in
as well as the Superintendent of Public Instruction. On 23 July 2020, Governor Doug
Ducey signed the “Arizona: Open for Learning” executive order. This executive order
required that districts started school on time according to the calendars they submitted to
the State Board of Education and provided a safe and free place for learning for students
who were in need beginning no later than August 17, 2020 (Exec. Order No. 2020-51,
2020). The executive order also required that districts submitted a plan heeding advice
from the Arizona Department of Health for reopening and post it to their district website
for families to access (Exec. Order No. 2020-51, 2020). The Gilbert School’s governing
board used this information to formulate a plan and as the semester went on, make in
person learning more accessible to more students.
While there are a lot of outside sources influencing the politics within the
organization, there are still political influences within the district between the teachers,
administration and filtering up to the superintendent and board. It makes sense, then that
there was no surprise when conflict arose in this situation, Bolman and Deal explain that
ther are both vertical and horizontal conflicts within organizations (2017). In this case,
the conflict was vertical because the district board was trying to move forward with a
plan to reopen schools to in-person learning while the educators within the district
wanted to wait until the current transmission levels in the state decreased to return. The
text also says that conflict is a good thing when handled correctly and in the beginning
of the pandemic, the district worked hard to organize a task force and send out surveys
(Bolman & Deal, 2017). In this moment of conflict, all of those previous protocols were
neglected and it created more chaos than necessary. Handled properly and with a look at
the organization’s history in resolving this issue, the six hour board meeting and
confusion on how the return to school would look the next day may have resolved more
easily.

Course of Action Recommendation

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 An alternative course of action for this case should have begun with looking at the
morality of the situation. Mutuality, generality, openness and caring are four categories
Bolman and Deal recommend judging an organization’s political morality by (2017). It
is clear that most everyone involved in the situation understood the rules defined and
thus were in agreement under the mutuality. A contention point under the generality
question is that there are few situations to compare this one to, and so it is difficult to
follow the same actions in moral conduct. As far as openness, the district was open with
their decision making process and the discussion, giving everyone a chance to voice
their concerns and opinions. The fourth question of caring is what the district was trying
to resolve during that board meeting January fifth, the district wanted to hear and
address the concerns of all involved, the problem is that there were constituents on
opposite ends of the spectrum in this situation.
Things that could have improved the process under the generality concept of
moral judgement is to look at the early response to SARS-CoV-2 and how the district
worked through the planning process at that time (Bolman & Deal, 2017). If the district
relied on previous tactics such as pulling in the task force and surveying teachers and
parents, the decision to return after winter break may have come to a better consensus
more quickly. In addition, the district, instead of being silent on the matter and
continuing to move in the direction of reopening to full time in-person instruction should
have listened to the first concerns being voiced from within their district. This would
show the district board cared and was attentive to the concerns of others, especially the
educators who would put themselves at risk by returning to the classroom the following
day (Bolman & Deal, 2017).

Do Different Reflection

In order to resolve this conflict in a more cohesive manner and avoid what turned
into bottom-up political action, the district board members and superintendent should
have relied on their past successes to move forward in this case (Bolman & Deal, 2017).
In preparation for the 2020-2021 school year and in response to Governor Ducey’s
Executive Order 2020-51, Gilbert Schools created a task force that held meetings and
surveyed both parents and teachers to get a comprehensive view on the best way to return
to school. While some parties may not have been overjoyed at the plan the task force
came up with, all parties felt their feelings on the matter were heard. There was little
backlash from teachers and parents at that time. As the semester progressed and the
district continued to move forward with their reopening plan, another wave of the virus
swept the United States and caused record numbers of new cases and hospitalizations in
Arizona in December. At this time parents were seeing deficits in their children’s
learning from not being able to attend in person school and so the lack of progress the
parents were seeing was mounting into frustration.

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 Instead of relying on the task force to poll and listen to both sides and make a
decision that best addressed all concerns, the district was quiet on the matter until the
scheduled board meeting on January 5, 2021. Mismanaging this situation led to teachers
coming together and threatening bottom-up political action by stating they would not
show up to work, all calling in sick if they were forced to return to a situation that did not
feel safe (Bolman & Deal, 2017). In a similar way, parents did not feel their concerns
were being addressed and were threatening to pull children from district schools and find
a better option for schooling their children. If the district reinstated the task force and
also promoted the moral judgement of caring for the concerns of others, there would have
been less conflict and confusion in making the decision on returning to school in January.
The district had all of the tools they needed because they had used them previously, but
the pressure and timeline led to a mismanagement of conflict that left teachers going to
bed the night of January 5th not knowing whether to go to their home office or classroom
the following morning.

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 References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and

leadership (6th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Exec. Order No. 2020-51, (2020).