PARISH SCHOOL BOARD INVOLVEMENT IN POLICY-MAKING
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to: examine and compare the perceptions of pastors, principals, and school board members with respect to the current and the needed involvement of school boards in the decision-making process of policy-making affecting selected Catholic parish elementary schools in the Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York. Secondly, the study sought to determine if there were significant differences among the perceptions of pastors, principals, and school board members with respect to the degree of presence or absence of those behaviors which had been ascertained to contribute to the effective operation of parish school boards. Finally, it sought to determine if significant relationships existed between the above perceptions and the attractiveness quotient of the school, namely, the percentage of the available school age children in the parish that the school was able to draw. Using an instrument developed for the study, The School Board Decision-Making Questionnaire (SBDMQ), hypotheses were tested to determine whether: discrepancies among the three groups defining school board roles and discrepancies among the three groups in their perceptions of each other's behaviors in the policy-making process were conflictual; congruence of views bore any relationship to the school's ability to attract more students. The study found that significant differences existed among the respondents with respect to their perceptions of the current and needed involvement of school boards in the policy-making process. Significant differences also existed in each group's perception of the other groups' participation behaviors in the policy-making process. Significant relationships indicated possible influence between the attractiveness quotients of the schools and: (a) pastors' perceptions of needed school board involvement and (b) principals' perceptions of current school board involvement. Some of the major recommendations from this study were: regularized training programs for pastors, principals, and board members; formally established means for mediating role conflicts on boards; and further study to determine the relationship between the degree of role consensus on a board and such factors as socioeconomic status and the academic achievement level of the school.
Subject Area
School administration
Recommended Citation
CARROLL, HUGH F, "PARISH SCHOOL BOARD INVOLVEMENT IN POLICY-MAKING" (1983). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI8326165.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI8326165
