The changing role of central office under site -based management

The problem and purpose of the study are to address the extent of change in the roles and responsibilities of central office that occurs when a district implements site-based management (SBM). It is part of a larger study conducted at the University of Southern California. Four school districts, three of them in the US and one in Canada that had implemented SBM for at least three years served as the sample.;Three research questions were developed based on the framework of Edward Lawler's concept of effective participative management in the private sector where power, information, knowledge, and reward are transferred to the individuals who are creating the products and services. The study is further grounded in the research literature in participative management in the private sector and in the educational arena.;The case study methodology was developed by the larger study which set the criteria for district selection; wrote the structured interview protocols, and, established data analysis and archival review procedures. A variety of stakeholders both in the central office and school sites which also included parents and community members were interviewed and the responses to faculty and staff questionnaires about their feelings and knowledge of SBM and its implementation were analyzed. Three themes which exemplified Lawler's effective participative management concept emerged from the findings: (1) Central office consistently exercised leadership from the very top transferring power to schools. (2) Central office's roles and responsibilities had expanded in some ways and had become limited in others. New roles and responsibilities had to be developed; and, (3) Central office's changed role has increased productivity in the high performing schools.;The implications of this study are that (1) The school districts can change their role from the traditional controlling, directing, and mandating one to one that provides leadership, guidance, and technical assistance; and can undergo restructuring of its functions and responsibilities which necessitates limiting, eliminating or expanding some scope of the work of the central office; (2) The locus of control does actually shift to the individual school sites: they had almost all of the responsibilities for curriculum and instruction, site-based assessment and evaluation, finance and budgeting, and hiring of personnel; power was transferred to the locale closest to the stakeholders with central office serving as the support and guidance; (3) The central office can become the hub of information gathering, sharing and dissemination; and, (4) All the role changes advocated by SBM may not be necessary; the high performing schools were successful at implementing SBM without incorporating all the components of SBM.