| This dissertation investigated the decision-making process surrounding long range facility planning in New Jersey public schools. As the organizational leader, the superintendent is charged with the duty of assuring progress toward the educational goals of the locality and the instructional requirements of the State. The condition and appropriateness of the facilities to meet the needs of the curriculum, enrollment, and age level of the students is fundamental to the act of teaching. Recognized in the research as matching form to function, a working knowledge regarding the many planning issues necessary to satisfy the expectations of the educational community is a responsibility all superintendents of schools will encounter.;To investigate the research questions of the study, surveys were distributed to a randomly selected sample of 469 practicing school leaders to gather data regarding experience, perceptions of graduate level courses beneficial to the superintendency, likely delegation of specific tasks, and the conditions under which decisions are processed when determining whether to outsource specific planning responsibilities.;After gathering the data, statistical analyses were used to determine if there was a. significant difference between those with construction experience and those without the benefit of this experience. Where frequency data were compared for outsourcing, the chi-square goodness of fit test was used when its assumptions were met to extend the analysis of the data related to construction experience. For stratified survey data derived from the Likert scale, which were converted to means, the t-test was used to compare those who reported construction experience to those who did not. Pearson product-moment correlations were conducted to test for relationships between district enrollment compared to the frequency of outsourcing long range facility planning tasks.;The respondents showed significant preference for in-house assignment of planning duties. While a trend emerged for outsourcing tasks of increasing technical nature including enrollment forecasting, assessing facilities, and developing educational specifications, the in-house administrators most likely to lead planning efforts were the superintendent and the school business administrator. |
