School Leadership--balancing Power with Caring

Book excerpt: In School Leadership, you will experience in vivid detail how one school struggled to create a caring school community within a traditional, bureaucratic hierarchy. The text begins with the school's historical background of having a high student drop-out rate and a reputation for crime, violence, and drug dealing. The author then examines: caring in the context of the principal's leadership as an African American woman attempting to create a nurturing atmosphere; the ways in which faculty and staff perceive the intents and actions of the principal; how teachers nurture themselves and each other; the notion of a connection between caring and power; and the potential impacts of caring power on leadership and organization of schools, particularly as educators weigh the options of various cultural and educational needs involved in school reform initiatives. Sernak makes dynamic new connections between caring, power, and leadership that will be of interest to policymakers, administrators, and all educators concerned with creating a caring school environment.