Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals

Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals

VICTORIAN ASSOCIATION OF STATE SECONDARY PRINCIPALS

THE PRIVILEGE, THE PRICE (AND THE COST)

DISCUSSION PAPER: PROPOSED VASSP STRATEGY PLAN

Draft 3/02/06

Context

  1. Over the last 15 years the Victorian Government system has become one of the most comprehensively devolved systems in the world with outstanding attention given to both equity and continuous improvement issues. The proportion of total budget used for non-school based functions has been reduced to ~6% (apparently the lowest in the world) and Victoria has the most cost effective government system in Australia (measured by dollars spent per student). During this period, community and parental expectations of schools have risen significantly, the exercise of parental choice has had an increasing impact on schools, there has been an increasing competition for student enrolments and a ‘survival of the fittest’ strategy has developed to achieve system sustainability.
  2. The Privilege and the Price report commissioned by DE&T from independent consultants Saulwick Muller Social Research indicates that most VictorianStateSchool principals value their job and are performing well. However, many are expressing significant stress and reduction in quality of life with over 50% suffering work-related illness.
  3. It is predicted that there will be a major cost to the quality of schools, the status of the profession, the well-being of individual principals and our systems recruitment/sustainability strategies if both the Central Administration and the Schools in our Department do not constructively and adequately respond to the various issues which have been identified by the Report. We also need to take account of suggestions from VASSP/VPA members and the perspectives presently being expressed by the senior officers in the Department.
  4. In Victoria we are currently in a political/social context where there is little support for increased government funding for school education. (This is in marked contrast to the UK). Until this changes, both the Central Administration and our self-managing schools can and should respond to the Privilege and the Price issues by improving efficiencies and adjusting relative priorities. To give the government its due, each year it does allocate extra monies for school-based improvements but these are usually tied to specific projects and accountability outcomes to ensure maximum political advantage and do very little to facilitate and resource existing functions and educational programs.
  5. Progressively each year, schools (and their principals) find that there are:

a)More things to do

b)Higher outcomes expected

c)More pressures on staff and their wellbeing (teaching is repeatedly recognised as one of the most highly stressful jobs in the community)

d)Increasing shortfalls in school infrastructure (facilities, materials, equipment, support staff, ICT provision etc.) because community and government expectations continue to rise but the increase in recurrent resourcing is only providing for salary rises and cost of living rises (or less).

Proposed VASSP Guidelines for Addressing the P & P Report

  1. VASSP work with the Central Administration assisting them to continue developing additional initiatives to support principals such as the recently announced principal pd opportunities to enhance our leadership understanding and personal capacity building.
  2. VASSP continue to work with Senior Departmental Officers in developing funding initiatives to be put to Government via the annual Estimates process to maximise the possibilities for increased resourcing of our schools..
  3. Principals use the timeline flexibilities provided by the Central Administration for the implementation of the Blueprint. Most of the 21 strategies (if done wisely) will be good for our schools, but no school has the capacity to do them all at once. Principals need to plan their implementation timelines according to each school’s resources and capacity as well as their own workloads.
  4. VASSP, through its members, develop and implement a set of school-based strategies to ensure that adequate provision is made for more appropriate levels of school infrastructure and personnel support within existing resources (SRP, locally raised funds and school reserves).

VASSP is already working on the first two approaches, albeit with only limited success so far. This paper concentrates on the latter two approaches which should be achievable within a reasonable timeframe because they are within the direct control of principals.

School-based Infrastructure

About fifteen years ago (before self management) the Department commissioned a team of public servants to investigate and report on principal workload. A key finding related to the nature of the principal’s job description. Most leadership/management positions have a breadth of responsibility and a depth of responsibility. The report found that although there were leadership/management positions in the public service, industry, business, social services etc. with similar levels of breadth or depth, very few, if any, had comparable levels of both breadth and depth as those of a principal.

So fifteen years ago it seems that Principals had to deal with lots of balls in the air but at the same time because most of their staff were teachers who spent most of their time in the classroom, Principals themselves also had to do a good deal of the running around, catching, throwing, picking up the dropped ones and finding out about the new ones.

After 15 years of systematic devolution to schools, there are now many more balls and very few extra staff available to help keep them in the air. No wonder there is a price (and a cost) to consider. Given the complexities of education, it is virtually impossible for principals to reduce the breadth of the role, so the only realistic option is to increase staffing levels so they can reduce the depth they have to cover themselves.

However, during this period, we as Principals, have actually responded by taking on more and more ourselves, delegating more out-of-classroom responsibilities to teachers (in a period when their face-to-face teaching hours were increased from 18 to 20 hours and the number of teachers reduced) and asking more and more from our SSO team (in a period when resourcing only allowed for a minimal increase in numbers of SSOs).

To change the metaphor to a simile, schools, teachers and principals are rather like military troops who have made successful and far reaching advances and now find their supply lines are too long and not significantly resourced at base. We know that in such military situations, the politicians need to increase the resourcing or the General needs to redeploy some font-line troops to strengthen the infrastructure. Prolonged inaction results in decimation of troops and campaign failure. Compare the current situation in the UK where they now have severe shortages of teachers and principals due to previous poor resourcing and prolonged inaction and have resorted to using partially qualified staff to teach students.

School-based Infrastructure Strategies – Workforce Restructuring

  1. Fundamentally we need more staff so we can spread workload more widely. In a budget neutral context that means decreasing average salaries. That means employing a greater proportion of young teachers and employing more SSOs (and possibly fewer teachers). This is Workforce Restructuring. It is already well underway in the UK but there they are getting extra government funding to do it.
  2. In Victoria in a context of devolved responsibility to Principals/schools for the expenditure of 94% of the Education budget, it is up to us to work out what to do and how to do it. We don’t need to ask the Central Administration to do it (They don’t have the funds) or to ask them for permission for us to do it. (We already have it. The answer is as always – its in your SRP).
  3. Principals from across the state, in response to the Privilege and the Price report, have identified a range of strategies to bring school infrastructure arrangements up to more appropriate levels to ensure suitable/sustainable working environments for all staff including Principals as well as continued improvement in student outcomes.

Workforce Restructure

We need to address the P & P Report by increasing school infrastructure. We suggest that each Principal select from and/or add to the following list to obtain a set of initiatives which can be implemented to suit the particular circumstances of their school. Of course most schools will already be doing some of these.

  1. Appoint a designated Personnal Assistant to the Principal – replace an existing SSO with a suitably capable (and paid) person or upgrade an existing SSO and train them to manage most of your administrivia.
  2. Create a designated Facilities Manager position at an appropriate time fraction and SSO level (eg. one level below the Business Manager). Retired Principals/APs could be headhunted. This strategy then releases the substantive APs to more educational roles and taking over more of your work.
  3. Appoint a Janitor (either SSO or contract at a suitable time fraction) who will:

a)Clean and check toilets every hour on the hour (parents would love it)

b)Pick up all the student litter and empty bins each afternoon (teachers and kids would love it)

c)Sweep paths, prune shrubs, mow lawns etc.

This could make savings on AP/teachers time allowances for anti-litter/maintenance duties.

  1. Appoint a Maintenance person (either SSO or contract at a suitable time fraction) who will

a)Promptly fix all OHS issues (in collaboration with Arnolds)

b)Attend to Urgent Works items not requiring a qualified tradesperson

c)Carry out minor facilities improvement projects

This also saves AP/teachers time because the Facilities Manager could oversee the process.

  1. Appoint a Student Services Coordinator (either SSO or teacher full time who will manage:

a)Attendance, rolls and parent notes (instead of YLCs)

b)Lost Property

c)Lockers

d)First Aid/Sick Bay

e)Student computer records, class lists, perhaps even course selection processes

f)Suspension process

This reduces workload and possibly time allowances for a number of teachers.

  1. Appoint a school-based ICT technician as an SSO at an appropriate time fraction. A good one saves teachers significant time and stress.
  1. Appoint a Technology/Art Technician (similar to Science & H/E) as an SSO at an appropriate time fraction (eg. a retired tech teacher) who will:

a)Prepare materials and maintain tools for wood, metal, ceramics, photography etc.

b)Manage stocks and orders

c)Keep rooms tidy, functional and OHS compliant

d)Assist class teachers by demonstrating techniques, assisting small groups.

Technology/Art teachers can then be expected to take classes of 25 as in other subjects.

  1. Appoint a Uniform Supplier who will provide and staff an on-site shop and support the school with a commission-based fund to supply unfinancial students with a uniform free or at subsidised rates. This reduces A/P& teacher time achieving uniform compliance.
  2. Create an additional Assistant Principal position as an HDA and each year appoint a different aspirant A/P from the LT team. This spreads the leadership workload as well as achieving succession planning and leadership training. This position can be between 0.5 and 1.0 time fraction and thereby allows the appointee to also continue their current job and/or teach a couple of classes. This person can provide the ‘out and about principal presence’ staff want but substantive Principals and APs often run out of time to provide.
  3. Appoint a KLA Assistant (as an SSO at an appropriate time fraction) who can:

a)Be assigned to each KLA for say ½ day per week

b)Carry out KLA admin jobs under the direction of each Coordinator

c)Assist teachers with photocopying, class sets etc.

It may be acceptable to the staff, for the KLA Coordination time allowance to be reduced to create some of the salary. Remember a one period time allowance is worth $2500/year.

  1. Get Council to agree to a significant Principal Discretionary Fund so that you can get your innovative ideas implemented without so much time spent on consultation and/or committee work to justify the expenditure.
  2. Change your school culture so that it is acceptable and desirable for Principals and APs to act as a team and share around ‘Principal presence’ at meetings, public events, in-the-yard etc. eg. Use this to keep your ‘nights out at school’ to an average of no more than one per week.

Paying for the Workforce Restructure

Again select the items which are relevant to you and your school. Don’t feel guilty about cutting a low priority to afford a higher priority. Our job entails setting appropriate priorities and selecting appropriate resourcing strategies which are legal, ensure balanced consideration of the needs of Principals, teachers and SSOs as well as those of students and provide for sustainable and appropriate work environments and student learning opportunities/outcomes.

It is recommended that:

You don’t waste your time on fundraising activities to meet any funding gap. The Department, the parents and some community organisation (eg. facilities hirers) have the responsibility to provide the resources. Our job is to make sure that we get all that we are entitled to and that the monies are spent wisely with a minimum of waste or inefficiency.

  1. Take appropriate steps to ensure that as far as possible all classes are full. This is a major advantage that all high-demand schools automatically have. Other schools have to work for it.
  2. Make sure all teachers are fully allocated their 20 hours of face to face teaching and time allowances as per the EBA.
  3. Make sure all teaching allotments and time allowances involve planned and worthwhile work – don’t just think up things for people to do to fill in their under-allotted time.
  1. Make sure students in Years 7-10 get no more than the DE&Ts minimum instruction time of 1500 minutes per week. It is probably legitimate to include say 1 period per week of co-curricular activity in this total which is a no-cost item because teachers usually volunteer.
  2. If you are a High Cost school, your job is harder. Make sure you haven’t cut staffing levels below historic levels just to keep in budget. Use the VASSP Workforce Bridging documents to maximise appropriate department financial support from the Regional Workforce Bridging process.
  3. Maintain reasonable numbers of AP & LT positions (~25% of EFT) and Special Payments (~1% of total salary budget) so that staff have incentives to accept leadership/management responsibilities and appropriately share work loads between principals and teachers.
  4. Maintain reasonable time allowances for teachers by creating a total pool calculated at 90 minutes per EFT for the various jobs (but not including PCOs and librarians) to ensure that teachers have time to do all the jobs necessary (and reduce PCO workload) and do the jobs properly (and reduce PCO hassles).
  5. Ensure that your SSO staffing is at least at historical levels (~8% of total salary allocation in the SRP).
  6. Use your DE&T entitlement of 4 positions a year to advertise appropriate vacancies as Graduate positions. This ensures a healthy balance of youth/energy and experience/wisdom and keeps the average salary at affordable levels.
  7. After the basic staffing has been achieved (items 5-9) most schools (other than High Cost Schools) will have some salary funds still uncommitted. To minimise work loads (and maximise infrastructure) use as much of this money as possible to employ additional SSOs rather than more teachers.
  8. Negotiate appropriate allotment trade-offs with teachers to increase SSO numbers and reduce the total teacher EFT.

eg. i) Reduce YLCs time allowances to employ an SSO Student Services Coordinator

ii) Reduce KLA Coordinator time allowances to employ a KLA Assistant

iii)Increase prac class class-sizes to 25 to employ a Technology/Art Technician

  1. Use appropriate locally raised funds to justify employing additional non-teaching staff:

eg. i) Canteen profits to employ the grounds-person (to pick up litter)

ii) Uniform Shop profits to pay part of YLC salaries to carry out uniform compliance
procedures

iii)Facilities rental income to employ the SSO Facilities Manager

  1. Use appropriate SRP cash allocations to employ additional staff
    i) MIPS money to cover part of the MIPs Coordinator’s salary
    ii) Urgent Works funds to cover part of the Facilities Manager salary
    iii)Grounds allocation to employ the Janitor/Grounds-person
  2. Schools with significant financial resources can make use of the interest (and possibly some of the principal) to increase staffing levels and decrease Principal and staff workloads/stress.

Further Development

Members are invited to forward additional ideas of:

a)Workforce Restructuring

b)Strategies for funding the restructuring from their own experience.

Please email Lynne at the VASSP office and she will arrange for them to be added to the document.

An updated copy will be maintained on the VASSP website for future reference by members.

HW 870 VASSP The Privilege, the Price

Top View