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Education Superintendents in Unstable contexts: Case studies
of 7 education Superintendents in The West Bank and Gaza.

presented by

Sakeena Ayoub R. T. Elayan

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EDUCATION SUPERINTENDENTS IN UNSTABLE CONTEXTS: CASE STUDIES
OF 7 PALESTINLAN SUPERINTENTS IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA

By

Sakeena Ayoub R.T. Elayan

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of K 12 Educational Administration

2007

ABSTRACT
EDUCATION SUPERINTENDENTS IN UNSTABLE CONTEXTS: CASE STUDIES
OF 7 PALESTINIAN SUPERINTENTS IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA
By
Sakeena Elayan

Deep rooted in history and civilization, Palestine has witnessed the emergence of
heavenly religions. Such feature has enriched the peculiarity, the holiness, and the
sanctity of that place. The essence of those religions is love, tolerance, faith, peace, and
hope. Yet, that part of the world had experienced wars, conﬂicts and atrocities in almost
every phase of history, particularly in the last seven decades.

This study has taken place in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza/ in
Palestine. Driven by an overwhelming curiosity, and “a passion for learning” (Cusick,
2005), I studied the education superintendents’ perceptions of their roles and leadership
practices they employed to maintain the education system adverse of the volatile
environment. My focus was on discovering the nature of a superintendent’s role in that
unstable context, how different it is from traditional leadership roles in western education
systems, what kind of leadership strategies do superintendents demonstrate, and what
assumptions, beliefs and world views underlie their approach.

This study ﬁlls part of a huge gap by telling the story of how the education system
was maintained in the turbulent context of Palestine. Therefore, this study has
implications for both policy and practice in the ﬁeld of educational leadership,

particularly in countries suffering from conﬂict.

I dedicate this work for my parents, my sisters, brothers, and to my ﬁrst grade teacher
Miss Amal Abddo. All of you have taught me that knowledge is not only power, but it is

also an expression of spirituality and a central happiness in human life.

iii

Acknowledgements

In conducting the research project, and writing this dissertation, I have been
helped by many people along the way. In particular, I would like to thank my friends Sue
Tomes, Zeinab Altinsal, Ann Frances, Stephanie Parenthesis, and Lin Xing for their
encouragement and support. The committee members were exceptionally helpful. Dr.
Phil Cusick, Dr. Emine Evered, Dr. Reitu Mabokela and Dr. Chris’ suggestions and
feedback were very useful. Each time I talked to them, they gave me great insights.

I am indebted to my dissertation director Dr. Dunbar, who has suggested a
change of focus in my dissertation leading me to the right spot where I have discovered
my real concerns and interests. He has an amazing subtle manner of coaching his
students. I would also like to thank the wonderful people at the 0188 particularly Peter
Briggs, Mary Gebbia Portice, and Ghazalla Khan.

Special thanks should also go to the research participants (all superintendents)
who gave me their personal time, and invited me to their meetings and various work sites.
I’m also very grateful to school principals, teachers, and district staff. All of them were
very generous with their time and level of data they provided.

I am very grateﬁll to the Fulbright scholarship program, which sponsored part of
my study at Michigan State University, without that I would have never thought of

pursuing my studies in the US.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................ viii
CHAPTER I

SETTING THE SCENE ................................................................................................... 1
Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1
Background ....................................................................................................................... 2
Historical Background ...................................................................................................... 2
Organizational Context ..................................................................................................... 3
Problem Statement ............................................................................................................ 4
Purpose of the Study ........................................................................................................ 6
Signiﬁcance of the proposed research ............................................................................. 7
CHAPTER H

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 9
Leadership ...................................................................................................................... 10
The importance of leadership in organizations .............................................................. 12
Superintendency and roles ............................................................................................. 13
Historic evolution of the superintendency role in the US .............................................. 13
Superintendency leadership roles ................................................................................... 15
Political role ................................................................................................................... 16
Managerial role .............................................................................................................. 18
Instructional role ............................................................................................................ 21
Education and conﬂict ................................................................................................... 26
The importance of education in conﬂict within context ................................................ 27
Deﬁnition of emergency ............................................................................................... 28
Challenges of educational sustainability ....................................................................... 29
Divided education system .............................................................................................. 30
Brain drain, Lack of funds ............................................................................................ 31
Strategies ........................................................................................................................ 33
Decentralization and restructuring ................................................................................ 33
Representation and participation .................................................................................... 34
Partnership with non governmental players ................................................................... 36
Responsiveness to emergency needs, preparedness, planning, prioritization ................ 38
Eeonomizing expenditures ........................................................................................ 39
Use of holistic comprehensive approach ...................................................................... 40
Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 40
CHAPTER III

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

Introduction ................................................................................................................... 42
Qualitative approach ..................................................................................................... 43

Case study as a research strategy .................................................................................. 44

Researcher’s role ............................................................................................................ 46
Access and informed consent ....................................................................................... 47
Conﬁdentiality and protection of participants ............................................................... 49
Site selection ................................................................................................................. 50
The sample .................................................................................................................... 51
Data collection and recording techniques ..................................................................... 52
Observations ................................................................................................................. 52
Interviews ...................................................................................................................... 53
Artifacts ......................................................................................................................... 54
Instruments .................................................................................................................... 54
Data preparation and analysis ....................................................................................... 55
CHAPTER IV
PRESENTATION OF DATA
Introduction ................................................................................................................... 58
Hebron school district ................................................................................................... 59
The community and school district ............................................................................... .59
The superintendent ......................................................................................................... 60
The superintendent’s view of his role and perspective or leadership ............................ 60
The district, staff, parents, teachers, view of superintendent’s Deer leadership ............ 63
The Bethlehem school district and superintendent Camel ............................................ 64
The community ............................................................................................................. 64
The school district .......................................................................................................... 65
The superintendent’s perception of his role ................................................................... 65
View and practice of leadership ..................................................................................... 67
Nablus school district and superintendent horse ............................................................. 70
The community .............................................................................................................. 7O
Superintendent horse conception of his role .................................................................. 71
Mr. Horse’s leadership practice ..................................................................................... 73
Jerusalem suburb’s school district and superintendent Lion ......................................... 75
The community .............................................................................................................. 75
The school district .......................................................................................................... 76
Superintendent lion ........................................................................................................ 77
Superintendent’s lion perception of his role .................................................................. 77
Superintendent’s lion practice of leadership .................................................................. 78
Qalqilya school district and superintendent ox .............................................................. 81
The community .............................................................................................................. 81
The school district .......................................................................................................... 82
Superintendent Ox ......................................................................................................... 82
The superintendent’s conception of his role ................................................................. 82
The super indent’s practice of leadership ...................................................................... 84
Gaza school district and superintendents Leopard and Tiger ......................................... 87
The community .............................................................................................................. 87
Educational districts A and B ...................................................................................... 89
Superintendent’s Leopard conception of his role .......................................................... 90

vi

Superintendent’s Leopard’s leadership practice ............................................................ 91

Superintendent’s Tiger conception of his role ............................................................... 92
Superintendent’s Tiger leadership practice .................................................................... 94
Pictures ............................................................................................................................ 96
CHAPTER V

AN ANALYTICAL DISCUSSION

Introduction ................................................................................................................... 102
Roles of Palestinian Superintendents ............................................................................ 103
Figure (1) Perceptions and Roles .................................................................................. 104
Vision provider ............................................................................................................. 105
Manager ........................................................................................................................ 106
Decision taker: .............................................................................................................. 107
Gap closer: .................................................................................................................... 107
Instructional: ................................................................................................................. 108
Handler of paradoxes: ................................................................................................... 109
Emergency manager: .................................................................................................... 1 10
Community builder: ...................................................................................................... l 12
Capacity builder ............................................................................................................ 1 13
Peace mediator .............................................................................................................. l 14
Provider of moral support ............................................................................................. 115
Buffering agent ............................................................................................................. l 15
Public relations manager ............................................................................................... 116
Political ......................................................................................................................... l 16
Spokesman and media inﬂuencer ................................................................................. 117
Summary ....................................................................................................................... l 19
Leadership and management ........................................................................................ 121
Leadership Paradigm .................................................................................................... 121
Purpose .......................................................................................................................... 122
Figure (2) Leadership Paradigm ................................................................................... 123
Beliefs: Political beliefs ............................................................................................... 124
Religious belief ..................................................................................................... . ....... 124
Social belief .................................................................................................................. 125
Personal ......................................................................................................................... 125
Strategies ....................................................................................................................... 126
Visibility and communication ....................................................................................... 126
Collaboration and Partnerships ..................................................................................... 127
Preparedness and proactive emergency planning ......................................................... 128
The nature of the role .................................................................................................... 129
Comparison to American Superintendency .................................................................. 132
Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 135
Reﬂections .................................................................................................................... 1 3 8
Appendices .................................................................................................................... 144
Bibliography ................................................................................................................. l 60

vii

ABBREVIATIONS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EMIS Education Management Information System

IMF International Monetary Fund

MOEHE Ministry of Education and Higher Education

NGO Non-governmental Organizations

PA Palestinian Authority

PCBS Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics

PNA Palestinian National Authority

SSNRP Social Safety Net Reform Program

UNESCO United Nations Educational Scientiﬁc and Cultural Organization
UNICEF United Nations International Child Emergency Fund.
UNRWA United Nations Relief and Works Agency

WB World Bank

WBG West Bank and Gaza

IIEP International Institute for Educational Planning

 

 

viii

 

CHAPTER I

' INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY AND SETTING THE SCENE

Introduction

 

The Russian playwright Anthony Chekhov, a middle child among seven, once
said, “Usually it is the role of the middle child of a large family to be the peacemaker, the
humorist, the watcher, and the communicator.” (Salem, 2001) Like the middle child, a
District Education superintendent plays a similar role in minimizing the gaps between
policy and practice. Hence the superintendent’s role requires the management of a
complex web of relationships. In the professional literature, however, much has been
written about educational superintendents, (Leithwood, 1995; Cuban 1988, 1989; Glass,
2003; Kowalski, 1999; Bjork, 2005; Sirgiovanni, 1992, 1995), but very little has been
written on educational superintendent’s roles and leadership approaches in an
environment under the constant threat of conﬂict, where instability is a feature of
everyday norms like the case in the West Bank and Ghaza.

There, a superintendent is required to put on different hats, undertake non
traditional responsibilities, in addition to defending ministry decisions, build capacity,
deal with various stakeholders, and most of all be accountable for students’ academic
achievement. In short, a superintendent has a very demanding, complex role. Such a role
is even more demanding in unstable contexts; therefore, this study is necessitated due to a
dearth of research on educational superintendents’ leadership roles in conﬂict-tom

countries.

Historical background

 

According to the Sykes- Picot Treaty in 1916 (appendix 1), Palestine and Jordan
became the possession of Great Britain. Accordingly, Palestine was governed by British
mandate, which ended on the day of the declaration of the state of Israel on May 15‘“,
1948. After that date the rest of the Palestinian lands were annexed to the neighboring
countries. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan annexed some of these lands, including
East Jerusalem, which came to be known as the West Bank of Jordan; meanwhile, Egypt
annexed the Ghaza strip. In the Six Day War (June, 1967), the Israeli army occupied the
Ghaza strip and the West Bank, including the eastern part of Jerusalem. Subsequently, all
public governance including education was conducted by the Israeli military reporting to
the Israeli Department of Defense. Gaza and the West Bank are now spread across what
was formerly known as Palestine, “before 1947”, and now they are separated by Israeli
territories, (appendix 2).

Following the Oslo Agreement of 1993, public governance in the Palestinian
occupied territories was handed to the Palestinian Authority. A ministry of education was
then established. In addition to the ministry, the education sector in the West Bank and
Ghaza is run by private sector organizations and United Nations Relief and Work Agency
(UNRWA), which supervises all schools in the refugee camps. Fifty-one percent of the
schools in Ghaza are run by UNRWA, and the rest is run by the Ministry of Education,
(Appendix 3).

The case is almost the opposite in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, UNRWA

runs 19 % of the schools; 11 % are run by the church and private sector; and 70 % are the

responsibility of the Ministry of Education. The population for my study lies within
those areas of the West Bank and Ghaza that are the responsibility of the Ministry of
Education. Those are the educational superintendents of the schools run by the ministry
of education. The population of my study are all the 19 superintendents of the public
education sector in Ghaza and the West Bank. However, my case study has focused on
seven superintendents in the West Bank and Ghaza as the sample of the research project.
Two of those are located in Ghaza, the other ﬁve are located in the in the West Bank. The
idea behind choosing only seven is that other superintendents have been assigned
superintendency for less than three years. More on that will be explained in the
methodology chapter.

Historically, the post of a superintendent in education had always existed in
Palestine, Ibshour (1990). A superintendent’s position was always occupied during the
British mandate period, Jordanian rule in the West Bank, and Egyptian supervision in
Ghaza. However, following the Palestinian ministry’s assumption of responsibility in
1994, educational superintendency has to be redeﬁned according to the emerging roles

and leadership behavior in the unique context of Palestine.

Organizational Context
In Palestine, similar to the case of many centralized systems over the world,
educational district ofﬁces supervise both basic and secondary schools. In some of those
districts, the number of schools exceeds 200, like the case in Hebron where there are 215
schools. Meanwhile in other districts the number may come to less than 20 schools like

the casein Jericho district which has only 17 schools, see (appendix 4) for names of all

districts. Based on the MOEHE statistics the average number of schools per district is 95
schools. In each of those district ofﬁces, there are 12-15. Those units include: personnel,
professional development, ﬁnancial affairs, general instruction, special education,
curricula and textbooks, educational supervision, technology and instructional media,
school health and counseling and public relations. Each of these units is staffed by 2-45
people and supervised by a head of section (appendix 5). The number of staff in each unit
depends on the number of schools in a given district, and the type of tasks performed by
such unit. For example, the instructional technology unit is usually staffed by 2-7 people
who are mainly specialists in instructional technology, and they usually serve all schools
in the district. Meanwhile the educational supervision unit has a staff of 8 to 45 people
depending on the number of schools, type of schools, number of taught subjects and
number of teachers. At the top of each district ofﬁce there is a superintendent who
represents the major link between the central ofﬁce “ministry of education” and schools.
Within the district mayoral borders, a superintendent is also the link between the civic
local societies, business groups, international organizations and other stakeholders on one
side and schools on the other side.

Problem Statement

 

In the context of a country which has suffered from wars and conﬂicts since
almost the start of the 20th. Century, education superintendents must have different non-
traditional roles with multiple tasks and extremely challenging functions where issues of
conﬂict and instability are part of everyday norms. Yet the education system in the West
Bank and Ghaza has survived and schools have continued to provide education services

from one generation to the next. That is to say how have those superintendents been able

to succeed in managing the system, and negotiating complex roles with multi- faceted
and incompatible expectations? Speciﬁcally, success here means keeping the system up
and running, maintaining a student enrollment of 98, 75% in basic schools grades 1-9,
and 93, 14% in secondary schools. Success also means maintaining the infrastructures of
human and non human resources including teachers, and school buildings. In contrast to
many war-tom countries of the developing world where instability led the education
systems to collapse (Davies, 2004), educational superintendents in Gaza and the West
bank were able to sustain and manage a functioning education system. I found this
phenomenon a subject worth investigating and studying, especially that there is a
universal lack of studies on superintendents’ educational leadership roles in conﬂict
ridden countries.

As such, the number of studies in the UK and US on the superintendents’ role in
enhancing the educational focus in unstable contexts has been remarkably limited. Such
a deﬁciency is even greater in other parts of the world, particularly in the West Bank and
Ghaza. In those two regions, a superintendent’s educational role has been severely
understudied, and there is little in the US. literature to draw upon in this regard due to the
peculiar features of the Palestinian context. Furthermore, in conﬂict- torn countries,
educational superintendency involves various roles and multiple tasks. What is lacking is
knowledge, and understanding of how superintendents perform their leadership roles in
an environment, situated in a fragile, turbulent context, that is Ghaza and the West Bank

in the Holy Land.

Purpose of the study.

 

Therefore, the purpose of this research project is to garner an understanding of
how superintendents perform their leadership roles in such an unstable atmosphere of
conﬂict. For this reason, I have focused on examining the nature of a superintendent’s
role as an educational leader. How does the current situation impact a superintendent’s
responsibilities and functions? What is the nature of a superintendent’s role? What is his
perception of the role, and leadership approach, how does he practice leadership, and
what kind of leadership approach does he demonstrate, what assumptions and beliefs
underlie such approach?

In brief, the quest of my research was to dig into the nature of the responsibilities
and functions that Palestinian educational superintendents carry out in such a turbulent
context, where for example a superintendent was shot dead in belief that he was a traitor
and collaborator with the Israeli occupation. In this study, I sought an understanding of
how those superintendents navigate through the fragile environment to continue running
the education system, I tried to understand how they make sense of their role, what is
their leadership approach like, what assumptions and beliefs underlie their performance,
what is their conception of power, and their views on the function of schooling? What are
effective superintendents in that context guided by? What helps them to survive? And
most important is the magic recipe, if any that gives some superintendents merit in terms
of higher student achievement?

Put simply, through this study, I aimed at discovering and uncovering the true
nature of a superintendent’s role in Gaza and the West Bank how is it different from

traditional leadership roles, and how such role is constructed within a context

characterized by both inside and outside pressures. Therefore, I have analyzed the
perceptions, views, actions, and the extent of personal involvement demonstrated by
purposefully selected superintendents.

Using case study research methods, including, focused observations, and
interviews of superintendents, educators, principals, teachers, members of parents
council, concerned people in the street, and ministry-level ofﬁcials, I have attempted to
examine the nature of the role, and the extent to which the educational leadership role
may be maximized within a potentially and politically unstable environment. More
details on the processes I applied are mentioned in the methodology chapter, but from

here on I will shed light on the importance of this study.

Signiﬁcance of the research study

 

This research has implications for both policy and practice in the ﬁeld of
educational leadership, especially in contexts where governance systems including the
education system are marked by instability as a major feature of daily life as is the case in
the West Bank and Gaza. In other words, this research might be helpful for other
developing countries suffering from emergencies and conﬂicts. The research outcomes
regarding leadership and management, superintendency roles in conﬂict ridden
environments, leadership strategies, and leadership components can be signiﬁcantly
applicable to other education systems in other parts of the world. Not only education,
but study ﬁndings should be insightful to other similar leadership contexts in other

sectors of development, such as health or social service systems.

Primarily, the ﬁndings of this research not only will aid in the selection of
appropriate educational administrators at the district level, but it will also provide policy
makers with data to better diagnose the professional development needs of novice
superintendents.

From another angle, donor countries and UN agencies will ﬁnd this research
insightful. It might help them to modify their development policies, programs, and
channel their assistance more effectively. Research outcomes would therefore help
donors to maximize the cost effectiveness of available funds, and to better achieve

strategic developmental goals.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE.

Introduction

 

A lot of research has been done on educational superintendency (Bjork, 2005;
Kowalski, 1999; Cuban, 1989; Blumberg, 1985; Jonson, 1996; Kana’an, 2002), and the
kinds of roles that superintendents play in leading their organizations towards success.
Nonetheless, almost no studies have been done on superintendents’ roles and leadership
practices in conﬂict- ridden contexts, where such ofﬁcials encounter formidable
challenges on almost daily bases.

Through this study, I aim at exploring and understanding the types of leadership
roles and practices that superintendents in the West Bank and Gaza employ to run the
system, and sustain education, and how superintendents negotiate those roles. As might
be known that context is one of the hottest spots in the world. Taking a superintendent’s
position in that context is extremely challenging. Sufﬁce to mention the example of
Ramallah’ superintendent, who was shot dead in 1980, while running a meeting in his
ofﬁce.

To help in this research, I reviewed previous literature in three major areas: ﬁrst
is leadership. Second is superintendency, and superintendents’ roles. To be able to
understand the kinds of leadership superintendents are expected to demonstrate is critical
to any interpretation of leaders’ practices that I will ﬁnd out. The third area handles
education during times of emergency because an understanding of the context is central

to conceptualizing the leadership roles and practices that superintendents play.

This chapter provides an overview of the contributions made by previous scholars to
leadership, its impact on organizations, superintendency roles in the US, and education
in conﬂict- ridden countries, including the types of obstacles, strategies and opportunities
“by—products”. Next, I will start with the leadership component.
Leadership

The last sixty decades have witnessed remarkable contributions to the research on
leadership and organizations, bearing in mind that various scholars focused on various
dimensions. Accordingly, we already have various deﬁnitions, even Hoy and Miskel said
that deﬁnitions of leadership are “almost as numerous as the researchers engaged in its
study” (Hoy and Miskel, 1996, p. 376). For example, Schein, (1992) argues that culture
is the most central component in the workplace dynamics, and therefore leadership and
culture are non-separable twins of organizational life. He asserts: “organizational cultures
are created by leaders, and one of the most decisive functions of leadership may well be
the creation, the management, and if and when that may become necessary, the
destruction of culture. Culture and leadership when one examines them closely are two
sides of the same coin, and neither can really be understood by itself’, (Schein, 1992).
One of the most quoted deﬁnitions is Rost, who argued that leadership is “an inﬂuence
relationship among leaders and collaborators who intend real changes that reﬂect their
mutual purposes”, (Rost, 1993, p. 102).

From another perspective, Spillane, (2006) does not agree with the classical
deﬁnitions of leadership. He contends that such deﬁnitions imply a tendency to associate
leadership with effectiveness and positive outcomes. Therefore, he calls for distributed

leadership which is generated through the interactions of the followers, the situation and

10

the leader. Spillane states that “leadership is a system of practice made up of a collection
of interacting component parts in relationships of interdependence in which the group has
distinct properties over and above the individuals who make it up” (2006, p.16).
Meanwhile Sirgiovanni conﬁrmed Lambert’s (2002) deﬁnition of leadership. He states
that “leadership is a reciprocal process that enables people to construct meanings that
lead to shared purposes of schools”, (Sirgiovanni, 2005, p.38). Other scholars emphasized
servant leadership, (Robert Greenleaf, 1980), Charismatic leadership, (Jay Conger, 1989),
ethical leadership, (Robert Starratt, 1991), and the contingency model which assumes that
the leader’s effectiveness is based on the interaction of the situation with other factors
(Feidler, 1967).

My understanding of leadership is that it is a relationship between a leader, “could
be one person or more” and followers. Through such relationship followers are united,
empowered, intellectually stimulated and motivated to perform beyond normal
expectations in order to achieve challenging group goals. The leader in this relationship
has the vision, the understanding, (Waldman et al., 1990), and commitment to national
and personal group values (Bennis, 1989; Keller, 1995; Kouzes and Posner, 1987; Bass,
1995 and Burns, 1978).

Concerning my research , the issue is whether superintendents consider
themselves executives or leaders, do they depend on moral authority, or positional
authority, or do they need to have both?. Bennis and Nanus (1985) believe that leaders
are more than executives who do things in the most appropriate manner, but they are the
people who do the right things. Similarly, other researchers including, (Rost, 1993) had

differentiated between leadership and management, while others (Owen & Ovando, 2000;

ll

Johnson, 1996; Chapman, 1997) suggested that management capabilities are essential
features of leadership. In line with that, Sirgiovanni (2005) made a case of “value added
leadership” and he explained it as the ‘linking of management strategies to virtues,

norms, codes, and other values that bring people together for leadership and learning”.

The irrnrortance of leadership in organizations:

 

In his renown book Leadership in Organizations, Yukl states that “A major
controversy in the leadership literature is whether chief executives have much impact on
the effectiveness of an organization”, (1998, p. 433) However, Yuld strongly believed
that despite all limitations, leadership is important in making a difference in an
organization’s success. Reviewing the work of other scholars on this issue, I found that
there is a universal acknowledgement that executives and executive bodies have an
important inﬂuence on the success of their organizations, (Peters and Waterman, 1982;
Burns, 1978; Slater, 1991; Peterson, 1999). Similarly, Burns, (1978) substantiated the
role of leadership in motivating and elevating others. A leader can inﬂuence the
organization by exploring attitudes, creating reciprocal dialogues, and bringing all
concerned people to work together.

Almost everywhere in the world, organizations try hard to ensure that the pace of
change is congruent with the pressing social demands (Bolman & Deal, 2003). Therefore,
leaders should be the masterrninds whose vision and ideas would help organizations
towards realizing their objectives. Both authors developed theoretical lenses “frames”,
through which leaders could assemble a better match of people and organizations. On

another occasion, Bolman and Deal’ (1992) studied the relationship between

12

management and leadership for school administrators in both Singapore and US. They
concluded that school leaders mainly depend on the structural frame, (the idea that formal
arrangement and division of labor increases performance and minimizes tensions. The
second conclusion in that study was that school leaders additionally used symbolic frame,
(the notion that symbols convey meanings of the organizational purposes, values,
aspirations, activities).

Most importantly, Bolman & Deal, (2003) recommended that working with
various frames highlights a leaders’ capacity to affect organizational productivity,
guidance and direction. This is why education superintendents need to conceptualize the
education systems using all lenses in order to gain a better understanding of the people
and organization. Though superintendents transfer many responsibilities to their teams,
they still have a major impact on how the district ofﬁce functions, and how the schooling

system looks like, and what kind of ethos and atmosphere is most ubiquitous.

Education SuperintendencLand superintendents’ Roles

 

Evolution of a superintendent’s role in the US:

 

A superintendent’s role has historically evolved, and was increasing in
complexity due to economic, historical, technological and social factors. The notion of a
superintendent’s role began early in the 18003 and continued until 1910 during which the
role was seen as a teacher of teachers who is most focused on instruction. A
superintendent was also seen as a secular clergy, an ideal ﬁgure who diligently
contributes to the realization of the American dream of liberty, democracy and

egalitarianism (Glass et al 2000; Bjork 2005). Since the start of the second decade of the

13

19203, a superintendent’s educational role ﬂuctuated since then. Such role was also
challenged on the bases that superintendents do not have real control on what is taught or
learnt in the classrooms.

Meanwhile, and during the second decade of the 20th century onwards the school
superintendent’s role responsibilities have continuously increased. They included
technology, transportation, security, public relations, ﬁnance, stafﬁng & personnel, real
estate and above all pupils’ achievement. As a result, a superintendent became a manager
of small public businesses. Grifﬁths (1966) presented the image of a superintendent as a
business manager who perceives schools and school districts as private corporations
operated through the principles of scientiﬁc management, (Kowalski, 1999; Bjork 2005;
Callahan 1966). The role conception as business manager was aligned and inﬂuenced by
the bureaucratic organizational model. At that era, the business model was seen as the
most appropriate one due to the industrial revolution. Such conception offered a privilege
to people from non-educational backgrounds to become superintendents (Shakesshaft,
1986) Therefore, superintendents whose previous career is in military, or business were
appointed in district ofﬁces on the basis that running large school systems requires
ﬁnancial, organizational skills, on the assumption that leadership skills can be transferred
from business to Superintendency, (Usdan, 2004; Callahn 1962; Kowalski 1999).
However, such view was not acceptable by those who believed that the central mission of
learning and teaching is most important, and should be the fundamental pre-requisite for
the selection of a superintendent. Furthermore, Thomas and Moran (1992) suggested that

those superintendents welcomed the business model as it added to their power.

14

A third aspect of a superintendent’s role has emerged (1930-1954) in which a
superintendent’s role was seen as an educational leader in a democratic society, a form of
statesmanship, which in the American context required political skills. By mid 19503, a
superintendent’s role has developed into an applied social scientist which necessitated a
shift from what superintendents ought to do to real practices as impacted by political and
economic realities, (Bjork & Gurley 2003; Bjork 2005). Meanwhile the spirit of
bureaurocratic hierarchical management continued mostly unchallenged until the early
19803 when public education was severely criticized through a “ Nation at Risk”, and
other similar reports, (Kowalski, 1999).

To sum up, a superintendent’s role has started as a fairly deﬁned job with a
list of deﬁned tasks. Over time however, superintendents were assigned more
responsibilities including the educational aspects as well as political and managerial ones.
Meanwhile the challenges they faced were increasing continuously due to changes in
farrrily patterns, demographics, and most remarkably heated public demand for

accountability & higher student achievement.

Superintendents’ leadership roles

 

A majority of researchers have categorized a superintendent’s responsibilities in
three types: instructional, managerial and political. It seems that there is a kind of
consensus that a superintendent’s role entails three major aspects: teacher scholar,
managerial and political (Callahan 1966; Chapman, 1997, Cuban 1967; Cuban 1988;
Johnson 1996; Chapman, 1997; Kowalski, 1999). Cuban also talked about role conﬂict

among the three major roles. Cuban (1998) contends that the role conﬂict is the DNA of

15

Superintendency. In addition, Johnson (1996) presented case studies of 12 novice
superintendents all of them experienced three major types of roles. Different from those,
Bjork, 2005; Kowalski, 1999) discussed ﬁve major aspects of superintendents’ leadership
roles and linked each of those roles to historical eras. Those roles are: teacher scholar,
manager, democratic leader, social scientist, and communicator. However, I will limit
my review to the three major types of superintendents’ roles which are: managerial,
political, and instructional. To start with, the political role seems to be the most
controversial.
Political:

The literature that examined the current role of the superintendent in the United
States laid emphasis on the political nature of the job (Blumberg & Blumberg, 1985;
Cuban 1988; Jackson, 1995 ; Glass, 2000). In any case, politics is in the heart of
education, the reality is that schools and education systems are forums for debates and
contestations starting with educational issues and extending to other issues (Dow, 1999)..
Relevant to this, superintendents believe that most of their decisions are made in a
political context and even more their tenure was determined not by instructional
improvements, but rather by their capacities to deal with conﬂicts and manage resources
(Cuban, 1985; Owen et al, 2000; Marilyn et a1. 2005). Competition for scarce resources,
constant demands for educational improvement, increasing uncertainty about the control
of public education, were critical factors leading to the intervention of politics in the
work of educational administrators at middle management levels. Hence, superintendents
found out that they can not avoid interaction with key political players, mainly school

boards, and Johnson has clearly expressed that: “district leaders serve at the pleasure of

16

the board, they need to keep good relations to secure back up and support”, (Johnson,
l995,p.41)

Similarly, other researchers have suggested major arenas for political power
struggles. The growing tensions in a superintendent’s relationship with the board of
education were strongly highlighted, (Blumberg & Blumberg, 1985; Holdaway & Genge,
1995; Jackson, 1995). Other studies focused on a superintendent’s interaction with other
political players, including local governments, mayors, teachers’ unions, advocacy
lobbies, community groups, and social service agencies.

Due to the notion that the issues of public education are interlinked with those of
community groups, local government and others, superintendents were compelled to
become “politically attuned”, and also be highly aware of the ﬁnancial concerns of
mayors and the political interests of governors. With the same token, superintendents had
to solidify partnerships with social service and other stakeholders (Jackson, 1995).
Stronger conﬁrmation on the political nature of the job is made by Thomas and Moran
(1992) who concurred that a superintendent “will need to be schooled in effective
leadership and community relations that forge consensus rather than divisions” (p. 50).
This may entail a superintendent’s involvement in local politics, so as to “be prepared to
participate in public policy decision making” (p. 61). An example from empirical
research is Duignan’s study inl979, as mentioned by Leithwood (1995) p.15, where 8
eight superintendents were observed for 34 days to study their administrative behavior.
Conclusions clearly demonstrated that the type of functions that superintendents carry out
are political, and that most of their time was spent as consensus builders, arbitrators,

spokesmen, and mediators. Furthermore, Wayne Hoy (2001) concluded that

17

superintendents spent a considerable portion of their time thinking about political
relationships and related issues in dealing with the school board.

However, as we are told by (Brunner, 2000; Crogan and Bjork 2002),
superintendents involvement in political issues was not accepted as professional.
Nevertheless, political activities and political demands were pressing superintendents’
agendas and taking a considerable amount of their energy and time. Such reality was
acknowledged by researchers. Johnson (1996), as cited by Bjork 2005, states that: “to be
above politics is to be outside reality.” Meanwhile Bjork (2005), and others refer to the
political role as an aspect of democratic leadership based on the assumption that part of
superintendents’ practices are grounded in participatory democracy. This is consistent
with the notion that even ordinary citizens, community ﬁgures, and business groups
conceive education and schools as part of their responsibility. As a consequence,
superintendents have always found themselves involved in community affairs and
political debates.

Managerial:

This leadership role was given the highest proportion in theory and research
(Greenﬁeld,1995). In the second decade of the twentieth century, a superintendent’s role
shifted from an image of a teacher of teachers to a corporate organizational manager.
Such shift was a result of the industrial era and its bureaucratic organizational mentality.
Added to that, is the growing size of the school district and the heavier responsibilities
assigned to it. In the early 19‘h century America witnessed two kinds of immigration:
internal where people immigrated from rural to urban centers and external where people

from Europe and different parts of the world immigrated to America, Kowalski (1999).

18

With the ever increasing numbers of students, teachers and district staff, superintendents
became business managers of complex organizations. A superintendent’s managerial
functions were ﬁrst surveyed in 1937 by Luther Gulick (cited in Sergiovanni, 1995) as
budgeting, stafﬁng, planning, organizing, supervising, coordinating and evaluating. Lists
of the functions of the school administrators were always being revised. Those lists of
tasks and responsibilities helped in the emergence of competencies and skills as a method
of outlining the terrain of educational administration, (Sergiovanni, 1995). Over years,
those lists have changed; nevertheless the orientation towards managerial leadership
remained the same as that found in classical management theories. The two basic criteria
related to managerial leadership in education are competence, and observance of federal
laws, state regulations, and other organizational policy frames (Greenﬁeld, 1995).

Being in this role, superintendents needed political power, therefore, they
embraced bureaucracy & scientiﬁc management model because it emphasized
standardization, division of labor, hierarchy that would ultimately protect their structural
position and to some extent shield them against criticism (Thomas & Moran, 1992).
Research has also highlighted two major elements affecting this role, ﬁrst is the size of a
district. The bigger a district size is, the stronger the managerial role and vice versa,
(Bjork & Kowalski, 2005; Boon, 1998; Willis & Peterson 1992; Schumruch &
Schumruch 1989; Kowalski 1995). In smaller districts on the contrary, a superintendent
was able to complete the tasks or directly supervises their implementation. Meanwhile, in
big size districts a superintendent delegates almost all tasks, and he scans through the
implementation reports as highlighted by his assistants. Whatever the case is, a

superintendent still has to ensure that everything is done in the best possible manner,

19

especially that he is ultimately accountable for the ﬁnal results (Kowalski 1999; Bjork &
Kowalski 2005; Owen & Ovando 2000).

The other major element is a superintendent’s conception of his role, particularly
whether he is a leader or a manager, the purpose and philosophy of schooling, whether he
sees himself as a civil servant or an executive manager (Jackson 1995, Kowalski, 1999),
and the theoretical construct that he identiﬁes himself with. The ﬁnal choice between the
two paths has implications on the leadership style of a superintendent. For example, if he
sees himself as a civil servant then he would care more about issues of equity, social
justice, and education for all. In line with this, his leadership style would be more
oriented towards nurturing, community involvement and collaboration. Subsequently, a
human relations approach will be emphasized. In contrast, if a superintendent perceives
himself as an executive manager, then he will be more concerned about specialization,
efﬁciency, excellence, competition, choice, and deadlines. Hence, his resulting approach
will be the classical bureaucratic one. In this regard, a superintendent should understand
the differences between leadership and management, and also be aware of when he
should put on either hat. Such awareness would enable a superintendent perform a better
job. For example, Johnson (1996) tells us that the superintendents she had studied
performed all managerial functions keeping in mind formal obligations. The employees
and people in those districts expected measures of top down management and they
complied with them. The researcher concluded that there was a relationship between
management and leadership. Johnson states: “they were deliberate in their use of
authority, calculating in their delivery and receipt of information and purposeful of their

demands for accountability” (Johnson, 1996, p. 239).

20

Instructional:

Instructional leadership is deﬁned as leadership which focuses on the formal role
and expert knowledge of the educational leader (Leithwood, & Duke, 1999; Murphy &
Hallinger, 1986; Sergiovanni, 1992; Bjork & Kowalski, 2005; McEwen, 2003; Razeq,
2006). However, it has been argued that instructional is not an exact manifestation of the
kind of leadership that a superintendent practices, particularly because in terms of
organizational structure, superintendents are distant from classrooms. Therefore,
superintendents do not have direct inﬂuence on teaching and learning.

A basic concern for instructional leadership stemmed from the assumption
that the administrative functions of the educational administrator could not be abstracted
from other functions of the educational organization. As Sergiovanni argued, “the
educational administrator must be a teacher, a scholar, or an educator whose
administrative duties and responsibilities are closely related to the purpose and process of
education” (1991 , p. 524).

Focus on a superintendent’s instructional leadership was the major theme in a
number of empirical studies. Murphy and Hallinger (1987) empirical research is one of
the major studies on superintendents’ instructional leadership. They studied leadership
practices of effective superintendents from 12 of California most successful school
districts to examine how they exercised instructional leadership. For those
superintendents, student learning was a top priority, and they expected excellence. They
also involved teachers, principals in all aspects of curricular planning, development,
delivery of instructional programs, evaluation, and staff development. Indeed the whole

district operated like a learning organization. Regarding concrete ﬁndings of their study,

21

six major functions of superintendents as instructional leaders were observed: setting
goals, developing expectations and standards, establishing instructional and curricular
foci, monitoring curriculum and instruction, selecting, supervising & evaluating staff, and
ensuring consistency in technical core operations. Similarly, Peterson (1999) concluded
that the ﬁve 5 highly effective superintendents he studied in California focused their time,
and resources on the technical aspects of curriculum and instruction. In that study, the
researcher, found ﬁve recurring themes among the instructionally oriented
superintendents. They were able to create and communicate an instructionally focused
and shared vision, weave it into the mission of their district, illustrate the importance of
instruction through professional development, receive school board support, use
assessment and evaluation to determine if instructional goals are met. In short, the whole
organizational structure was set up to support instructional expectations. Furthermore,
Owen & Ovando, (2000) studied two districts and concluded that instructional leadership
was manifested through three major actions: assessing educational needs, suggesting
alternatives for remedial work, and recommending instructional strategies to enhance
student learning.

Boon’s research (1998) investigated leadership practices of ten small rural
district superintendents. The results revealed that those superintendents placed high
priority on teaching and learning, on involving others in instructional planning, on being
visible in their schools, on supporting principals’ instructional improvement plans, and
holding them accountable for the quality of instruction at their schools.

Bredson and J ohansson (1997) study, which was conducted in Sweden and

Wisconsin, asserted that in both countries superintendents who saw themselves as

22

instructional leaders have manifested instructional vision, instructional collaboration,
instructional delegation and instructional support through provision of resources, ﬁnance,
logistics and political support.

In her recent study, Graves (2004) investigated principals and superintendents
views of instructional leadership. Though Grave’s study gave more weight to building
principals, it rendered similar outcomes. She found that the key practices of the nine
instructionally oriented superintendents, and 302 principals had emphasized the
following: development and articulation of a vision of learning, securing resources for
instructional programs and professional development, organizing, focusing and sustaining
discussions about teaching and learning, in addition to using data to inform decisions on
all instructional related issues.

In the ﬁve districts studied by Morgan & Peterson (2002), superintendents were
considered as successful instructional leaders because they possessed instructional vision.
Most importantly, they supported instructional programs by facilitating resources, being
involved in planning instructional goals, monitoring, evaluating, and establishing high
visibility in schools. Other relevant studies highlighted similar ﬁndings (Peterson, 2002;
Holdaway & Genge, 1995; Johnson 1996). The latter argued that instructional leaders
who thrive for change should follow three major interconnected processes: crafting a
vision, leading reform, and engaging school leaders for change. In a recent article by
Schomburg, (2006) a superintendent has established a “system of walk- through
observations of the classrooms”, the superintendent was able to accelerate his visibility
and enhance the engagement with staff in the schools. Moreover, in that county, training

sessions were held for administrators on walk through observations.

23

Analyzing the structural elements that enhance superintendents’ instructional leadership,
Kelley et, al., (2003), emphasized that small school districts leave a superintendent with
ample opportunities to hold collaborative relationships and focus on speciﬁc instructional
goals. Motivated by the same reasons of knowing about the superintendent’s role in
highlighting instructional focus, Leithwood and Duke (1999) have reviewed some
educational administration periodicals for 8 years, they concluded that scholars talked
about six types of educational leadership: transformational, moral, participative,
transactional, managerial and instructional.

Common ﬁndings of those empirical studies highlighted the centrality of the
superintendent’s role in focusing on teaching and learning through developing
instructional vision, communicating it to their staff and broader community, monitoring,
evaluation, and aligning all organizational functions to support instructional processes.
Moreover, effective superintendents in those studies, maintained visible presence in
schools and classes. Such practices communicated the message about the high
signiﬁcance of instruction that a superintendent has. In short, there is a strong correlation
relationship between effective school districts, students’ achievement and a
superintendent’s leadership approach (Kowalski, 1999)

In this regard, a superintendent does not need to be an expert specialist on each
curricular subject, but he should be aware of understanding what goes on in a classroom.
Hence, schools and classrooms’ short visits are important, and in this case, a
superintendent can be guided by Lauren Resnick’s nine principles of learning. Those
principles are crucial because they do not impose structure on classroom practice.

Instead, close attention to classroom practice, using such principles as a roadmap will

24

reveal the structures and expectations already in place within a certain school or
classroom, (Negroni, 2000). What superintendents need is careful grounding in the
processes and complexities of the in—classroom interactions and processes of learning.

However, instructional leadership on its own may no longer capture the heart
of what school leadership should be about (Leithwood & Duke 1999). With this in mind,
instructional leadership is similar to managerial leadership in that both are essential for
effective practice of superintendency, and neither would be sufﬁcient on its own. In
addition, educational leadership literature has associated instructional ﬁrnctions with
other professional characteristics and other related functions imply the inadequacy of
exclusively relying on one type of leadership. Furthermore, both conceptual and ﬁeld
studies have contended that a superintendent’s successful performance relies on the
smooth transition among those roles. Thus, (Bjork, 2005) quotes Cuban 1976:

“Superintendents’ success and even survival oﬁen depended on their ability to make
successful transitions among these three distinct roles. To achieve this goal, they not only
required an understanding of these roles, they also had to possess the personal ﬂexibility

to make appropriate adjustments, p.108”.

It is also worth mentioning in this regard, that there is a lot of criticism on a
superintendent’s role categorizations accompanied by strong calls for reconceptualization
and reframing, (Sergiovanni, 2001; Bolman & Deal, 2003). Those scholars started
thinking of more comprehensive leadership approaches in an effort to move towards a
more organic holistic approach. Indeed, there is a tendency to reconceptualize or redeﬁne
superintendency in relation to effective schools and student’s achievement. Rather than
talking about managerial, political, or instructional, researchers shifted the focus to other
kinds of leadership. For example moral leadership is a major concern for (Sergiovanni

1995), or a superintendent as an applied social scientist (Bjork, 2005; Bolitho, 2007). To

25

succeed in his role, a superintendent should become an agent for social justice, and lobby
for social support. To reinforce this, he should also become a social activist. The point to
remember is that developing civic capacity is not contradictory with instructional role,
To sum up, almost all scholars agree that leadership is based on four basic
components, which include an inﬂuence relationship, between followers and leaders.
Both parties seek a certain change of the status quo. Accordingly, followers and leaders
develop mutual purposes or goals that they collectively negotiate and work for fulﬁlling

them.

Education and Conﬂict

Conﬂict stiﬂes a country’s development, exacerbates poverty, and intensiﬁes the
deterioration in almost all aspects of human life. Most remarkably, conﬂict has serious
results for education. There is a strong relationship between the achievement of education
developmental goals, and absence or presence of conﬂict. Davies, (2003) conﬁrms that
education is usually one of the ﬁrst casualties of conﬂict leaving a country in further
distress and deeper poverty. Sufﬁcient to say that the UNCHR report (2003) recorded
that the 40 war- like conﬂicts reported in 2002 were initiated in the poorest countries on
our planet. Research also proves that poverty breeds violence, (Davies, 2004; Save the
Children, 2006; Smith, 2003). Similar to the chicken-egg relationship, continuing
poverty is a cause and a result of ongoing conﬂict.

Conﬂict also has serious results and negative repercussions on children, schools
and the whole of education systems. At the individual level, children in conﬂict ridden
contexts might witness violence, and experience traumas. They might also become

separated from their parents, lose homes, and face physical mutilation. The danger is that

26

on the long run, those children will shape prejudices, have little hope and consequently
become violence perpetrators themselves (Maqsoud, 2000; Grace Machel, 1996;
UNCHR, 1996). At the systems level, governments become incapacitated and ﬁnally
unable to manage school systems. Usually governing systems collapse due to destruction
of buildings, materials and lack of trained teachers as the case in many contexts including

Kosovo, Sudan and Somalia (UNICEF, 1999; Forced Migration, 2001).

The Importance of Education in Conﬂict- ridden Contexts:

 

Not only alleviating poverty, but going to schools provides safe places to learn,
and reach out to other children to play with. In schools, children are engaged in
developmental processes rather than getting involved in delinquent behaviors, drugs,
prostitution, or be involved in atrocities. Classiﬁed as “student” gives children an identity
that differentiates them from others, who are outside school. Schooling also provides a
daily routine of positive activities and presents horizons for future careers beyond the
immediacy of conﬂicts and crisis situations. The psychosocial paradigm includes
children’s needs for free expression, cultural activities, music, drama and sports. Most
importantly, schooling helps pupils to learn and master basic life skills including literacy,
and numeracy. Likewise, schooling provides them with knowledge of human rights, and
prepares them to be good citizens in their community and world citizens as well (Nicolai
and Triplehom, 2003; UNICEF, 2003; UNICEF, 1999; World Bank, 2004). In short,
education is a critical factor in minimizing children’s vulnerability to distress and

suffering, and so will help them to see other aspects of human life. Therefore,

27

sustainability of education is and should be a major concern for all those who believe in a

brighter future for all full of opportunity, hope and prosperity.

Deﬁnition of conﬂict/ emergency:

 

Conﬂict as a concept does not necessarily indicate a daily encounter of armies or
opposing political entities. It could take the form of open ﬁre shooting as in battle ﬁelds
or lengthened dormant hostilities and unresolved tensions. If not resolved, conﬂict breeds
instability and emergency like circumstances. To be more precise, it is important to
deﬁne the term emergency. Reviewing various UN reports, and different governmental
documents, there is an understanding that an emergency is a critical situation which
paralyzes an organization or a community to a degree that people would not be able to
run their daily routines and keep normal life. Emergencies can be in the form of ﬂoods,
earthquakes, ﬁghting at battleﬁelds and various other forms. The UNCHR report of 2002,
states that: “an emergency is a crisis situation that overwhelms the capacity of an
organization or a government to cope by using its available resources alone. An
emergency response can be carried out in the context of an acute or a chronic emergency,
with causes varying from armed conﬂict and political instability to natural disasters”.

What seem to be most dangerous are political instability, lawlessness and armed
conﬂict particularly because those are man- made. Instability may also be caused by
creating chaos, blocking roads, taking hostages, demolishing houses, to mention a few.
For example, in Somalia real battles have literally stopped, but still there is general
lawlessness, and violent clashes emerge frequently and the killing of individuals has

become a daily routine. There, the education system has collapsed leaving more than

28

90% of children with no schools (UNCHR, 2002). During the war, many teachers ﬂed the
country, or they were victims of violence. Another example is East Timor and the
refugees’ movement to West Timor/ Indonesia in 1999 (Sommers, 2004). Since then,
schools have not recovered and more than 75% of children are not provided any
schooling.

Though it has been assumed that conﬂict erupts due to ethnic or religious
purposes, more frequently, it has been grounded on ﬁerce desires for the acquisition of
land and water (BBC, 2007). Those desires are further exploited by national groups or
international powers for the sake of their hidden purposes, (Commonwealth Secretariat,
2006; Fisk, 1999). In the West Bank and Gaza, instability has been a major feature of life
there. That part of the world has been affected by, or witnessed a few wars namely those
of 1948, 1967, 1973, 1982, and 2006. Added to that are the very frequent extensive
military incursions of the Israeli troops in the heavily populated Palestinian cities in both
the West bank and Gaza, daily checkpoints, recurrent curfews, closures, conﬁscating of
arable lands, building walls, and other forms of Israeli occupation of Palestinian
territories. Furthermore, is the factional ﬁghting among some Palestinians in the
aftermath of the success of Hamas in the 2006 legislative elections, (Alquds daily
newspaper 2007).

Challenges for education sustainability
A basic challenge is that in emergencies and unstable contexts, education is not given
a major priority. In fact international, local and UN agencies pay attention to survival and

relief rather than developmental issues. As a result, prominence is given to hardware of

29

response like school buildings and equipment at the expense of quality and equity,
(UNICEF, 2000).

Other major obstacles facing the sustainability of education in crises include
insecurity, logistical problems, lack of funding, brain drain, difﬁculties of follow-up,
assessment, review and accountability, (Smith, 2003; UNAIDS, 2004). On top of all, is
the notion that educational planning in emergency contexts is constrained by short time
frames, and impeded by the urgency of the events. That is the short time frames allowed
for planning, coupled with the unpredictability of the surrounding environment pose
enormous challenges for education leaders and planners in conﬂict-tom countries.

However, the major challenge to educational reconstruction is the high probability
of recurring conﬂict. In chronic unstable contexts, conﬂict emerges in cycles. Before
recovering from one cycle, another cycle would be dormant as the case in different parts
of the world including Ghaza and the West Bank. The danger in such contexts is the
debilitating effect on educational systems to the point of destroying them completely.
This is to reiterate the strong relationship between conﬂict, constant deterioration, and
resulting poverty, all of which impede economic and social development. Following are
some other major obstacles.

Divided education systems:

 

Another major obstacle resulting from conﬂict which would later pose a challenge
for reconstruction is the divided curricula. For example, in Bosnia and Herzegovina there
are three parallel education systems. In each of those there are inﬂammatory textbooks
and teaching materials, (Davies, 2004, Nicolai, 2003). Similarly, in the west Bank and

Gaza, there are three different educational systems, which add to the complexity of

30

statutory laws. In Gaza, the Egyptian governance system is still in use, the Jordanian
governance system is also in use in the West Bank, and parts of the Eastern Jerusalem
schools use both the Israeli and Jordanian curricula. There have been various efforts to
produce uniﬁed national curricula with the same content, but that did not help to make
things look better, particularly because the governance systems are not uniﬁed. More on
curricula and textbooks will follow in a later section.

Brain- drain:

 

Educational reconstruction in a crisis context is always affected by drainage of
resources whether human or material due to fear of death, destruction of facilities, and
bureaucratization, (Payne, 1998; Sinclair, 2002). In the context of Iraq, Somalia, or
Cambodia, for example, high caliber administrators and teachers left their countries due
to insecurity and constraints on moving from one place to another. Similarly, the number
of Palestinian teachers who ﬂed the West Bank to Saudi Arabia, Dubai and United Arab
Emirates is continuously increasing since the start of the second uprising in Sept. 2000.
Lack of ﬁrnds:

Even if it is relatively secure oftentimes, drained authorities will not have enough
funds to pay for the public sector employees including central ministerial ofﬁcials,
superintendents and teachers like the case in West Bank and Gaza. In that context as well
as the case in Lebanon for example, competent teachers leave for better paid jobs. Those
teachers are picked for regional training so as to increase their professional skills and
ultimately enable them join the trainer training workshops. The intention was to keep
those people as members in the “critical development mass” that will hopefully train

other teachers and manage training at the sub—regional levels. However, and because of

31

lack of ﬁmding, those members get attracted to higher income generating jobs. They
usually join NGOs, or become administrators in district education ofﬁces. (Bataina,
2005). In most cases the difference in paid salaries between the old and new jobs is very
small, yet those capable teachers decide to move to the new jobs under the pressure of
their ﬁnancial needs. As a result, teaching jobs were ﬁlled out by incompetent or novice
teachers, consequently leading to deterioration in the quality of teaching and learning. In
sum, brain drain occurs as a result of lack of security, or lack of ﬁrnds.

A major issue which was not sufﬁciently addressed in the literature is the
importance of reforming systems synchronized with capacity building efforts. For
educational reconstruction and change to be effective in countries suffering from crises,
it is crucial to strike a balance between the growing levels of human professional
expertise on one side, and the improvement of administration systems, particularly the
incentives and merit subsystems, on the other side, (Stone,1995). If those subsystems are
modiﬁed and improved that would help highly trained teachers to stay on their jobs rather
than ﬂee to higher income generating jobs.

Before moving to another section, I reiterate that the greatest challenge for
countries going through or emerging from conﬂicts is the lack of hope for a better future
which can lead to extremist attitudes and destructive actions. Raphael (1998) put this very
eloquently: “It is easier to build roads and bridges, than to reconstruct institutions and
strengthen the social fabric of a society” (Raphael, 1998, p.8). Next I will explain some
strategies which proved to be successﬁrl in sustaining education at a number of

international contexts.

32

Sustainability Suagies
Decentralization and restructuring:

Advocates of decentralization, argue that decentralized systems strongly help to
empower regional local ofﬁcials who know better about the needs of constituents in their
counties and provinces. For those proponents, decentralization increases local capacity,
reduces bureaucratic procedures and the amount of time it consumes to accomplish tasks.
Thus, it reduces the workload of ministries and central administration ofﬁces, (McGinn,
1992). This is why in crises contexts, decentralization would provide the necessary
autonomy for local people to act and progress towards set goals. In fact, countries going
through severe problems can use the emergent crises for reviewing their educational
systems and restructuring them ,to better serve children and communities (Piogozzi, 1999,
Smith, 2003). The basic component of restructuring for emergency is decentralization.
However, such a strategy should be considered in terms of deﬁned criteria. The most
important criterion when considering educational decentralization is the extent to which it
supports the implementation of administrative policies and instruction at the classroom
level (Elmore, 1983).

Therefore, national education authorities should decide which functions to
decentralize, for example provision or distribution of textbooks, teachers’ selection &
hiring, school buildings’ construction, transportation. Likewise, decisions should be
made on the transfer of responsibilities, including: who will take over, is the
decentralization plan feasible and realistic, where in the system, at what point of the
hierarchical structure, would the structure remain hierarchical or otherwise, and

clarifying the rationale for each decision. For example, how will issues of monitoring and

33

accountability requirements be dealt with , (Sullivan, 2004). Decentralization scholars
tell us that a function should be located at the level that has the knowledge and skills to
implement required tasks which in education systems is the classroom. Sullivan &
Owemyela (2004) provide the example of Sudan where

“The secretariat of education provides a strong guiding central structure that supports
autonomy at the regional, county and payam to 1: set the education agenda, and deﬁne
plans and programs, 2: administer and manage human resources, 3: plan ﬁnancial
expenditures. Thus the secretariat is able to use its central level structure to foster
autonomy of education programming at the most important level- the community and
schools. The secretariat of education focuses on assisting populations to transfer ﬁom
“relief to development” programming that targets capacity building of local authorities
(county development committees), and civil society. The focus of the program is to
strengthen decentralized local authorities to have the capacity to undertake school
rehabilitation, enhance gender equality by recruiting more female teachers in the system.
Concretely, the secretariat of education created guidance lines, approval for school staff
selection, and developed the policy framework. It is then the responsibility of school
management committees to help construct schools, mobilize resources and make
ﬁnancial and administrative decisions for the school”, (Sullivan and Owemyela 2004:
pp4-5).

On the other hand, it is important to bear in mind that a decentralization approach
in unstable contexts, should be balanced and gradual. Putting things upside down all of a

sudden may create chaos, more confusion, operational problems and ﬁnally resistance.

Representation and Participation of emergency-affected populations in planning and
decision-making;

A key to sustainability is community participation. In the Minimum Standards
Handbook on emergency reconstruction, it is stated that “Emergency-affected community

members actively participate in assessing, planning, implementing, monitoring and

34

evaluating the education program” (INEE 2004: p.14). Educational authorities and other
educational providers must design education programs that are relevant to the
community, and based on assessment or survey results. Davies (2004,) further suggests
that participation should reach a partnership level to include policy dialogue processes
and mechanisms. Without these, it would be very difﬁcult to give the affected populace a
strong sense of ownership, and gain their commitment to reconstruction efforts. To be
more practical, educational planners should think of various options to attract students,
and get them back to schools. For example, the elimination of bureaucratic obstacles to
enrollment like the requirement of previous school progress certiﬁcates, birth certiﬁcates,
and the use of non formal teaching and learning approaches for special groups are some
of the ways to get students back on track, (Bird, 2003). Special groups also include
adolescents, who due to the emergency, do not feel like attending regular schools, or
need help with re- entry to schooling. For teachers, educational planning should provide
ways to support them like training, salaries/incentives. Providing some incentives to
teachers who are not on the government payroll might help to compensate the income
lost due to time spent on teaching, and can serve as a way of encouraging them to do
more volunteering. For parents, a no-school fees policy whether explicit or implicit such
as uniforms, materials, would raise parents’ awareness and encourage their participation
and commitment (Sinclair, 2002, Payne, 1998).

Likewise, communal groups and other stake holders will be encouraged to
participate when they are involved in school management committees. To Obura, (2003)
the introduction of accelerated learning in Rwanda, and the ways of how the ministry of

education succeeded in attracting pupils back were fruitful. Obura (2003) states:

35

“In September 2002, at a time when an estimated 94% of adolescents were out of school,
the Rwandan Ministry of Education began an accelerated learning program to cover the
six year primary education in three years for out of school students. Catch-up classes are
free, children are not asked to buy writing materials, and no uniform are allowed. To the
surprise of the Ministry the demand was overwhelming. The ﬁrst reaction of the Catch-
Up ﬁeld managers was to ignore the carefully designed program they had drawn up for
themselves. They could not resist accepting every applicant. All-comers were accepted;
classes were allowed to grow beyond the well set limits; the ages of children were not
monitored; nor were the children allocated to classes or streamed according to their
previous schooling experience. Classes opened before the teachers had been oriented and
before the teaching and learning materials reached the centers. It has been pointed out to
[the Ministry of Education] that unless the basic design of the program is respected, it
will not achieve its goal. . .Without such a framework the programs will be in immediate
danger of failure and of disappointing the children, the ministry, and education planners
with this ﬁrst and well-publicized attempt in Rwanda of providing a much needed
alternative education programs. A planning process has to result in respect for the plan
drawn up. Rwanda needs a success with this ﬁrst ofﬁcial alternative education program.”
Obura, (2003: pp 137-138).

Complementary to the notion of participation is the importance of representation of
minorities, marginalized, and traditionally underrepresented groups especially the

vulnerable: children and women in an unstable context.

Partnership with non-govemmental players, coordination and local macity building:
Running educational systems in unstable contexts is a huge responsibility that
requires partnership with nongovernmental players, broadening the management base,
and working in teams. During emergencies, more players and volunteers come to the
front to ﬁll service gaps. Those may be internal bodies, NGOs, and civil society
organizations, or external agencies and bodies including UNICEF, UNESCO, USAID,

and other international teams. In such a context, the need for coordination becomes

36

critical, otherwise there will be a waste of resources including human energy, money and
time due to duplication and overlap. The case in the West bank is a demonstration of too
many players in the educational arena and wasteful repetition of training workshops in
some areas, meanwhile other remote areas complain of being forgotten due to the absence
of training workshops, (Ahalin, 1999). With the lack of proper coordination, some donors
might end up working with a limited number of units in ministries of education, which
will give those units more work in reporting for donor agencies. Such functions consume
large portions of the working time of those units, instead of using the time for managing
the system.

Coordination is an essential part of all reconstruction strategies especially in
capacity building. Tragically, one of the most disruptive factors in education systems is
the deterioration in the institutional and human capacity which is the heart of any
educational system. In unstable contexts, students drop out, teachers’ education
workshops usually collapse, and management development and training terminate leaving
schools without facilities, learning materials, unpaid teachers, lack of textbooks, and in
many cases 1033 of records and important documents (Davies, 2004, Seitz, 2004).

However, in few countries i.e. Angola, capacity building continued during the
conﬂict through collecting information, which provided a statistical base and technical
capacity. By doing so, the Angolans were able to develop a substitute for the education
management information system (UNICEF, 2000). In addition to regular and systematic
capacity building, it is very important to cope with the continuous shortage of qualiﬁed

personnel, and help to prevent fatigue and boredom that affects the critical mass training

37

groups in the crisis context. This was the case in the West Bank (Ahalin, 1999), and in
Bosnia, (N akhleh, 2005).

In reviewing the literature, there was a lot mentioned on capacity building at the
teacher and schools principal’s level. Apart from Kana’an (2002), I found very few
stressing the importance of capacity building at policy making levels in unstable contexts.
The point is that there should also be training and capacity building in the area of system
governance “ superintendents, middle managers and upper levels” including regulatory
and legal frameworks that would help a smooth transition from crises management to

sustainable solid education systems.

Responsiveness to emergency needs, preparedness, ﬂexible planning, sequencing
priorities:

Being responsive to an emergency means the creation of mechanisms by which
certain supplies are delivered to beneﬁciaries without resorting to bureaucratic
procedures. A major consideration is how to be ﬂexible in responding to the pressing
needs without trading off accountability. Being prepared also includes the
introduction of local interim management or teaching structures during emergency.
In some contexts, when schools were closed or damaged, local community education
committees were established to teach numeric and literacy skills for grades 1-4
pupils, and to teach math, science, & foreign language for secondary stage students,
like the case in the West Bank during lengthened school closures 1987- 1993 (Abu

Lughud, 1996).

38

Preparedness also means the design of ﬂexible planning cycles which are open for
rescheduling and readapting. Such planning should take into consideration and
demonstrate an adequate understanding of the unique contextual constraints and
difﬁculties (IIEP, 2002; Bird, 2003). A serious problematic phenomenon in conﬂict
contexts is unpredictability. Indeed, no one is certain about what will happen from the
minute to minute, even when things seem quiet and life gets back to normal, sudden
events might erupt and stiﬂe normal life cycles (Tawil, 2001). Therefore, people should
have alternative scenarios and emergency plans to let things go in the best possible
manner. Being prepared with different scenarios helps decision makers to be ﬂexible

without compromising accountability.

Economizing expenditures:

Economizing expenditures is important everywhere, and during most phases.
However, in emergency context it becomes even more critical due to the lack of
resources, and logistical constraints. Therefore, the reduction of household expenditures
(World Bank, 2002), is one way to reserve available funds for increasing access and
equity without reducing quality level. In the case of Sierra Leone, for example, the
exemption of school fees and giving free textbooks increased enrollment rates beyond the
government’s ability to mobilize resources. Similarly, in Timor Liste, the reduction of

household fees led to increases in equity for girls and remote rural households.

39

Use of holistic comprehensive armroach:

In planning educational reconstruction, the same challenge may require different
interventions and different strategies at various stages. What ﬁts in the initiation stage
may seem outdated at a later stage. Additionally, each context has its own distinctive
features which require a distinctive strategy. In three case studies, Hanson (1997) found
that the historical, political, and economic circumstances of each country accounted for
the differences in the nature of the extent of local and international intervention.
Similarly, Davies (1999) concurs that sustainability of education through crisis is
complex, challenging, and requires a holistic approach to cope with the magnitude of the
loss and despair resulting from conﬂict. There is no one strategy that ﬁts all contexts at
all times. Educational planners should address each issue from a variety of perspectives,
using a holistic approach, and employing multiple strategies to address its roots and
causes. Trying to view the whole picture rather than separate segments will create a
holistic vision that would enable decision-makers come up with solutions acceptable for

the target population.

Conclusions
After reviewing the literature related to three major themes of my proposed
research which are: leadership, superintendency roles, and sustainability of education in
emergency contexts, I could not ﬁnd anything written about the educational leadership
roles of superintendents in conﬂict-ridden countries.
Only two scholars have written about superintendents in that part of the world.

The ﬁrst was (J aradat, 1981) who talked about education superintendents’ roles in Jordan.

40

Though the governance system in the West Bank partially resembles that of Jordan, yet
they are different in many aspects. The other issue is that, contrary to the situation in the
West Bank and Ghaza, Jordan has been the Middle East Oasis of peace and stability.
Besides, J aradat’s study did not analyze the leadership roles but it gave a simplistic
description of what happened on the job. The second work is (Kanaan, 2002), who
discussed the superintendents’ professional development needs based on the US training
model, even without analyzing superintendents’ roles in The West Bank and Ghaza.
Moreover, the unstable, turbulent context of Gaza and the West Bank was completely
ignored in Kanaan’s study.

Therefore, there seems to be an urgent need for researching and analyzing
superintendents’ leadership roles in that context. This research has allowed me to
discover the realities of education in that place. It revealed the types of challenges that
superintendents have in negotiating their roles, and what kind of leadership practices that
support the sustainability of education. Through this research I was able to discover
superintendents’ perceptions on what makes good leadership in unstable contexts, and the

kind of strategies employed during crises.

4l

CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

Introduction

In this study, I seek an understanding of the Palestinian superintendents’
perceptions of their roles, their beliefs, assumptions, and the leadership strategies they
employ to maintain the education system adverse of an environment characterized by
chronic crises, and instability. To conduct this study, I have used the qualitative
research approach. Particularly, this research is based on case study methods. Those
included preliminary survey, observations: participant observation, longitudinal
observations, interviews both structured and semi-structured, complemented by archival
documents, personal journals, and records of meetings, job descriptions, mission
statements, and newsletters. All those tools have helped me to examine how a
superintendent interacts with school principals, assistants, district ofﬁce staff, teachers,
parents, students and other stake holders within the territories under study.

In this chapter, I will also explain the strengths of qualitative research, the
rationale for using case study as a major strategy, and its relevant techniques as
mentioned above. Additionally, my role as a researcher will be clariﬁed. Before
proceeding further, I restate that this research project has explored the following major
questions:

0 What roles do superintendents play to sustain the education system in the

West Bank and Ghaza, and how they make sense of those roles?

42

o What leadership practices, strategies, and approaches do those
superintendents use in managing and sustaining the education system in

that conﬂict- ridden context?

Qualitative Approach

 

A qualitative approach is based on naturalism, understanding and discovery,
(Van Maanen, 1983; J anesick, 1994; Charms, 2000). Research is carried out in a natural
setting, with everyday human behavior, settings that exist independently of the research
process, rather than the orchestrated artiﬁcial settings like the case in lab experiments. Set
in natural circumstances, researchers are expected to keep a low proﬁle in order to
minimize the effect of their presence on the behavior of the people being studied with the
purpose of increasing the generalizability to other similar situations (Glesne, 1999;
Mannen, 1983).

The type of questions that my study seeks to answer requires a deep
understanding of the cultural perspective in which Palestinian superintendents’ actions are
embedded. This is the reason why I went and stayed “there” so as to understand the
communal, organizational, social, political and religious dimensions that inﬂuence my
study participants before attempting to render cultural interpretations of their behavior
(Creswell, 2004; Denzin and Lincoln, 1994; Kottak, 2005). Due to its capacity to capture a
complex plethora of meanings upon which human organizations are basically built,

qualitative research methodology is most suited to my study

43

Qualitative research methodology has also allowed me to move back and forth
between ﬁeld data, and the interpretations of what is observed. Therefore, sometimes I
used to go back to the same site and repeat certain interviews to ensure that I construct the
accurate interpretations. Based on those, theoretical conceptions have started to emerge and
evolve over the course of the research, in what has been known as the grounded theory

(Charmaz, 2000; Harris and Johnson, 2000). Next, I will explain the research strategies.

Case Study a_sa Research Strategy

The ﬁeld strategy that I have used is the case study. Before describing case study
techniques, I will discuss some scholars’ deﬁnitions of a case study. Some scholars argue
that a case study is not intended for evaluation or generalization purposes; rather it’s the
study of the complexity of a certain context, situation, or an event. Among those scholars
is Stake, (1995) who conﬁrms that, “A case study is expected to catch the complexity of a
single case, we study a case when it itself is of very special interest. We look at the detail of
interaction with its context. Case study is the study of the peculiarity and complexity of a
single case”, (Stake, 1995: p, xi).

On the other hand, Cohen and Lawrence, (1997) have a different view, they say
that a case study is a research approach through which a certain event or context is deeply
explored with a future intention of coming up with conclusions that apply to other similar
cases. They state that “A case study researcher typically observes the characteristics of an
individual unit, a child, a clique, a class, a school or a community. The purpose of such

observation is to probe deeply and to analyze intensively the multifarious phenomena that

44

constitute the life cycle of the unit with a view to establishing generalizations about the
wider population to which that unit belongs”, (Cohen & Lawrence, 1997: p, 106-7).
Meanwhile, Robert Yin, (2002) deﬁnes a case study as a research strategy, an empirical
inquiry that entails comprehensive, deep, longitudinal investigation of a phenomenon
within its real life context.

Although the use of case study as a research technique is controversial, I found
out that it is very suited to my research due to the peculiarity of the context, and the notion
that case studies lend themselves to generating propositions, and subsequently help
researchers to generate knowledge and construct learning, (F lyvbjerg, 2006). In my
research, the case study techniques allowed me to see how various components relate to
each other, and to discover the intricate web of relations between all variables. As well, ,
the case study offered a holistic approach that brought to the surface the deeply entrenched
beliefs and ideologies (F etterrnan, 1998; Glesne, 1999; Kottak, 2005; Light 1980; Stake,
1995)

Similarly, case study techniques assisted in my learning and acquiring an in-
depth knowledge of the context and the research participants. Superintendents’ leadership
beliefs and practices can’t be isolated from the context, neither are those practices
independent of the organizational culture where they operate. Rather, they are part of the
organizational and environmental culture. They affect and get affected by an intricate web
of variables. Such variables include a spectrum of political factions, a variety of religious
sectors, different social pressures and lobbies. Therefore, in order to help me understand
this culture using multiple perspectives, I have dug deep to make explicit the profoundly

entrenched rituals, symbols, beliefs, myths, and ideologies. Education in Palestine is one

45

part of a crumbled jigsaw. Through using case study techniques, I was enabled to see the
bigger jigsaw picture, and highlight the distinctive aspects of the social and organizational
culture of educational superintendency. A case study as a research strategy has helped me
to ﬁnd out how superintendents lead, what assumptions underlie their leadership strategies,
and why they did what they did.

To get a full view of the whole scene, I looked into the superintendents’ job
description, or meetings minutes with schools principals or other documents and went
beyond that to understand the meanings that my informants assign to those documents.
Subsequently, my cultural inferences are based on systematic understanding of what my
informants acted, or believed. Lengthy observations, discussions, structured and semi-
structured interviews have allowed me to capture emotional moments, and go beyond those
to experience the feelings of anxiety and restlessness of working under unpredictable

conditions in Ghaza and the West Bank.

Researcher’s role

 

I am a Palestinian who “has been there” (Geertz, 1973) in the West Bank almost
all through my life. I have experienced what it means to live in an unstable environment,
and have drawn upon my experiences and knowledge of Palestine while collecting data
for the proposed study. My work history and extra curricular activities cover a range of
areas, but they all share a common core theme: my passion for education, social
responsibility, tolerance and human community building. Before coming to MSU, I had
a long career in teaching, teacher education, peace activism, administration, and

management. In 1999, I was appointed as the coordinator of administrators’ in-service

46

training program. In that capacity, I had to assess professional needs and draw plans for
school principals, and administrators’ professional development programs. Having said
this, I tried hard to be very conscious of any personal biases in the course of interviewing
or interpreting the data. Moreover, I am keeping a research diary to document access
routes and decisions of my informants (Mauthner, 2002). Such diary has been very
helpful in stimulating regular reﬂection. This has also helped me to ensure that ethical
and methodological dimensions are continually monitored and reﬂected upon in case

things do not go in the best manner, (The British sociological Association, 1993).

Access and informed consent:

 

After getting the approval letter from the Michigan State University’s Institutional
Review Board (IRB), I met with the director general of the administrative affairs in the
Palestinian Ministry of Education, the so called “gate keepers” to inform them of my
research purposes. I discussed the ways in which the outcomes of this research would be
helpful in minimizing the impact of the recurring emergencies on the education system in
both Gaza and the West Bank. Further, I drew the attention of the director general to the
potential for my ﬁndings to aid decision makers in the process of recruiting and selecting
future superintendents. In response, the director general issued an ofﬁcial letter
encouraging superintendents to participate in the study, and to facilitate other interviews
with district staff, principals, teachers, or parents’ council members.
Later, I sent a letter, (appendix 6), for all of the 19 current education superintendents, and
to other 2 who have retired. It happened that those 2 retirees were members of the parents’

council in their respective districts. The letter explained the goals of my research and asked

47

if they would like to participate in the study. Before sending the invitation letter,
superintendents received the “Superintendent’s questionnaire checklist (appendix, 7). The
questionnaire was intended to help them start reﬂecting on their perceptions, and how they
make sense of their roles. I also talked to most of them by phone. I received 20
questionnaires back, and 9 of them mentioned that they would like to participate in the
study. Fortunately, those 9 superintendents have been in the ofﬁce for a minimum of 3
years. Later, I sent the informed consent letter and asked them to read through and sign
(appendix, 8). Unfortunately, two participants had apologized later after reading the
transcribed interviews for safety precautions; they said that they did not like to be quoted.
So ﬁnally, I had only 7 research participants. Five of those are located in the West Bank
and two in Gaza. Additionally, I have interviewed a few district staff members, school
principals, teachers, parents, members of the parents council, and others as much as I could
for the sake of knowing how they relate to their superintendents practices and leadership

approaches.

To conduct interviews and ﬁeld visits in Gaza, I applied for an entrance permit
issued by the Israeli military coordination ofﬁce. Unfortunately, my application—was
refused. Therefore, Gaza superintendents’ interviews were conducted through video
conference which was very costly. In total I had 10 interviews from Gaza. The ﬁrst one
was a focus group where I had the three superintendents in a panel discussion, attended by
a minimum of 15 people on my side in Rammallah. The audience in Rammalla was 2

school principals, 5 teachers. The rest were parents and students. Interviews from Gaza

48

were conducted during the evening hours 5—10pm. After the focus group meeting, the
following interviews were one on one.

Similarly, in the West Bank, I had 3-5 interviews with each participant
superintendent. The ﬁrst ﬁeld visit to each district was meant to break the ice, gain rapport
and present a brieﬁng in which I clearly stated the research goals, rationale, estimated time,
methods, and procedures and agreed on the timing of the next visits. In that session I made
it clear that even after participants sign the consent form, they may withdraw from the
research project at anytime. This is to say that the informed consent is a dynamic,
interactive, and continuous process (Glesne, 1999; Mauthner and Birch, 2002; Burgess,

1989).

Conﬁdentiality and protection of participants:

Conﬁdentiality and protection of research informants is a major principle and a
basic requirement that I have taken care of during all stages of the research project (BSA,
1993; Burgess, 1989; Glesne, 1999; Eisner & Peshkin, 1990). Some scholars raised the
issue of a researcher’s dilemma between his role as a friend and the ofﬁcial role as a
researcher. These two roles may sometimes clash, and so it happens in many cases that
people tell very insightful information to the researcher on the basis of intimacy and
ﬁiendship. Glesne, quotes Hansen “The conﬁdential information, I received was given to
me in my role as a friend”, Glesne (1999: p121) In any case, ethical dilemmas have no
direct simple answers. In my case as mentioned earlier, two of my informants have
withdrawn even after signing the consent. So the next chapter will present data from seven

participants instead of nine. I am using pseudonyms for the participants; however I kept the

49

real names of the districts to genuinely delineate the district community. Although, it is
recommended to paraphrase quotations to protect the anonymity of informants (Baez, 2002;
Guillemin, 2004), I did not paraphrase. Instead, word by word quotations are used. In
addition, the translation of all quotations and all interviews were revised by a professional
translator following my translation.

For me, research informants are full partners once they agree to participate in my
study project. Therefore, I have involved them in many stages. They were given the
interview transcripts for making comments and feedback to ensure that they are
comfortable with what is documented. During data interpretation, and coding, I have
frequently sought their views and suggestions to ensure that they are happy with the level
of details and issues they raise. Some of them have rewritten certain parts after reviewing
the transcripts.

Site Selection

I have selected the West Bank and Ghaza as sites for this research project. In
contrast to the West Bank, where I have lived for many years and can conduct the
research with minimal expense and difﬁculty, Gaza is more dangerous and costly.
However, because the situation of emergency and conﬂict is more extreme in Ghaza, it
was important to the focus of my study. Initially, I planned to spend 8 weeks in the West
Bank, as the focal region of the study, and make two visits of two weeks each to Ghaza.
In reality, it took me a minimum of 17 weeks instead of 8 to collect data in the West
Bank districts. Regarding Gaza, I was denied a permit to go there, and so I used video
conferences, and telephone calls. The other problems are related to the huge obstacles

that I had in moving from one district to another in the West Bank. For example, the

50

drive between Rammalla, the city where I live, and Hebron usually takes (40-50)
minutes. Due to the Israeli military checkpoints, it took me (4: 30) hours to get there and
4 more hours to get back to Rammallah. The following section includes an explanation of
participant selection for the study. I have focused on nine superintendents, three from
Gaza and six from the West Bank. I have also interviewed principals, teachers, assistants
and district ofﬁce staff to understand their perspectives on the superintendent’s leadership
roles. Those interviews have enhanced data gathered from observations and interviews
conducted with the superintendents in the study. However, as will be mentioned later,
only seven superintendents stayed the course and maintained their participation till the

end of the research.

The sample:

As mentioned previously, the population of the study is the 19 education
district superintendents of public schools in the West Bank and Ghaza. In sep. 2007 two
more district offices were added, so now there are 21 superintendents in ofﬁce. The
original sample had 9. After the withdrawal of two superintendents, the ﬁnal sample
included 7. As mentioned earlier, each of these superintendents has a minimum of 3 years
in the ofﬁce as a superintendent. Reviewing the national student achievement record, I
found out that students’ scores in comprehensive key stage exams in those districts were
among the highest performing ones.

Using a snowballing nomination process (Bogdan, & Biklen, 1998), I contacted
all possible concerned people to ensure that the ﬁnally selected superintendents are widely

recognized as effective leaders by ministry of education ofﬁcials, and parents’ councils, in

51

addition to school principals in the selected districts. The selection data has included the
annual review records of the nominated superintendents. It is worth mentioning that a
superintendent’s job assignment is 4 years to be renewed for 4 more years, if things go
well. Another criterion was the district student achievement records. Student scores in
selected districts have been higher than the national average or at least equal to the average
within the last three years. Moreover, I also looked for academic indicators like the
number of graduates, number of drop- outs, or number of students among the community
volunteer groups. A major issue in this regard is that those 7 superintendents were willing
to contribute and give their personal time for interviews, they were also happy to let me
participate or observe in their formal meetings inside the district and outside of it. For

example, I attended a superintendent’s meeting with representative of a religious group.

Data Collection and Recording Techniques
Obseﬂations:

To conduct observations, I made frequent visits to each of the seven
superintendent’s ofﬁce, followed by school visits in each district. As an observer, I tried
to approach the whole thing with an outsider’s perspective to make the familiar strange,
and to help me see things more objectively. Through longitudinal observations,
participant observation, and different kinds of interviews, I was able to see the balance
between management and other tasks, the kinds of skills/knowledge that superintendents
use in particular situations. Observation provided the opportunity to describe what a

superintendent does on a daily bases. In general, I took the role of observer, and on few

52

occasions, I took the role of a participant observer during the superintendent’s meeting
with related stakeholders.

To get the best of observation time, I used an observational protocol (appendix 9),
where recorded information was sorted into three categories: descriptive, reﬂective and
demographic (Creswell, 2004). I also got copies of relevant archival materials available
including public and private documents, diaries, emails, newspaper articles, as well as
audio visual materials including ﬁlms, photographs, and audiotapes. Such materials are
valuable because they are representative symbols of the organizational culture. On two
occasions, I went out with superintendents at 7 am, and video ﬁlmed how children get to

their schools.

Interviews:

The major case study research technique I used was interviewing. Interviews, in
particular, stand on their own as empirical evidence when the perceptions of participants
are sought or when the researcher cannot experience what the interviewees have gone
through. (Corbin, 2003; Creswell, 2004; Spradely 1983). The interview is a major tool of
data collection for certain reasons. Face to face conversation allows the visibility of
facial expressions and other non verbal signs (Charles et. al. 1953, and Glesne 1999).

For example, the sudden changes of behavior in reaction to certain questions are
revealing, and they are usually unconscious on the part of the interviewee. Interviews
have allowed me to raise complex issues, and probing questions to be explored much
more than other types of data collection especially after the rapport is established.

Therefore, communication becomes more natural and more direct. Later, I noticed that a

53

superintendent’s appetite to give further details is expounded. This was very helpful for
me to get deeper insights. Actually, a high percent of all research conducted nowadays
have used interviews in one form or another (Atkinson 1998). This may not be surprising
as the second half of the twentieth century up till nowadays might be considered as an
interview era. People in different parts of the world, whether developed or still

developing, live in interview communities, in which interviews are a central part of social

life.

All interviews were audio taped or videotaped, and later transcribed. Additionally,
I have used an interview protocol which includes interviewer instructions, research
questions, probes to follow key questions, and space for recording major comments
(appendix 10). Sending the key questions to the interviewees one week before the
interview time was very much welcomed by the superintendents, though they knew that it

was a framework for further questions.
Artifacts:

Dealing with documents is another research technique. Following (Creswell,
2004), I have classiﬁed those into two major types: primary and secondary. Secondary
would be second hand accounts or analysis written by other people “excluding the
interviewed”, meanwhile primary refers to data directly related to the informant or

written by him/her like emails, personal diary, (Creswell, 2004; BSA,1993).
Instruments:

I used two major instruments, the ﬁrst is all superintendents survey, (appendix 7),

and the second is the interview questions that I sent to participants one week in advance

54

The survey contains certain general information about the school district on the ﬁrst page,
the second page included statements designed to elicit a superintendent’s own

perceptions and views of his role, of leadership expectations and major concerns.

The second instrument is the informants’ interview questions, as shown in
(Appendix 11). This instrument had open ended questions, however those questions are
not conclusive. During the interview, more questions have emerged. In part, those
questions are based on the work of (Bolman and Deal, 2003; Murphy and

Hallinger,l988; Peterson, 1999).

Data Prgraratiom Analysis

I have organized and arranged the data on a daily basis, to be preceded by
transcription of the interviews, tidying up notes and scanning documents. My informants
were invited to look through the transcripts for revision. So some of them have omitted or
added to those transcripts, so as to ensure that those transcripts authentically reﬂect their
intentions and views. I also had translated the interviews from Arabic to English. In
Arabic the same expression has different shades of meaning depending on the
surrounding syntax and word collocations. Therefore, I had to additionally use a
professional translator who has had a strong background in educational administration,
and was fully aware of the Palestinian context.

Regular daily reading through the data has helped me to get a general feeling of
informants’ stories. The extent of depth and breadth is an issue; therefore I used to
prepare further questions to ask my informants in the next interview. Meanwhile, I

recorded the general themes that emerged. I used the margins with a different color pen to

55

pinpoint those early thoughts or comments (Creswell, 2004). Later, the data was sorted
out into important issues / topics, for example the types of challenges that Palestinian
superintendents encounter. Such topics were decided on how many times they were
mentioned, or on how much energy and enthusiasm the topic generated among
informants (Morgan, 1997) Concurrently, I prepared detailed lists of topics, or
“concepts”, and arranged into clusters of similar topics (Creswell, 2004). Each cluster
was given a distinctive title. I also used colors to code the emerging clusters. The coding
process was very useful since it generated further description of the setting or the people
and themes for analysis. Doing so has helped me to create comprehensive categories to
be later compared to the raw data to see if there is something missing, or if something is
made more prominent than it actually deserves. However, I was very careful and avoided
creating inﬂexible categories, instead focus was given to the “the salient, grounded
categories of meaning held by participants in the setting” (Guba & Lincoln, 1998, p 154).
Later, I started to examine possible relationships among categories, and drew
lines to record those relationships. Categories are referred to as cornerstones of the
grounded theory (Corbin & Straus; 1990). Bringing categories and relationships together
in a systematic meaningful manner had provided the early constellations of the grounded
theory which in my case will hopeﬁrlly emerge. I am still at the stage of trying to explain
the educational leadership approach of Palestinian superintendents, their personal
constructs, assumptions, and beliefs upon which they build the perceptions of the
superintendency role, and explain the strategies they use to sustain education and keep

the system running.

56

In this regard, I would like to highlight the suggestions made by (Glazer &
Straus, 1967; Corbin & Straus; 1990), and others that the generation and development of
concepts, categories, and prepositions is an iterative, continuous, organic and dynamic
process. This is why grounded theory is “inductively derived from the study of the
phenomenon it represents. That is discovered, developed and provisionally veriﬁed
through systematic data collection, and analysis pertaining to that phenomenon.
Therefore, data collection, analysis, and theory should stand in reciprocal relationship

with each other”. (Corbin & Straus, 1990).

57

CHAPTER FOUR

PRESENTATION OF DATA

Introduction:

 

The place where this project was carried out is Gaza and the West Bank, in the
Occupied Palestinian Territories, a context where turbulence is the only consistent feature
of daily life, and instability as a major characteristic of its history for the last six decades.
To mitigate the impact of turbulence and instability, school superintendents have exerted
all possible endeavors to keep the education system running.

The purpose of this research project was to investigate how those superintendents
conceive their roles, how they make sense of their presence in that peculiar environment,
how they practice what they preach, and what they really do to navigate their ships
through the surging seas.

This chapter presents data collected from seven case studies. In each one, a
superintendent explains how he conceives his role, his views about schooling, and his
views of the world, his assumptions, beliefs, in addition to his leadership practices.
Additionally, the views of a superintendent’s assistants about his leadership practices
were considered, besides, the views of district staff, building principals, teachers, and
parents were also taken into account as much as possible. Basic to this is a description of
the education district ofﬁce in terms of the number of schools, teachers, students, as well
as district office regarding the structural units, stafﬁng, and the employment proﬁle of the
superintendent and his previous work experience.

A complementary part of each case study was an introduction describing the

community, in relation to population census, historical background, geographic location,

58

economy and income proﬁles so as to give the reader a better understanding of the

environment surrounding the education sector.

Hebron school district and superintendent “Deer”

The community and school district:

Located in the south of the West Bank, about 50 miles south of Jerusalem, Hebron
is a biblical city. In Arabic, its name is “Alkhaleel” meaning the ﬁiend, named after the
Quran verse, {and God took Abraham as a ﬁiend, verse 4:125}. With a history of 2000
BC, Hebron a city ancient and deep-rooted, there is a sign everywhere, and under each
stone there is a tale to share. Such distinctive feature has added a peculiar sanctity to this
city in the hearts of its citizens and visitors. In the heart of the old city lies the Abraham
mosque, which is highly regarded by both Moslems and Jews. All Hebron citizens are
Sunni Moslems, except for the few settler Jew families, who settled at the “Bait Hadassah
building” after the 1967 war. Alkhaleel citizens mainly depend on glass manufacture,
leather and shoes’ industries, plantation of vine orchids, and stock farming.

With a population of 400, 075 in 2005, Hebron has a student population of 87,231.
Among those are 42,575 female students and 44,656 are male students. The number of
schools is 253, and the number of teachers amounted to 4801 in Sept. 2006.

The school district has 109 people including both the specialized staff and the supportive
admin staff. The district ofﬁce has 13 units including the planning & statistics, personnel,
ﬁnance, school constructions, school equipment and supply, curricula and textbooks,

school principals, teacher education and in—service training, general education, student

59

activities and media, health service and counseling, student achievement and exams, and

special education.

The superintendent:

 

Mr. Deer has been a superintendent for the last (7:5) years. Before that he was a
math teacher, a school principal and then moved to other business jobs away from
schools. The last appointment before getting to superintendency was a head of personnel
unit at the Moslem Endowments directorate. He had a bachelor degree in math and MA
degree in special education.

Mr. Deer was chosen for the superintendency assignment among a small number
of candidates. On revising the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MOEHE)
deliberation records of the ﬁnal selection committee in August 1999, he was
recommended due to his reputation as a good teacher, and a skilful negotiator between
different local and national committees. However, school principals, have other views on

why he was selected, which will be mentioned later.

The superintendent’s view of his role and perspective of leadership:

Mr. Deer believes that equipping children with numeracy, literacy, and computer
skills is important, but more important is developing a child’s character in a holistic
manner. He emphasized that:

“I took this job to ensure that our schools make good citizens of our children as both local
and world citizens. You know the role of schooling is complimentary to the role

of home and other family- building institutions. Schools are established to ingrain
disciplined behaviors, positive attitudes and spiritual values in our children.”

60

When asked what he does to ensure that these aspirations are aimed at and
realized. He responded that:

“We have set up coordination mechanisms with parents, with heads of social societies,
with local committees to ensure that all those institutions share a common
language. Additionally, those values are highlighted in our textbooks.”

On what he does in this position, Mr. Deer said that he supervises the functions
of the organization, though he is not a manager, because he has assistants who do the
managing in terms of the supervision of the personnel affairs, budgets, teachers’

professional development, construction plans, textbooks supply, he conﬁrms:

“What I do as a manager is ratifying by signing off the decisions taken by district unit
committees, and ensuring that those committees’ decisions do not conﬂict. This
means that I have to be fully aware of all tactical decisions, laws, by- laws, and
that any decision taken pertains to the essence of legislations under use, and that it
taps in the fulﬁllment of the set goals. I also review ﬁeld reports on a daily or
hourly base. Most of all, I am keen on ﬁeld visits. I go to classrooms, schools, and
hot spots. Such visits are my biggest priority, I need to have a practical sense of
the real difﬁculties that students, teachers and building principals encounter on a
daily bases”.

In all ways, Mr. Deer considers himself a leader rather than a superintendent (occupant of
a formal position) of education in his district. For him,

“Being in this position, (as a superintendent) should not lead me to think that I am
powerful; my position in the echelon is not a privilege that would allow me to
exercise power in any form. My power base depends on the strength of my social
connections, on the extent of my ability to inﬂuence people to do things willingly,
to my commitment to the public concerns, and to the size of popularity that I gain
regarding these concerns. To gain popularity, I have given up my positional
authority. To tell you the whole secret, no one can have both, its either popularity
or authority.”

To function in the best possible manner in this unstable context, he believes that he needs

to form a comprehensive deep understanding of all variables, he puts it as follows:

“As a superintendent, I need to have a deep understanding of the whole situation, and
have the skills to diagnose the threatening factors in a certain context. I need to
sense how people feel and think. It is not easy, sitting in the ofﬁce and reading

ﬁeld reports would not give me a real understanding of all social and political
contradictions. Based on this awareness, I can identify the denominators among

61

all paradoxical factors, and employ those to gain public commitment for
education and children’s welfare”.

On his view of what makes a leader in this unstable context, he conﬁrmed that:

“Whether you call it a leader or otherwise, I am a person, who believes that supervising
schools and educating the young is a mission rather than a job, we as teachers,
principals, and district staff should act like professional educators, so we need
public conﬁdence, we can’t function without that. Social status, social capital and
public conﬁdence are not donated; rather they are acquired through effective
performance. People expect a lot from me. I can’t give all that they expect, but at
least I can involve them, and get their commitment, and help them see beyond
their own special interests. You know that after the victory of Hamas in the
Legislative Elections in January 2006, teachers were not paid their monthly
salaries for 7 months; however, I was able to convince them to break the union
strike and get back to their classrooms. What I’m doing here is mainly bridging
the gaps between various people’s expectations. People’s conﬁdence and support
is the major component of our progress. Due to this conﬁdence, we were able to
build 55 schools, worth of 85 million dollars since I took ofﬁce in late 1999.
Those dollars have all been collected from local business people, not any penny
from outside resources. I heard that the Japanese government has helped in
building schools in other school districts, but not here. We have also continued
the partnership with business groups to establish instructional TV Broadcasting
stations. You know students rely on those stations to make up for the lost days
when curfews are imposed. Added to that is keeping and strengthening contacts
with the French Government educational initiatives. We have been following up
with president Chirac’s education initiative regarding the traveling library. This
project provides books and literary texts for students’ home extra reading
activities. Later, students report on those books in front of their peers, teachers,
parents and write book reviews. Mainly, those books are children’s books, which
focus on universal themes that encourage acceptance, love, tolerance, good

neighborhood, piety, civility. I think this is a major issue to focus on, don’t
we???”

For Mr. Deer leadership in this context is extremely demanding, it requires faith,
steadfastness, strong hope that things will ﬁnally work out well, and passion to what you
are assigned to achieve. It also needs a lot of risk taking and self denial, he puts it as

follows:

“Leading in unstable context is very similar to walking in a mineﬁeld. Like an
experienced warrior, 3 superintendent has to be very alert, exceptionally
courageous, and high risk taker. An army ofﬁcer in a mine ﬁeld has to ﬁnd a safe

62

path and pave it for other warriors to follow with the least possible losses. This is
true in my case. Whether I like it or not, people expect me to act as a leader who
would inspire them. Sakeena, you have come from the US, may be you have
heard about their president who was assassinated in early1960s. President
Kennedy said: (Ask not what your country can do for you, instead ask for what
you can do for your country). Therefore, people need to sense my commitment to
public issues, and to have evidence that I’m a risk taker. A manager who follows
the book rules can never succeed in this kind of perilous context. Only a leader
can make things move on. Very frequently, I got caught in the hot spots where
ﬁiction between settlers/ Israeli soldiers and the city dwellers is almost a daily
practice. On many occasions, my life was endangered by the shooting between
Israeli soldiers, and the stones of the teenagers. There, people used to watch the
scene through their windows’ openings and call out for me to take the ﬂoor, crawl
on my belly, and leave the place immediately.”

On his view of the organization, Mr. Deer states:

“The education system is an intricate web of human relations built around speciﬁed roles,
specialized functions and set goals. However, in this context, I would like to
admit that no one does what he is assigned to do. Rather people do what they
think should be done according to the requirements of the moment. For example,
our schools usually start at 7:00 or 7:30 am. This day by 9 am, 1473 teachers were
reported to be late due to unexpected mobile checkpoints. However, schools
where those teachers didn’t show up continued working in a reasonable manner.
Teachers whose residence is nearby those schools have taken over. Additionally,
the instructional staff at the district ofﬁce “education supervisors” who managed
to pass through have joined their colleague teachers at the nearest schools. If, in a
certain school, the number of teachers is far less than the number of classes, then
pupils will be combined in joint classes. When you meet with building principals
ask them what they do on such frequent occasions. Go to any school, you will
never ﬁnd a principal sitting in her ofﬁce during the time when students are still
in school. Principals are either in class teaching or policing the school yard to
ensure that nothing goes wrong”.

The district staff, parents, teachers’ view of Superintendent’s Deer leadership:

In Hebron district ofﬁce, staff member including assistants believe that he was
chosen for this assignment because he was the best available candidate, and that he was
able to have strong relationships with all stakeholders inside and outside schools.
However, some heads of units think he was appointed because he belongs to F attah

political faction (F attah and Hamas are the two major political factions). Others say that

63

because the majority of the district ofﬁce staff is Fattah afﬁliates, the superintendent was
chosen as he is afﬁliated to Hamas in order to create more balance between F attah and
Hamas. Other people believe that selecting him is attributed to the fact that he is
independent with no partisan afﬁliation to any group.

School principals believe they are lucky to have him as superintendent regardless
of why he was chosen. For them, he is a very pious person, with high integrity. “In any
interaction with him we feel optimistic, encouraged and highly appreciated” as stated by
some school principals. On the other hand, people in the street and Parents’ Council
think that he was chosen because he comes from a powerful rich family. “If anything

goes wrong, he has at least 7,500 members in his family, so no one can mess with him”.

The Bethlehem School District and superintendent “Camel”

The community:

Bethlehem where Jesus Christ was born is considered the hub of Palestinian
cultural and tourism industries. The city is populated by one of the oldest Christian
communities in the world. However, recently it has a Moslem majority starting since
1948, when many refugees from areas captured by Israel in 1948, came to Bethlehem
setting up three big camps around the city. That inﬂux of refugees changed the
demography of Bethlehem making the Christians into a minority of 40% of the whole
population. After the 1967 war, the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan lost Bethlehem along
with the rest of the West Bank. Since the Israeli occupation of Bethlehem inl967, the
Christian minority have even decreased to 20% of the city’s population due to further
immigration to Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Europe, and USA.

However, special statue requires that Bethlehem mayor and 75% of the municipal

64

council must be Christians. With the construction of the Separation Wall in 2003,
Bethlehem has had further serious negative impact, socially, economically and
environmentally. The owners of many hotels and services which cater for foreign tourists
were negatively affected and the Holy Land Olive Wood manufacture have turned down
adding to the lack of economic opportunities, (Bethlehem Govemorate, Palestinian
Information Center).

The School District:

 

Among the 180,116 residents of Bethlehem governorate, there are 37,804
students, 18,538 are male and 19,266 are female students. The number of teachers is
1,774. Among those there are 945 female and 825 are male teachers. Those numbers do
not include private schools which make up 15% of the whole, neither the schools run by
UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency). The education directorate ofﬁce
has 61 people including the superintendent and 13 heads of units with their staff. Similar
to other school districts those units include personnel, ﬁnancial auditing, school
constructions, school supply, school furniture, curricular and textbooks, media and
technology, students’ achievement and exams, school principals, educational supervision

and training, health and counseling, student activities and special education.

The superintendent’s perception of his role:

Among the 41 years of his service in the school system, Mr. Camel was assigned
superintendency for the last 6 years. Before that he was an assistant director for teacher
training, curricula, and qualitative instruction. Earlier in his career, he was a high school

science teacher, teacher mentor, and educational supervisor. Motivated by his ambition to

65

experience a highly challenging job, Mr. Camel applied for superintendency, when the
position became vacant. He did that in order to improve the mission of schooling. He
states his views on the rationale for schooling as:

“School systems are there to empower students and strengthen the spiritual and moral
components in their personality, in addition to equipping them with life skills,
positive attitudes, and critical thinking that will help them survive in a very tough
world. As Palestinians we have historically suffered a lot, just because the
Europeans wanted to get rid of the Jews, and so decided to throw them away from
Europe to the Middle East; in Palestine. Sustaining education and the schooling
system is our way of defending ourselves and expressing our national identity
against colonialism. Our children should be educated whatever obstacles we
encounter”

Superintendent Camel perceives his superintendency role in two major ways.
In one way, he sees himself as:

“I am an emergency doctor in an ambulance. I’m on call 24hr, seven days a week. My
wife and children think they have lost me when I moved to this ofﬁce. My wife is
so delighted that I’m going to retire soon. Wherever and whenever there is a
problem, I get there as soon as possible; the least is that I need to be informed of
any emergency. To be honest, these are not emergencies; rather they are typical
day realities. Some of our schools, which are located at the borders of the main
street linking Bethlehem with Western Jerusalem, or near to the Israeli
settlements, witness frequent clashes between students and IDF (Israeli Defense
Forces) troops. Many times, I’m called upon to get there to negotiate with Israeli
troops and ask them to move the army patrols away from school windows and
gates, in most cases Israeli patrols do not cooperate with building principals, and
those principals would rather avoid talking to the Israelis lest they are nicknamed
as traitors/ collaborators. Therefore, I go to these spots to support school
principals and negotiate with the Israeli troops and convince them to move away
from schools. We also convince students to have classrooms’ windows closed to
minimize the ﬁiction, and the exchange of dirty words and gestures between
teenagers and Israeli soldiers, who usually are in their late teens. Some of the
roads are also used by both the Israeli settlers, and high school teenagers. Our
records show that on many days, school teenagers threw stones, and Israeli
soldiers responded with bullets and tear-gas bombs. The Red Cross and Red
Crescent organizations have been very helpful in this regard. With the support of
those organizations, we have convinced the Israeli side of our need to build a side
track road to be used by students”.

At another level, Mr. Camel regards himself as a gap- closer between teachers and the

66

ministry of education. He states that:

“My other major function is to help both teachers and central ofﬁce policy makers reach
a consensus regarding educational innovations. For example when the integrative
curricula program was implemented in phase 4 schools, phase 4 is the ﬁnal cohort
joining the program, a majority of teachers have protested. With the majority of
the district staff members, we made school visits to clarify the ministry’s rationale
behind this innovation. I had also adopted teachers’ views at the supreme
coordination committee. To help things calm down, I have had more meetings
with teacher trainers, and classroom teachers. You know it wasn’t me alone,
almost all technical staff members in the district ofﬁce paid school visits for the
same purpose, but my presence was both symbolic and signiﬁcant. In those
meetings, we listened to teachers’ concerns and problems with the new program.
You know, it wasn’t easy for them, going out of their comfort zones was
threatening. It actually took 1-2 years before they realized the impact of the
integrative curricula program on students’ learning. You know with these
initiatives teachers are given more work without any increases in the school
budgets or teachers salaries. Almost all of what we heard at that time was
complaints. Nonetheless, we succeeded in adopting the new program and now
teachers are very happy with that. Please read the summative report from last year
about this program, and ask teachers how they felt about that program; the process
of implementing it and the early results”

View and Practice of Leadership:
When asked about what makes him powerful as a leader, he responds that:

“I was chosen for this position, so I’m powerful by entitlement. However, this is not the
whole story. My power depends on the support given to me by the district staff,
the parents’ council, building principals, and most of all teachers’ commitment to
public good and students’ learning. This is to say that power is shared. Teachers
are powerful in their own ways; they have discretion on what they teach and how
they teach. Actually no one has control on what goes on in the classrooms except
for teachers, principals are also powerful to the extent that they need to have, and
my colleagues at this district are also powerful within their own area of specialty.
Each of us, I mean a teacher, a principal, an education supervisor, my self, my
superiors, each is a leader in one way, and a follower in another. You know this
is how the system is built, but more important, this is part of the social and
cultural structures we are brought up with”

Superintendent Camel describes his leadership approach as based on:
“Decentralization, moving from one level to another down the line is the key. Any

person implementing anything will by time become the expert on that thing. My
capacity has limits, my self and ofﬁce staff would never effectively supervise the

67

teachers, if the teachers don’t supervise themselves. Similarly, we can’t have
surveillance cameras to check on what goes on in the classrooms. Therefore, we
better leave it for the teachers to monitor themselves, take their own decisions and
later tell us how it went. We support as much as we can, but we never dictate
what should be done. Building principals and teachers already have a framework
of guidelines, where they can’t cross the red lines. What I mean to say is that the
bottom line in this turbulent context is mutual trust. Why do you think would
teachers take extra classes and work on holidays if they are not committed? Last
semester our teachers conducted evening classes, and weekend classes, and were
able to make up for 35 days out of the 40 days that were lost at the start of the
school year, ask sister (X) to show you the records.”

Leadership for Mr. Camel means demonstrating exemplary performance:

“People in this system need to see an example. On many occasions, we used to stay in
the ofﬁce for a week or a few weeks. The mattresses and blankets are hidden in
the day time, and used at night time, so as to make sure that next day we are in
ofﬁce as early as possible rather than 2 hours late. I sacriﬁce my personal time
and family time. People know what we do; they just need an example; and feel
ashamed if they don’t contribute at their own site. What we have been facing is
tremendous, we have suffered a lot due to this unstable situation, and so we have
always expected the worse. That’s why we have never been taken aback. It is our
fate to be born in this part of the world. This was designed by God, and so God
has given me and my colleagues the strength, the foresight and the ambition for
achieving the maximum of what might be achieved despite all obstacles. You
know we have moral obligations of advancing teaching and learning in whatever
context we have. During the American war in Vietnam, schooling continued
underground. Our teachers are inspired by those stories from other parts of the
world. People in the education system are deeply touched by those ideals. This is
why I think that to stand up to the people’s expectations and give them a good
example. You know, I have no way but to act as a role model.

Mr. Camel also differentiates between traditional and non-traditional leadership:

“You know a traditional leader is the one who waits till an emergency occurs and
then reacts, we’re different, and we are proactive. To be ready for emergency
means that we’re equipped with various scenarios. Readiness helps our school
system to absorb any hit and minimizes the impact of crises on education. When
people suffer a lot they gain experience in how to defy hardships. Despite the
recurring huge strikes, the school system was able to survive and make up for the
1033. However, education in Palestine will not be able to reach the level of
national aspirations. In this context instructional quality has deteriorated. You
probably know that our students’ performance in math and science is really poor.
However, schooling has continued because education is seen as a major pillar of
state-building. We look around and ﬁnd that Japan is a great example to follow.

68

When defeated in the 2nd world war, the Japanese focused on education to help
them build a progressive economy that competed with the super powers.
Similarly, the historical injustice that Palestinians have experienced since 1947,
have created a collective conscious that education is a top priority to be sustained.
It’s both an individual and collective responsibility. Deep in our hearts, we
believe that national failures in the last 60 years are attributed to a decline of
education”.

Superintendent Camel also believes that what make him a leader are his skills in
motivating people to take risks, and do more than what is expected, therefore
superintendent Camel sacriﬁces his personal time, interests and own hobbies to give to
his professional commitments. Instead of starting his day at 7: 00am, he shows up in
ofﬁce at 5:30 am if not earlier. Usually, he does not leave the ofﬁce before 9pm to catch
up with ﬁeld reports particularly the places where he was unable to attend. Similarly, his
weekly holidays are generally not spent with family, or in gardening his house’s
backyard. Instead, he uses weekends to review school emergency plans. He also attends
arbitration and reconciliation efforts. Mr. Camel is a key player in the reconciliatory

committees outside school to ensure that schools are not misused, he conﬁrms that:

“If conﬂicts at familial level are not solved, then schools will become battleﬁeld
between the afﬁliates of each party”.

Conciliatory committees are made up of a number of dignitaries like the mayor, heads of
business groups, representatives of big families, representatives from professional
communities and other societal sectors those committees are powerful in that context.

People resort to those committees in clan disputes before referring to ofﬁcial courts.

In approving a decision, or making it, he takes the time to engage a bigger number
of concerned people, tap in their views on the issue under consideration. In many cases

he takes the devil’s advocate role when discussing certain problematic issues to ensure

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that they ﬁnally make the right decision. However, in many cases, he is never reluctant
and takes tactic decisions to let things move forward, due to the urgency of a certain
situation. For example, certain schools on certain days are informed to be evacuated
immediately due to credible information related to students’ safety. Most of the heads of
units that I have interviewed mentioned that Mr. Camel neVer tries to be involved in
micro management. However, two heads of units said that they do not like his style
because he refers them back to his administrative assistant despite the fact that they want

to hear Mr. Camel’s direct views and feedback on what they were doing.

Nablus School District and superintendent Horse

The community:

The city of Nablus is one of the oldest cities in the Middle East, and has been
populated for more than 4,000 years (Elmasri, 1996). Located 45 miles north of
Jerusalem, Nablus is seen as the major business and residential centre of the northern
region of the West Bank. It is located at the crossroads of the J erusalem- J enin road
running north to south, and Tulkarem —Jordan valley running east to west. The total
population of Nablus is 336, 818. This number includes the inhabitants of the adjacent
refugee camps that emerged alter 1948. That war has led to the evacuation of Palestinians
from their homes located in the areas that were fully captured by the Israelis to create the

sate of Israel.

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In Nablus, the number of schools has recently amounted to 244, and the number
of students is 94,309. Among those, 47,518 are female, and 46,791 are male students.
Meanwhile, the teachers’ female portion is 2,417, and male teachers are 2051,
(nablus.ed.ps Statistics, census 2006).

The education directorate ofﬁce has 121 people including the superintendent and
17 heads of units with their staff. Unlike other school districts, Nablus district ofﬁce has
a secretariat, public relations, planning and statistics units, internal transparency and
accountability unit, which is independent from the ﬁnance unit. Like other districts,
Nablus ofﬁce also have units for ﬁnance, school constructions, school supply, school
furniture, curricular and textbooks, media and technology, general education, students’
achievement and exams, school principals, educational supervision and training, health

and counseling, student activities and special education.

Superintendent “Horse” conception of his role:

Superintendent Horse has been a basic school math teacher, an educational
supervisor, a school principal, a university instructor. Later, he joined the district ofﬁce
of education as a head of teacher education unit. He ran this unit for 5 years before he
applied to the superintendency position. Frustrated by the practices of the previous
superintendent, he applied for the post when the vacancy was announced.

He says that,

“I have experienced two completely different educational leaders. One of them I liked so
much, and the other I really disliked. Therefore, I tried to apply the practices of
the ﬁrst model, and completely avoid the practices of the other. Analyzing and
reﬂecting on the practices of those contradictory models has taught me how to

manage and lead. For example, the principal that I didn’t like spent most of the
time in the ofﬁce, he was away from the street pulse. He rarely went to schools,

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and seldom talked to teachers and students.”

He also added that with all the things he learned through observing others, being in this

position was extremely demanding:

“Despite the opportunity to learn from others, taking this position proved to be much
more challenging than I have previously expected. For instance, I always thought
that the ministry of education will provide answers to the enquiries and help me to
resolve dilemmas. In reality, I found that in many cases, ministry staff was as
helpless as I was. For example, I expected that they will be helpful in issuing
permits for teachers to allow them arrive to schools on some days when Israeli
military orders impose curfews, or closures of whole areas. On such days our
teachers won’t be able to arrive to schools, and the ministry did nothing”

Superintendent Horse has a strong belief that,

“The schooling system is a major mechanism for shaping a generation who appreciate
knowledge, science and technology. Equipped with those, Palestinian youths can
contribute to state building. This is why I see that my major responsibility is to
follow- up, and monitor ﬁeld reports to ensure that emergency plans are applied.
As you have seen, most of the time, I’m out there moving from one school to
another as much as I can cover. I meet with principals in their spots, visit
classrooms, and talk to students on every possible occasion.”

Feeling the burden of the responsibility, led Mr. Horse to ensure that he holds the
ﬁnal referendum of certain decisions in his hands. For him this does not indicate that he
has less trust in others, but it shows how much he is worried, and concerned to keep track
of things. This is conﬁrmed by his assistant director who is amazed by how much detail
Mr. Horse is cognizant of. In line with such approach, Mr. Horse perceives himself as
the brains of the education system, whose role is to receive and send signals to all parts of
the body to keep it operating holistically, and effectively. For him, the education system
is governed by a complex web of organic relationships; a slight change in one implies

changes in other parts.

Superintendent Horse also believes that he is assigned this position to ensure that

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all operations, all ﬁrnctions, and all efforts are directed towards the same targets, which
are the safety of our students, and their learning. He, therefore, needs to have all the
means to monitor schools’ performance. Since he bears the ﬁnal responsibility for
teachers and students safety, then he should be ahead of every thing especially issues
related to life threatening factors, or stupid events that might serve as an excuse for the
Israeli authorities to issue military orders to close schools or detain students. He explains
that:

“Whenever anything goes wrong, like closing of a school, stoning Israeli vehicles,
students’ death or injuries, inside school violence or any other similar event,
parents and the public would blame me, and my staff. The easiest said would be
that there is no leadership. No matter what we do, there will still be people
blaming, and criticizing, but this is part of the parcel. You can’t have one part and
leave another on selective bases. In our situation this implies that I have to be at
the spot on every occasion. Since I can’t be everywhere every time means that the
least is to be informed of what’s going on, how things are developing, why did it

go that way, and what have led to undesirable consequences, what may have been
done to avoid negative consequences”.

Mr. Horse’s Leadership Practice:

Superintendent Horse believes that he is a leader because he shows vigilance, and
foresight. He also studies and analyzes all options and dilemmas before ratifying any
committee’s decisions, provided that he has the time needed for that. He also
demonstrates a deep understanding of the status quo, and ability to neutralize all the
political pressures surrounding the education institutions and schools. He said he is
strongly upset by any partisan political activities or communiqués that focus their
attention on students and schools. Therefore, he has built an anti- politicization student
front. Collectively, with student representatives, parents, teachers, and principals they

have constructed a website entitled: educacationﬁrst.com to encourage and promote

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politically non-afﬁliated student forum and student activities.

Similarly, he has also shown courage in defying one of the political factions in a
public debate with their representatives. Very directly, he asked them to deter their
partisan activities away from schools. In that debate, Superintendent Horse conﬁrmed:

“If you truly love to see an independent Palestinian state, then you should vow publicly
to leave those kids away from all your activities, let them focus on their studies,
let them excel in their learning. If alter completing grade 12, they choose to join
you, which is ﬁne with me. However, you should bear in mind that now it is my
responsibility to protect our kids from any distraction forces including you and all
other political factions.”

Superintendent Horse maintains the headship of the district emergency
committee. District committee collates, and coordinates the work of school emergency
committees on daily bases. In their reports they specify the number of schools which had
full operation, the schools which had partial operations and why, the number of attending
students, number if absents, or late students. Most important is that such committee
documents the processes taken to overcome the crises in each school.

Whenever possible, Mr. Horse has participated in tree plantation campaigns,
paving school playgrounds. Similarly, on certain days, when janitors were unable to
arrive to their work sites, he acted like other members of staff, thereby cleaning the dust
and tidying up the place.

Mr. Horse also keeps contacts with the heads of international NGOs, like the Red
Cross, or Israeli peace activists to ask their support against settlers’ provocations in
ﬁiction areas. Those NGOs usually help, but not always. He thinks that there is a need for
international peace keeping forces to be present so as to observe, and document the

Israeli occupation practices, and what takes place on regular bases.

One of his worst days was when he went to visit an elementary school,

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“There, he continues, I was told that three classes were not operating, students of those
classes have joined their classmates whose houses were demolished very early on
that day. The teachers conﬁrmed that 6 houses were demolished on that morning
by the Israeli occupation bulldozers. I got there to see what was going on. Though
demolishing houses was a very frequent event, that time I was really shocked by
the sight and size of destruction. It was appalling; there were piles of concrete
cement, broken fumiture, chairs, beds, ﬂowers, books, kitchen utensils, clothes all
mixed together. It looked like the place was hit by a severe earthquake. The most
painful scene was the sight of third grade kids searching the debris and piles to
ﬁnd their books and school bags. Some of those children must have recognized
me and probably noticed tears in my eyes. Innocently, a child approached me as if
she intended to tell me something less horrible, and she said: (Thank God, our
house remained in its place, I still have my books, my bag and my clothes)”
Education supervisors at Nablus district think that Mr. Horse is always hopeful,

calm and never easily provoked. When he doesn’t like the way things are done, he makes
no comments. He is never confrontational, and that his actions are consistent with his

words.

Jerusalem Suburbs School District and Superintendent Lion

The Community:

This district comprises Palestinian villages and towns located outside the Eastern
part of Jerusalem. The population of those villages amounted to 160,513 in April 2007,
and the average household size is 5, 3, (PASSIA, 2007). Some of those towns and
villages are Al-ram, Abu Deis, ll-eizariyah, Nabi Samuel, Alqubeiba, Aljeeb, Beit Iksa,
Beit Diqqu, Beit Soreik, Beit Anan, Beit J iz, Beer Nabala, Hizma, Qattana, Kalandia
Albalad, Raffat, Mikhmas, Beit Hannina, Aljidira, Jaba’a, and many other smaller ones.
The income resources differ from one place to another. In general, people depend on

trading vegetables, grapes, ﬁgs and olives.

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In addition to frequent closures, and checkpoints, the building of the Israeli
separation wall has negatively impacted the life of the people residing in those places at
various levels. As for education, 80.0% of the households with students, enrolled in basic
schools have used alternative lengthy roads to reach their schools, or have been subjected
to wait for long hours at the checkpoints when the alternative roads are also closed.
Similarly, access to health centers was an extreme difﬁculty for 34, 5% of the households
(5.8%) inside, and (88, 3%) outside of the wall. Another important issue is that, 19.2 of
households in the Jerusalem suburbs had all or part of their lands conﬁscated, (5, 3%
inside, and 31.4% outside) the wall. On the social level, 21, 3 % of households had at
least one member separated from close family, 32.6 % outside the wall, and 15.5% inside

the wall, (PCBS& Badi., 2006).

The school district:

In Jerusalem Suburbs school district, there are 96 schools, and 27,916 students.
Among those there are 14,792 female students, and 13,124 male students. Teachers’
number amounts to 1621, female teachers are 897, and male teachers are 724, bearing in
mind that these numbers do not include teachers, schools and students who belong to the
eastern part of Jerusalem including the old city. Less than other school districts of the
West Bank, Jerusalem suburbs district has 59 employees including the superintendent,
and 12 heads of units with their staff. Those units include personnel, ﬁnancial auditing,
school constructions, school supply and furniture, curricular and textbooks, media and
technology, students’ achievement and exams, school principals, educational supervision

and training, health and counseling, student activities and special education units.

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Superintendent Lion:

Starting his career as a math teacher at both elementary and secondary schools has
helped superintendent Lion to gain more insights in math teaching methods. This
facilitated his selection for a teaching assignment at a highly reputable teacher training
college in Jordan. He has also got a high diploma in teaching methods, besides an MB in
Business administration and BS in math. Later he was chosen as a teacher trainer in
Rammallah District, followed by an assignment as the head of educational supervision
unit. When the superintendent position in Jerusalem suburbs became vacant, he applied
and was selected to take the position. Mr. Lion believes that he aspired for
superintendency to help change the status quo, through sustaining and improving the
education service. He added that:

“We need to maintain education as it is the major pillar for increasing knowledge,
gaining power, enhancing social systems and building civilization. Because they
assign high status to education, Palestinians are some of the most educated people
in the Middle East. In the last seven decades, Palestinians have played a major
part in eliminating illiteracy in many countries of the Arab World including Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Qatar, Oman, Abu Dhabi, Libya, Sudan, and Algiers.

You know it’s a poor economy, we wouldn’t have survived without the ﬁnancial
transactions made by the Palestinians who work in those countries”.

Superintendent’s Lion’s perception of his role:

In this unstable context, Mr. Lion sees himself as a master juggler, someone who
should be able to deal with many unpredictable issues, all at the same time to keep the
show going on. Therefore, he needs to be exceptionally watchful, skilﬁrl and quick to act.
He asserts that,

“Being in this position is even more challenging than juggling, a juggler knows for
certain when the show will start and end. In my case, it is never like that. Political

and social surroundings around education make it very difﬁcult to exactly predict
what may happen next. Even when things seem to be quiet, it is just like the

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calmness that precedes the storm”.

Superintendent Lion also considers himself as a buffering agent. He works hard
with school principals and teachers to keep students away from partisan political
tensions. Therefore, he participates in examining, and censoring ﬂyers that may fall into
the hands of students. He conﬁrms that,

“My major concern is to protect students from any confrontations with Israeli police or
military forces at one hand, and also prevent them from being involved with any
partisan political activities that would hinder the kids’ academic achievements.”

Additionally, superintendent Lion perceives his role as a guardian of equity and equality,
to ensure that all children have access to school,

“I’m here to ensure that our schools provide sufﬁcient infra structure to welcome our
students, and to ensure that ourselves and building principals come up with
miraculous solutions for the lack of resources, shortage of rooms, furniture and
textbooks. Ironically the ﬁnancial resources are limited and the needs are
inﬁnite”

Despite all obstacles, Mr. Lion is also expected to provide vision, and communicate it on
where the whole organization is heading. He states that:

“We have all agreed to keep the system up and going, to keep the students in their
classes, to encourage both principals and teachers make every possible effort to
improve schooling, and advance education quality. If you call this vision its ﬁne.
I call it collective commitment. Although most of us are committed to public
education goals, the quality of education is still suffering. Almost all concerned
people nowadays talk about students’ failures in math and science, and it looks
like there is nothing much I can do to improve the learning of those subjects at the
present situation”

Superintendent’s Lion practice of leadership:
Mr. Lion believes that leadership in this context requires a lot of patience,

diplomacy, astuteness, social skills, emotional intelligence, knowledge, and alertness.

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Such kind of skills can minimize the unpredictability of an emergency and add bonus
time for creativity in managing unpredictable problems. As a leader, he shows interest in
empowering, and transforming the people around him as mentioned by heads of sections
at district level, and his assistant as well. He does that through consulting and involving
others by raising enquiries, generating questions, delegating, helping others to reframe
certain dilemmas and consider all options. Mr. Lion has also succeeded in convincing
principals and teachers to perform challenging tasks and go out of their comfort zones.
He states that,

“For example, teachers who were physics specialists were asked to teach math when
math teachers were unable to arrive to schools. Another example was asking the
biology teacher of grade 11 to teach grade 5, when grade 5 teacher was unable to
arrive, and vice versa. Such sudden changes were not easy for teachers, but they
accepted that. The trade-off here is that the number of classes for original grades
was made less to provide time for the emerging shortages. Teachers can’t have
more teaching load, since they are already overloaded. Again the issue is that
although we have solved such problems temporarily, still the teaching time and
quality have decreased. Similarly, when we conduct make up programs after
periods of school closure, time is reduced to 40 minutes instead of 50 minutes per
class period. I hope this answers your question about the strategies to overcome
lost teaching time”

Another aspect of leadership practice is Mr. Lion’s active participation in
teacher’s professional development programs, and his explicit focus on the role of
teachers in orientating students’ attitudes. He says that teachers are responsible for
helping our students build positive attitudes and develop respect of the different others.
In one of the PD sessions, Mr. Lion contended that:

“I was very displeased with the content of a ﬂier that may have reached to the students’
hands. Some of you might have seen that ﬂier; it’s full of incitement against
Israelis as Jews, and against Judaism. You know we don’t know where those
ﬂiers come from so as to stop them. Our role is to clarify those issues for our
students, and encourage them to see the other side of the coin. Our students

should be informed that our conﬂict with the Israelis is never based on religious
grounds; I strongly believe that Palestinians do not hate Judaism. On the contrary,

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we respect Judaism, it’s the ﬁrst heavenly religion, and I assume that you may
know that pure Islam is derived from Judaism. We do not hate people based on
religion, what we are against is the occupation of our land. Some people with
hidden agendas try to delineate our struggle against occupation as a struggle
between religions. Those claims are ﬂawed. You must have known that Jews,
Moslems, Christians, and others who were nonbelievers have all peaceﬁrlly lived
together in Palestine before 1947, some of your parents may have gone to school
with Jewish colleagues or other religions, and life was great. Our conﬂict is with
the Israeli occupation, and it is a struggle for land and resources. It has never been
an issue of religion, true Moslems and true Jews are the off spring of Isaac, and
Ishmael. Both are the sons of our great father Abraham. It is only the practices of
the Israeli occupation that distorts the image of Judaism. Therefore, I want you to
pay attention to the kind of ﬂiers that come to the hands of our students. It is both;
a collective responsibility, and an individual one to clarify these issues for our
students. They should be protected from single-minded ideologies. Our students
are the builders of our future; those builders need to get a broader perspective, in
order to help them develop better conceptions and positive views of the world.”

Moreover, this superintendent makes initiatives, takes risks, and acts on his own
even if a certain action is against the regulations and laws of the Ministry of Education &
Higher Education, (MOEHE). For example, superintendents are expected by the MOEHE
to fully refrain from participating in political public rallies and demonstrations. Despite
that, Superintendent Lion have admitted that he participated in demonstrations against the
US war in Iraq. He has also participated in the sit-down strike against the building of the
Israeli separation wall. He said that his participation in those activities took place outside
ofﬁcial work hours. For him, such actions are necessary to better understand how a
person in the community feels. Moreover, being visible adds to his popularity and

inﬂuence that he needs most in this situation. Mr. Lion puts it as follows:

“Being in a superintendency position is restricting; it is a dilemma of whether you want
to adhere to the requirements of your position in the hierarchy, or be a ﬁeld leader
and respond to public expectations. You know, it seems to me that you can’t
betray the public; they expect you to voice out what they feel and experience. You
have to have empathy, and support what they are out for. To be more frank, I tell
you that while we are commanded by the ministry to adhere to the safety and

80

code of conduct act, I take full freedom to choose the right option and do what I
think should be done. By the end of the day, it is those people in the street, and in
schools that support me and sustain education; it is only through their support that
teachers join schools on holidays. It is those people who volunteer to run public
local teaching committees when schools are closed, or when either teachers or
students are denied permits to pass checkpoints and arrive to schools. You know
teachers were not paid salaries for 7 months, but that did not deter them from
arriving to schools whenever that was possible. They did that only because they
are committed to public goals”.
In Jerusalem suburbs, I talked to many teachers who have conﬁrmed that Mr.
Lion is an iron man. He is also fair- minded; he trusts the people and appreciates their
efforts. Some teachers were sent “Thank you” letters with the “winner teacher medal” for
their exceptional performance during emergencies. One of the teachers mentioned that

“those letters, and medals cost almost nothing, but they symbolized that we were

appreciated, which added to my commitment”

Qalqilya School District and superintendent Ox

The Community:

Qalqilya is located at the north west of the West Bank (appendix). Bordered by
Israel from the West, it is only 12 miles north east of Tel Aviv. Tulkarem borders it from
the north, with Nablus east and Salﬁt in the south. The govemorate of Qalqilya is
populated by (97,472). Among those, there are 44,709 inside the town borders. The
economy mainly depends on exporting citrus fruits, guavas, and vegetables.
In the last 7 years, the town has been dying as its economic life with the neighboring

community was cut off due to the construction of the separation wall.

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The School District:

Qalqilya education district supervises (76) schools that hosts (28,511) students.
Among those, there are 14,762 male, and 13749 are female students. Male teachers are
659, and 633 are female totaling to (1,292), (MOEHE statistics, 2006).

The education directorate ofﬁce has 95 people including the superintendent and 13 heads of
units with their staff. Like some other school districts, Qalqilya has a planning and statistics
unit, internal transparency and accountability unit. Additionally, there are also units for
personnel, school constructions, school supply and furniture, curricula and textbooks, media
and technology, general education, students’ achievement and exams, school principals,
educational supervision and training, health and counseling, student activities and special
education.

Saperintendent Ox:

After getting his BS in math, and a diploma in teaching methods, Mr. Ox applied
for a teaching position. Later, he spent 12 years as a teacher of math and science,
followed by 8 years as an educational supervisor at Tulkarem and Salﬁt adjacent districts.
During that time he has also coordinated various school projects including the school
cluster development project sponsored by the British Council, and the life skills project
sponsored by the UNICEF. Later he was appointed as an assistant superintendent in
Tulkarem, and was then moved to Qalqilya as a superintendent three years ago. Mr. Ox
believes that schooling is the most important part in an individual’s career. For him, the
mission of schools is to help children acquire knowledge of computation, science, and

technology so as to enable to them ﬁnd jobs and compete in a fast developing world.

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He is also aware that the dichotomies between public aspirations laid on education and

schooling realities are huge.

The supﬁerintendent’s conception of his role:

Like the heart in the body, Mr. Ox thinks that he represents the heart of the
education system at district level, however, he adds that:

“A heart can not function without the veins and artery; we need to receive data,
information, suggestions. In turn, we process those into policy views, decisions
and re-circulate back to schools”.

On the other hand, and due to the unstable situation, Mr. Ox sees himself as an
emergency manager, a security coordinator and a leader at the ﬁeld level. For him, such a
role is very signiﬁcant in achieving equity and ensuring that schools especially those
located at ﬁiction areas get equal opportunities in terms of human and non human
resources. Hence, he should be in schools, or in continual contact with schools. Mainly,
he is the one who is expected to initiate coordination with the Israeli side regarding
schools that get closed from time to time by military acts, or may be used as military
bases. Sometime a superintendent may succeed, and some times he may not. He asserts:

“That’s what superintendency is all about in this turbulent context; more or less I’m a

security coordinator and a leader at the ﬁeld level. To sustain schooling in many
places of this district necessitates that we keep connections with the Israeli side,
through the ofﬁce of the DCO (District Coordination Ofﬁce), if it is not
paralyzed. I mean those in charge of the IDF troops to ensure that Israeli patrols
move away from the roads to our schools. Communications with the Israelis is an
every day reality. We need to ensure that teachers and students are allowed to
pass through the gates of the separation wall. Some times when communications
do not succeed with the IDF, other communication channels have to be open like

Israeli peace activists, or others who may have connections with international
NGOs, and basically it is the Red Cross.”

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Leadershj) mactice:

Leadership means service as the Arab proverb literally says, Mr. Ox conﬁrms
that:

“The servant of a folk is their leader. Here I’m, I took this position to supervise the
provision of the education service particularly in this phase of history. I know
that many people especially those who have no children at schools, are very cruel
in criticizing us for the descending student achievement levels, but here you are.
You reviewed the records, and saw that 71% percent of school days during the
previous semester/ fall 2006, were labeled as emergency. This means that in one
way or another school functions were interrupted.”

As an emergency manager, superintendent Ox is the one who should come up with

miraculous solutions. He adds that:

“I’m very open with you, 90% of my time is spent on the follow up of emergency issues
and emergency plans, with the highest attention focused on schools located in
areas adjacent to settlements or inside the separation wall. People get worried
when a school is closed, and they always assume that I have the magic recipe for
opening it back, which is not the case”.

One of Mr. Ox’s assistants, and an educational supervisor conﬁrmed that all what Mr.
Ox has in mind is the performance of the emergency committees, and emergency plans.
Some district staff, school principals and teachers conﬁrmed that Superintendent Ox
follows-up on macro emergency plans in two ways. The ﬁrst is through visits to
emergency sites to check on what exactly happened. There, he meets with building
principals, teachers, councilors, and students. Similarly, he monitors and analyzes ﬁeld
reports about student detainees, student injuries, inside school violence, students’ or
teachers’ failure to arrive to schools, how school evacuation has been done if students are

to leave unexpectedly, how schools have covered for the lost time, which NGOs are

helping, and what part is each NGO helps with. Coordination between national and

84

international NGOs is extremely important, and that takes a big portion of the
superintendent’s time.

External coordination is the second major activity that consumes Mr. Ox’s time.
As a matter of fact, managing district emergency committees and emergency plans
requires the coordination of various stakeholders like the governor, the Israeli IDF
ofﬁcials, Red Cross, local public security committees, health authorities, and social
welfare authorities. Such coordination requires strengthening relationships with all those
people as well as strong relationships with people at the implementation level like
teachers, school principals, and school councilors. Superintendent Ox thinks that he needs
more time for follow- up with those different stake holders.

As a manager of public external relations, Superintendent Ox has also become a
media ﬁgure, and a media inﬂuencer representing the education sector. People know that
other district staff members can do a good job, nonetheless they insist to hear from the
highest ranking ﬁgure supervising schools. He thinks that dealing with the media is a
major part of his role. The public would like to hear from him on every occasion when
there is an emergency.

“The challenge is that most of the days are emergencies, where no one can perform
miracles, neither cure the sick” as stated by a school principal. She also added:

“Poor Mr. Ox. People would always like to hear promising news when he talks on the
radio, or television, he is very mindful of his expressions, word connotations, and
views. He is never judgmental, and puts things in a manner, urnmmrn, very
careful so as to avoid confrontation with any political forces.”

Managing external relations goes beyond co-ordination or artiﬁcial relationships

to partnership level. For example, his work with the local national committees proved

very effective. Those local committees provide extra classes for special Ed pupils. On

85

many occasions those committees extend their support to organize emergency classes to
all pupils in certain pockets “small town quarters”, when school days are interrupted in
any way. Additionally, the committees provide lists of names of volunteer specialists in
all curricula subjects, whose residence is relatively not far away from the activity site or
school, and they would be ready to take over on any day when teachers can’t get to their
schools.

Not only does Mr. Ox work with local public committees, but he also works with
local and international institutes, public ﬁgures, school principals, teacher union to urge
them to employ a uniﬁed language about education goals, about difficulties obstructing
education, about mechanisms and strategies for survival, about minimizing the impact of
the unstable political context. In line with that, he is well connected, and has inﬂuence
on both key players and implementers. In one of his meetings with the UNICEF (United
Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) representatives, that I have attended,
he stated:

“We are partners in leading the ship to a safe harbor especially in those surﬁng seas.”

His secretary contends that:

“Leadership for Mr. Ox means the ability to close the gaps among different groups, and
to synthesize the positive aspects among various ideologies. He always tries to
see things from different perspectives, which helps him to get a better
understanding. He is an experienced communicator, and negotiator. He does that
regularly and successfully, I’m always amazed by how well he puts things”.
Superintendent Ox has also participated in the demonstrations and lobbies for the

support of environmental issues. The latest remarkable examples were the protestations

against the location of the sewage system of some Israeli settlements, for example the

sewage of a Sha’ra Tiqwa settlement strongly bothers Beit Amin junior School. When

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asked why he participated in those demonstrations, though the Ministry of Education and
Higher Education (MOEHE) regulations do not allow superintendents to participate in
demonstration activities, he frowned, and uneasily answered:

“Yes, I’m employed by the ministry, but that does not mean that I am a blind servant.
This is a matter of principle. I do what I think should be done. It is the right
action, even if it is against the MOEHE regulations. Haven’t you seen what’s
going on? For example, Beit Amin School seriously suffers ﬁom the smell of the
sewage running out of Sha’ra Tiqwa settlement? You saw that place, didn’t you?
Haven’t you seen the stinking ponds full of insects that were formulated by the
construction of the separation wall? You should make more visits and see, before
you talk about my participation in the environment protection campaigns”

Mr. Ox has also worked intensively to direct all efforts to support the education
system and to prevent school children from participating in partisan political activities.
Similarly, Mr. Ox employed all opportunities to ensure that students are not involved in

any kind of activities conducive to confrontations with Israeli settlers, IDF troops like

throwing stones, or making bad gestures.

Gaza School Districts and superintendents; Leopard and Tiger.

The community:

Gaza is a coastal strip of land along the Mediterranean Sea, bounded by Israel in
the north and east, and Egypt on the south west. Named after the major city “Gaza”,
Gaza strip is about 25.5 miles long, and between 3.5-8 miles wide, appendix ( ). The total
area is about 139 square miles, inhabited by 1.45 million people, thus forming one of the
most highly populated areas in the world. The population density amounts to (10,971)

people per mile, (PCBS, 2006).

87

Historically, Gaza was known as a Philistine city up till 1150, and was a
prosperous port. Ottoman Turks ruled Gaza along with the rest of historic Palestine till
1917, followed by the British mandate which claimed Palestine according to the Sykes-
Picot treaty. Following the Alnakba (displacement of Palestinians in the Diaspora) in
1948, and the creation of the state of Israel on the same year, Gaza hosted Palestinian
refugees. Those were evacuated from the areas occupied by the Israeli troops inl948,
when Gaza has become a major host of Palestinian refugees. On the same year 1948,
Gaza strip was annexed to Egypt, and was later occupied by the Israelis twice. The ﬁrst
was in 1956, and the second was in 1967(Bergman, 2000; Alquds News paper, Jun. 5,
1997). Although, the Israelis have withdrawn from Gaza in 2004, they still have control
over its offshore sea access, and its airspace as well. In fact, Gaza strip is tightly
besieged. In any case, its citizens consider it as a virtual prison where they live under the
continuous threat of destruction and displacement. The economy of Gaza is based on the
income generated by small industries, crafts, ﬁshing, food processing, and the salaries of
civil servants and workers.

In this case study, I am writing about 2 of the 5 superintendents. As mentioned in
chapter 3, I did the interviews through video conferencing. On the ﬁrst meeting, there
were three panelists/ superintendents in Gaza responding to our questions. On the other
site, in Rammallah, it was me and more than 13 people attending the focus group session.
Later I had individual meetings with each one through video conference or through the
phone. Finally, when the superintendents were sent back transcripts of the interviews, one
of the three superintendents expressed his wish to quit the study. So ﬁnally I had two

participant superintendents from Gaza.

88

Due to the large similarities between the two education district ofﬁces, I will not
repeat the explanation about the features of each district ofﬁce. Instead, I will point out
the features of both in the same paragraph. Regarding the other sections, on the
superintendent’s perception of his role, and leadership practice, I will deal with each one
separately.

EdiLation Districts A and B:

Each of the district ofﬁces has a student population of more than 40, 000 students.
To start with, it is worth reminding that these numbers do not include the students,
teachers or schools, run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)
which make up about 40 percent of the schools in Gaza.

In district A, there are 62 schools, and (41,141) students. Among those, 20,509 are
females, and 20632 are male students. There are also 763 female teachers, and 857 male
teachers, totaling to 1620. In district B, there are 64 schools hosting (45,797) students.
Among those 23,056 are male, and 22,741 are female students. Female teachers are 924,
and male teachers are 921 totaling to (1,845) teachers excluding the non tenured or
volunteer substitutes like the retired or trainee teachers (students at the teacher education
college).

In each of the education districts, there are 11 administration units comprising
personnel, ﬁnance, school constructions, school supply, school furniture, curricular and
textbooks, media and technology, students’ achievement and exams, educational
supervision and training, health and counseling, and special education. The overall
number of staff members in district A is 79 people, and 87 people in district B. These

numbers include the superintendent, two secretaries, as well as the custodians and

89

janitors.

Superintendent’s Leopard’s conception of his role:

After getting his BS and MS degrees in Biology, Dr. Leopard taught science
education for more than 9 years. Later he did a Doctorate of Education, in educational
administration. Due to that he was moved to the Gaza education district A, and became a
head of the teacher education unit. Three years later, he was chosen as a superintendent.
On his view of schooling, he thinks that the goal should be advancing the knowledge and
skills of future generation to enable them survive in a competitive world. Similarly, he
asserts that:

“Schooling is so important to build a human personality with positive attitudes. The
human kind has suffered because of Adolf Hitler, and XXXXXXX. So we can’t
have more of those. Staying with peace with one’s self and others is part of the
schooling mission”

He talks about superintendency saying that:

“It is similar to what the Chinese proverb says about marriage. It looks like a wonderful
castle from the outside so that each one likes to get into it. Once you are in, then
you know that it is so different, and that it is very demanding. The
superintendency role is very complex, because a superintendent has to deal with
many social groups and political factions, in addition to people at schools, district
staff and students’ parents. For example, some parents raise issues and use lobby
pressures to let things go in a manner that will be most beneﬁcial to their children.
The role is also very complex because any decision taken has serious implications
at various levels, even if that decision was collectively made and voted for”.

However, he adds that in this unstable context,

“I see my role as a veteran warrior, and a captain of a ship sailing in a stormy surging sea.
Any mistake might heighten the dangers. Therefore, I should be very careful and
consider all factors before ﬁnalizing or ratifying a decision. Nonetheless,
sometimes I have to be a dictator who sends commands to sailors, due to the
urgency of the events. For example in one of the schools, I had to sign a decision
by which 2 teachers were ﬁred. They were witnessed yelling at each other inside
the teachers’ room, after the victory of Hamas in the legislative elections early

90

this year. I was really aﬁ'aid that their heated discussions and clashes spread to

other people in the school”. He also adds that a captain of a ship should be a

master sailor. Accordingly, he thinks of himself self as a master teacher”.
Superintendent’s Leopard’s Leadership Practice:

As a master teacher, Dr. Leopard goes to classrooms and takes over whenever a
need arises to cover for an absent teacher. He intends to set an example for others. For
him, actions speak better than words. Whenever things are relatively quiet, he also visits
classes and gives non judgmental comments written on a slip of paper. Similarly, he
actively participates in the school principals’ professional development sessions. He acts
as a session facilitator, when things outside are relatively quiet. He is also very fond of
attending and teaching in science education workshops. These activities are “very deer to
me, teaching science is my real passion”

Dr. Leopard is also a team builder and a good communicator. He uses his political
clout to make the public aware of the school district goals; he interprets those goals in
relation to what could be accomplished despite all turbulence. So he makes it clear that
the two major goals are: one is students’ and teachers’ safety, and the other is using every
opportunity to focus on learning and teaching.

As a team builder, he creates connections between international NGOs, district
level and community level that have direct impact on schools. He does that through
facilitating the provision of resources and his personal time. His continuous efforts have
created increased synergy, and enabled people to move beyond bureaucratic restrictions
and create small co-ed classes at almost all city pockets. On his connections with
international NGOs, Dr. Leopard praised the continuous support offered by the

international Red Cross organization, the British Council, and the Swedish representative

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ofﬁce. To facilitate these connections, he encouraged school principals, and teachers to
enhance their own connections, and invite those representatives to their schools, and
communal activities even without referring to him.

When tension erupts between conﬂicting families or factions, Dr. Leopard attends
the peace mediation sessions in order to curb tensions and prevent exporting them to
schools. In fact, he is a major member on many reconciliation committees. In this
capacity, he uses the symbolic importance of his position in the education system as a
major resource of his moral authority, and moral accountability to take care of the

children. For him, superintendency is not a job. It is a sacred commitment and a mission.

Superintendent’s Tiger’s conception of his role:

In his teens Mr. Tiger has always aspired to become a CEO in a commercial
business where he could advance revenues and enlarge business. However, and due to the
loss of his father’s business, Mr. Tiger abandoned that dream, and so he got a BA degree
in social science and another degree in agricultural economics. After 15 years of teaching
and ﬁve years of school principal ship, he moved to the district ofﬁce as a social science
education advisor, and remained there for 5 years before he was elected as a
superintendent.

On his views about schooling, he believes that:

“Schooling aims at better shaping a child’s mind and personality, it shouldn’t be about
ﬁlling out the vessels with data and information. Knowledge and skills are far less
important than nurturing a child’s spirit. It doesn’t appeals to me if schooling
basically aims at preparing a child for a competitive work market. If this comes
as an additional result, that’s ﬁne. But be careful, our schools should not be about
making a living; instead it should be about touching the hearts and souls, making

a life, and creating a responsible human being. Therefore, our schools must be
child—ﬁiendly where a child feels genuinely welcomed, nurtured, and grown in

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the most balanced manner. You know I have a moral authority, people send their
children to schools to be taught how to live together, how to help the needy, and
how to make sense of our existence in relation to the outside world and how to
gain international support for the Palestinian dream of liberty, independence and
state building”.

At this point, I interrupted and said,

“But do you know that in some parts of the outside world people think of Palestinians as
a bunch of trouble makers, who carry out suicide bombs inside Israel, and who
ﬁre home-made rockets into the Israeli town of Sderot????”

He immediately responded:

“Suicide rockets and bombs are wrong, but the outside world should try to understand
the feelings, the motivations and frustrations of those trouble makers who were
displaced from their homeland, who live in virtual prisons, who suffer poverty,
and oppression, whose houses are demolished, whose youth are jailed. You know
the suffering is beyond description. Nevertheless, I tell you that suicide bombs
and rockets are awful, but it is also awful that the Israelis punish a whole
population for the actions of a few, actions that the school children and their
parents are powerless to stop”.

In this unstable context, Mr. Tiger sees his superintendency role as a pastor, and a
psycho-therapist. People look for him to receive acknowledgment, support, and solace.
He states that:

“Running the education system in this context mainly depends on good will, mutual trust,
and commitment to public goals. None of these is secured through the
bureaucratic regulations of the system. Those regulations work at the surface
level. The tacit, the implicit values is what helps us survive. We rest on those
values to keep us going. Gaza is a war zone where many people die in the
frequent Israeli troops’ incursions, and other waves of violence. People lose sons
or wives or husbands, a major part of my role is to show presence at the eulogy
and condolence gatherings. It is important, I give people support in sad moments,
and they give me back more commitment to education goals”.

He further explains

“Attending the mourning gatherings and presenting condolences is extremely important, I
do that even if the dead or his relatives belong to a faction that I’m not happy
with. Before interviewing me I guess you gathered as much information about me
as you could. I’m independent, and have never been afﬁliated to any political
faction, but I have my own views/ biases about the ideologies of other factions.

93

Nevertheless, I don’t declare my views, and when there is a death, I have to pay
condolences and show support. You have seen the job description; the real
everyday tasks are not mentioned at all in that description.”
Superintendent Tiger has also highlighted that part of his popularity is attributed to his
role as a psycho- therapist. Therefore, he listens to people, empathizes with them,
encourages, and enables them to gain resilience and high morale. He says that the human
side and the human relations is what have maintained education so far. Mr. Tiger puts
that as follows:

“It is not the rules and regulations of the system that sustained education. Education was
sustained not by me or by my staff in the education ofﬁce. As an oppressed
nation, Palestinians highly consider education. To tell you the truth, it is ingrained
in our social and cultural system. Education has survived because of a national
collective conscious that maintaining education is maintaining life. That
conscious has basically rested on collective feelings of injustice imposed on
Palestinians. The same consciousness has also rested on a sophisticated web of
human relations. I can say that in this community people know almost everything
about each other, and they identify with each other, either for love or otherwise.
Social ties are there and will continue to be strong as a result of a uniﬁed
historical, religious, and social identity”

Superintendent Tiger’s Leadership Practice:

Community and relationship building is a major function, that Mr. Tiger
performs. He exerts efforts to know and understand people at the district, schools, and in
the community at both personal and professional levels. Similarly, he tries to reach out to
others beyond school population. He relates to parents, business groups, NGOs, UNICEF,
UNESCO, local national teams, in addition to the spiritual leaders of political factions.
He actually resorts to those leaders, when ﬁeld managers are unable to resolve certain

issues.

In his role as a pastor, he attends the mourning and condolence councils to

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provide emotional support. So he listens, empathizes, provides counseling, and
encouragement to help people recover from continuous frustrations and ﬁequent shocks.
Narrating what happened on one of the most horriﬁc days he experienced,

He states:

“It was a Tuesday noon time on a late march morning. Everything looked quiet; I was on
my way to visit a school when a war missile from an Israeli aircraft rocked a
nearby place killing a number of civilians. Like usual, those missiles miss their
target, thereby innocent people are killed. In no time a huge crowd of people
gathered and ambulances arrived to the place. The scene was horriﬁc, ponds of
blood, human bodies were torn down and scattered. That dreadful scene was
beyond description. Though I have witnessed many similar events before, this
time, the size of the shock was devastating. Fifteen minutes later, another aircraft
was ﬂying over; some calls were heard asking people to disperse. In vain, no one
moved. The aircraft was getting ready to strike again and more calls were made
for people to disperse, again with no response. At that time the aircraft has left.
Reading Ha’aretz, the Israeli ofﬁcial newspaper on the next day, it stated that a
number of Israeli air pilots have protested against the military commands, and that
they are not going to carry out air raids over Gaza. Reading that has forced my
tears out. That was heartrending time for me”.

Similar to other superintendents, he also attends the familial arbitration and reconciliation
councils to ensure that conﬂicts do not plague schools or hinder schooling operations

particularly after the victory of Hamas in the last legislative elections in March 2006.

95

 

In Hebron
The children starting their day going to school to be faced with a
checkpoint imposed by the Israeli soldiers.

96

 

The children try to challenge the soldiers and pass the checkpoint
even younger ones try as well.

97

 

School children try hard to pass the checkpoint to get to school

98

 

More clashes between teachers/ students and Israeli soldiers

99

 

They end up having their classes in the street by the checkpoint

100

 

Children end up studying in the street inside the old city of Hebron

101

CHAPTER FIVE
AN ANALYTICAL DISCUSSION

Introduction

 

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the nature of the education
superintendent’s role and leadership approach in the unstable West Bank and Gaza
context. To be more speciﬁc I formulated the following research questions:

0 How does the current situation impact a superintendent’s responsibilities and
functions? What is the nature of a superintendent’s role? What kind of functions
does a superintendent perform?

0 What is his perception of the role, and leadership approach, what assumptions and
beliefs underlie such approach?

0 How does a superintendent practice leadership, and what kind of leadership
approach does he demonstrate?

To answer these questions, I reviewed the literature in three major areas. Those were

leadership, superintendency roles, and education in emergencies.
Analyzing the case studies, examining the data, and using the theoretical framework
which included particularly Bolman and Deal, 2003; Burns, 1987; Feidler, 1967; Schein,
1992; and Sergiovanni, 1992, 2005, have enriched my thinking in issues of leadership
and management.

Similarly, Bjork, 2005; Cuban, 1998, Johnston, 1996; Kowalski, 1999 and others
have provided me with a framework to study superintendency roles. Regarding issues

related to survival and sustainability of education in unstable contexts, Davies, 2004 and

102

a few reports from the international organizations like the UNICEF, UNESCO, and IIEP
have expanded my understanding of strategies and mechanisms that may be helpful in
sustaining education in volatile environments.

In this chapter, I will discuss the roles that superintendents in the West Bank and
Gaza perform, leadership and management issues, the in-use leadership paradigm, the
nature of the role, comparison of roles to US superintendency roles, conclusions, and

ﬁnally my own reﬂections on the whole study and research journey.

Roles of Palestinian Education Superintendents

A summary of a job description of a superintendent in the West Bank and Gaza
states that an education superintendent should provide a vision of where the school
system is heading, communicate the purpose and mission of schooling, keep the
organization moving toward its mission, and ensure that all administrative functions are
designed in a manner that maintains a focus on teaching and learning. A superintendent is
also expected to participate in the formulation of policies regarding the implementation
guidelines of agreed upon projects and plans.

This research has shown that Palestinian superintendents not only ﬁrlﬁll the
functions suggested above, but in fact, have many more responsibilities which suggest a
more complex job description.

To gain an understanding of perceptions and roles that those superintendents
perform, ﬁgure (1) provides a view of how their perceptions combine with the

surrounding environment to generate a set of roles in practice.

103

 

Perceptions and Roles in Practice

 

 

 

 
   
  
    
  
 

Political

 

ISRAELI OCCUPATIONAL
PRESSURES
LACK OF RESOURCES

   

  
  

  
 

KNOWLEDBE

WORLDVIEW
SKILLS
VIEW OF SCHOOLING

 
  
      
 

 
  
  
 

PUBLIC EXPECTATIONS

 

ACCOUNTABILITY

 
 
 
 

 

VIEW OF ORGANIZATION

     

    
   
 

 
 

view or inm Uncontrollable
VALUESSlrpermtendant Pressures Historical

    
 

  
 

BELIEFS
SOCIAL
BACKGROUND

  
 

CO N FLICTI NB STAKEHOLDERS
AGENDAS

    
       
    

V32 Hawlﬁddwh‘iw

  
 

FRACTIONAL PARTISAN
CONFLICTS

     
 

Geographical

HEAVALS

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. Roles in Practice
Perceptions
. . 1. Peace Mediator
1. Veteran Warrior 11] a 2_ Gap Closer
mine ﬁeld _ . 3. Handler of paradoxes
2. Emergency doctor In ﬁgure 1 4, Emergency manager
an ambulance 5. Psychotherapist
3. Pastor . 6, Communit Builder
4. Captain of the Ship

104

The narrative that follows describes the roles and responsibilities of Palestinian

superintendents that surfaced in this study. There are 15 roles.

Vision provider:

 

Informant superintendents have conﬁrmed that they have had their own
organizational visions at the start of their job assignment, but emphasized that their
visions alone would not have been sufﬁcient to inform district policy. Hence, they
negotiated their personal vision with others to build a collective vision for sustainability.
Working closely with district emergency committees, they also determined the mission of
the district and communicated it to all educational staff in the district and schools. By
negotiating the vision and mission with others, they deﬁned together where the school
system was going and developed the goals, priorities, and a framework of strategies to
make that happen.

Five superintendents provided inspiration for staff in the education sector,
through their recurring presence in the ﬁeld, whether in schools, classes, or with school
parent committees. My interviews and discussions with teachers and school principals in
the districts where superintendents were research participants have clearly indicated that
they were perceived as godfathers of the education sector. They served as role models,
by exemplifying high standards of performance, and consequently inspired other people
to follow their example. Those superintendents were also seen as risk takers. On various
occasions, they were out in the streets in highly volatile areas, where their lives were

endangered as was the case in Hebron, Bethlehem and Gaza. On several occasions, they

105

worked in classes as substitutes for classroom teachers, or took the role of a facilitator in
school principals’ professional development (PD) programs. Those symbolic and
concrete actions were meant to communicate the message that both teaching and learning

have high priority.

Manager:

A3 a manager, a school superintendent is responsible for monitoring the
performance of the educational system and making administrative decisions about human
and nonhuman resources. In coordination with the central population statistics, he ensures
that all school age children are enrolled in school. Access to schools is made possible by
maintaining the infrastructure, including school buildings and, a qualiﬁed pool of
teachers and personnel. These are the responsibilities of the superintendent as well.
Likewise, a superintendent is the guardian of equity and equality. He must provide
facilities particularly for remote schools and to less privileged students. This requires that
schools in remote areas get equal “opportunities” in terms of human and non-human
resources.

A superintendent also participates in designing and revising budget plans based
on demographics, policies and goals. Therefore, he studies and revises school stafﬁng
conﬁgurations based on allocated budgets and forecasted needs, and he tries to ﬁnd ways
to accommodate those needs within budget allocations. Complimentary functions the
superintendent must perform are the monitoring, appraisal and evaluation processes at
macro levels. Following up and overseeing the stafﬁng processes at both school and

district levels are other managerial responsibilities required of superintendents.

106

Decision taker:

Superintendents also claim responsibility for all decisions made at other levels in
the organization. In fact, they ratify decisions made by the second chain of command,
whether those decisions are made by school principals, district level committees or
school committees. A superintendent approves decisions by signing ofﬁcial letters, and
ensuring that any decision is made in conformity with established policy. Any decision
taken has serious implications at various levels. For example, when a teacher is moved
from one school to another, a superintendent is accountable for that action because he
ratiﬁes the committee’s decision and signs the ofﬁcial letter. Although, a superintendent
may not know that teacher, or he may not have had any previous encounter with him,
nonetheless once a superintendent has approved the decision, he is accountable for it.
Thus and similar situations to the one described above place the superintendent in

positions where he frequently receives blame and criticism.

Gap closer:

A superintendent in the research context also takes on the role of a gap closer
between schools and the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MOEHE). In this
role, he endeavors to foster linkages between people at policy making levels, and those at
policy implementation levels, by closing the gap between those who are seen as the
dwellers of the ivory towers and the street bureaucrats (Lipskey, 1983). A critical task he
must perform is representing principals, teachers, and other school staff at the ministry of

education (MOEHE), in order to protect their rights as employees in bureaucratic

107

organizations in an unstable context. Similarly, a superintendent has to represent the
Ministry of Education and Higher Education in social and ofﬁcial assemblies in the
district where he is serving, in order to enhance mutual dialogue and common
understanding between the ministry and people at schools and in classrooms. In this
capacity, he also has to supervise the implementation of central mandates and regulations.
The superintendent has to defend MOEHE policies; in fact district ofﬁces receive
instructions, regulations and mandates from the ministry. In turn, they redirect those
policies or programs to schools. Therefore, part of a superintendent’s job is marketing
those mandates and policies, and supporting their implementation while remaining within

the scope of his job description.

Instructional:

Three of the superintendents conﬁrmed that they purposely modeled practices
that demonstrate their beliefs about the signiﬁcance of professional teaching and learning.
With other school principals they attended leadership training sessions as learners with a
particular emphasis on, for example, improving active listening skills. Actually, those
three superintendents were perceived as lead learners by district staff and building
principals. Other two superintendents have asserted that they encouraged teachers and
principals to be aware of the outcomes of educational research at the classroom level.
They had also allocated some funding to create facilities and teaching aids for supporting
science and math instruction. Where possible they also allocated funding for encouraging

research at the classroom level particularly for science and math teachers.

108

At the macro level, a superintendent supervises the implementation and follows-
up on educational initiatives. Some superintendents have participated in the formulation
of instructional policies like the Integrative Curricula, or the Master Basic Elementary
School Teacher. The latter program, for example, was designed to improve instructional
quality, by requiring that one or two teachers teach all basic curricular subjects to grades
1-3. In most of the districts, a superintendent, when possible, takes a leading role in the
professional development (PD) sessions of teachers and administrators, and also in

leadership training pro grams.

Handler ofﬁparadoxes:

Superintendency is full of incompatible situations and dilemmas especially in an
unstable context. For example, resources and public expectations are always mismatched;
authority and accountability are also mismatched. Superintendents are also expected to
support their staff as well as evaluate them, thus raising issues that may not be easily
resolved in practice. Similarly, curricula specialists and parents may think that because a
superintendent has been a good teacher, then he will ensure that class sizes do not
multiply. On the other side, the MOEHE and district ﬁnance people in order to save
money may want to increase class size. These different interest groups pose real
challenges and raise incompatible expectations. The way a superintendent manages those
paradoxes makes the difference between his success and failure. Informant
superintendents knew that there are no best answers, but a lot of dilemmas. In this case,
superintendents had to work with others to ﬁnd as much balance as possible and to accept

the limits of their knowledge and act accordingly. They were in certain situations able to

109

raise public awareness, and involve the stakeholders in collecting funds for increasing the

number of schools and classes in crowded areas.

Emergency manager:

 

Superintendents are expected to manage emergencies, and ﬁnd miraculous
solutions for extremely difﬁcult problems like stone throwing at IDF troops, and school
closures. A superintendent is also responsible for the protection of schools, school staff,
and students. Consequently, he has to ensure that all school operations occur in a manner
where teacher and student safety is a ﬁrst priority. In order to provide maximum safety
for students and teachers, a superintendent coordinates with Israeli authorities through the
District Coordination Ofﬁce (DCO), or he may contact other bodies like Israeli peace
activists to help impede Israeli settlers’ provocations, or incursions into heavily populated
areas. A superintendent also coordinates with the IDF ofﬁcials to accelerate the issuing of
passing permits for staff, district teachers, and principals whose schools exist inside the
separation wall which is the case in some schools in Qalqilya, and Jerusalem suburbs.
The hurdles a superintendent must overcome can be demonstrated by the permit
application process. For example, 20 permit applications may sent to the Israeli ofﬁcer in
charge of issuing permits, and only 3-5 people will be approved, which means that many
more attempts will have to be made to obtain those passing permits.

In this capacity as emergency manager, a superintendent might also take the role
of a peace mediator between IDF troops and students. Very frequently, superintendents

visit schools located in volatile areas to support building principals and teachers, and to

110

ensure that Israeli troops move away from school windows, gates, entrances, and streets
mostly used by students.

A superintendent also leads emergency committees at the district level. The
emergency district committee supervises and coordinates the plans of school emergency
committees. The superintendent follows up on the progress and implementation of the
emergency plans particularly because he has the ﬁnal responsibility for injured students,
detainee students, school closures, and school interruptions. Similarly, he oversees what
each school does to make up for lost days, and how they cover for the syllabi that were
not completed in ofﬁcial classrooms, as well as the kind of tactics and strategies that each
school applies to ensure the safety of teachers and students.

Under the same umbrella, a superintendent monitors ﬁeld reports, and therefore
makes ﬁeld visits, in order to help him gain a realistic understanding of what really goes
on. Such understanding can help him diagnose the weaknesses and the strengths of
policies and practices and build on those to formulate reasonable decisions.

Closely tied to emergency management, is the need to have a comprehensive
understanding of the political makeup of the district and political upheavals in the area.
Thus, superintendents try to gain a deep understanding of various political ideologies,
political discrepancies, commonalities, conﬂicts, and pressures, in order to neutralize the
education system and deter the involvement of teachers and students in political acts that
may lead to the interruption of school operations. This requires them to have a good
relationship with various stakeholders including those who are in leading positions of

various political bodies. As a result, superintendents have mastered a set of political

lll

skills including diplomacy, foresight, astuteness, and negotiation in addition to social and

emotional skills.

Community builder:

A major goal that informant superintendents have reached for is developing
people’s commitment to district goals. The basic assumption of superintendents is that
schools are open systems that affect and are affected by their surroundings. Therefore,
school systems must be partners with other care giving associations and civil
organizations. Because of the need for partnership, a major role for superintendents in
this research context was to build formal and informal communities to support the school
system. The emphasis was placed on establishing relationships both inside and outside
the system. They also encouraged communication lines in various directions, and
enhanced the existing communication patterns.

Moreover, those superintendents have always tried to identify common
denominators between opponents, or conﬂicting ideologies, so as to bring about mutual
understanding among them and ultimately build a shared purpose. In doing so,
superintendents placed emphasis on maintaining a positive atmosphere, built norms of
mutual obligation, created synergy, and exploited all sources of social capital, and
relational trust (Bryk & Schneider, 2003), where each side did its best to contribute to
the main goals, and serve collective purposes.

In this respect, school teachers for example were encouraged to visit each other in
classrooms, share and review each others’ instructional portfolios. This mutual sharing

makes it possible for teachers to take over for one another, or combine classes when

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things go wrong, or when any of the teachers is unable to arrive at his work place. What
applies to teachers also applies to school principals in compound clusters. Those
principals talk to each other about their concerns and dilemmas, and share information
on a daily basis, or their communication may be minute by minute especially when
things become more volatile. Under the same umbrella, superintendents encourage
cooperation between all concerned stakeholders and individuals in order to reduce the

effects of isolation and enhance communal strength.

Capacity builder:

 

Informant superintendents develop individuals as leaders in their efforts to work
toward the goals of the district, particularly those people who have a sense of
commitment, collaboration, and a sense of shared mission. The dominant belief is that
people become leaders while leading and learning together at informal or formal
professional gatherings. Other forms of capacity building are consulting, power sharing,
and involving people particularly those who affect, or are affected by the would-be
decisions. Similarly, research participant superintendents tried to help people at the
district level as well as building principals learn how to make decisions based on Veriﬁed
data, and how to use such data to support decisions. Additionally, they tried to challenge
people’s beliefs and assumptions, and to teach them how to use multiple perspectives
when they approach an issue, so as to see things more clearly. As much as possible, a
superintendent attempted to involve those personnel in assessing, planning, supervising,
implementing, and evaluating all related processes. Before a program is adopted there

must be assurance that the program is designed in a manner relevant to the community it

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is intended to serve, and that such program is based on the outcomes of survey results,

and responsive to the needs of targeted people.

Peace mediator:

 

Surprisingly this study has revealed that a superintendent usually mediates
between conﬂicting parties. On many occasions, superintendents participated in the
coordination and reconciliation between conﬂicting factions, or familial conﬂicts
particularly when conﬂicting parties have children at the same school. Such situations
have become more frequent especially in Gaza since January 2006, when Hamas won
over Fattah in the legislative elections (both Hamas & Fattah are major political parties in
Palestine). Therefore, superintendents frequently attend peace making sessions with other
key players, like the mayor, heads of clans, business group representatives, and other
dignitaries. They take key roles in the discussions and arbitrations applying the norms
and regulations of clannish compromise councils. Superintendents also follow up on the
implementation of reconciliation processes inside schools to make sure that the children
of those families do not engage in any form of hostilities, and to ensure a positive school
climate. In some cases, a superintendent has taken the role of investigator to interrogate
and gather evidence of what really happened on certain occasions. Due to a lack of
ﬁnancial resources, they had to take such roles in order to help peace mediation and

reconciliation efforts move forward and get to the right decision.

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Provider of moral support:

In one way or another, a superintendent takes a minister’s role, as he shepherds
the education of other people’s children. Six of the seven superintendents in the study
have highlighted a pastoral role as one of the major roles that they perform. They
conﬁrmed that they provide counseling and emotional support, try to listen to the people
whenever needed, as well as make home visits. They will also offer condolences to the
relatives of people who have died, regardless of which party those people belong to. In
that context, when district staff, principals, teachers and other peOple lose a cherished
relative like a husband, wife, daughter, or son, they expect emotional support from others
and basically from the superintendent. Offering moral support is a priority on a
superintendent’s agenda. On some occasions, they have to function as psychiatric
therapists. On mourning occasions, they provide solace and condolences to saddened
staffs members. Hence, a superintendent needs to have a repertoire of emotional

intelligence skills including active listening, sympathy, empathy, and compassion.

Buffering agent:

Extending their efforts to sustain the education system, superintendents also take
the role of buffering agents. They do this to keep schools away from political tensions.
For example, superintendents try to control newsletters, ﬂyers, communiqués that handle
issues in a biased manner. On many occasions they have censored certain communiqués
so as to reduce frustration and turmoil in some school clusters like Hebron, Nablus and

Gaza. A major priority for Palestinian superintendents is to keep students from being

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involved in partisan politics, or in activities against Israeli troops like throwing stones, or

any other actions that might hinder students’ academic achievement.

Public relations manager:

As a public relations manager, a superintendent supervises external relations with
non-education sector representatives at the national level - organizations like the Red
Crescent - and social and Zakat committees at the local level, in addition to the teachers’
union . Similarly, education superintendents have key roles in coordinating and
facilitating communication between the education sector and other sectors including
international organizations like the UNICEF, UNESCO, and the Red Cross. In regard to
these organizations, superintendents seek ways to strengthen more equitable relationships
through which both local and international partners beneﬁt. For example, four of the
superintendents have mentioned that they are enthusiastic about cultural exchanges with
donor organizations and countries such as Norway, Japan, United Kingdom, and France.
On the other hand, they encourage local bodies and schools to deepen partnerships with
them as well as to strengthen accountability mechanisms. In sum, identifying local and
international key players and involving them in partnerships with the education sector is a

major role of superintendents

Political:
Superintendents in this study have declared that they always try to work with
teams and build coalitions, so that people who are directly affected by some decisions

feel good about them, have a sense of ownership regarding those decisions, and

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subsequently defend those decisions. Outside the organization, superintendents keep very
strong relationships with the teachers union. This particular kind of partnership has
helped in motivating teachers and kept them going to schools through difﬁcult times. For
example, teachers remained working in the West Bank and Gaza even when they were
not paid salaries for about 7 months after the victory of Hamas in the legislative elections
of January 2006.

At another level, 5 of the 7 superintendents admitted that they have never voted
for partisan political factions, and that they are not afﬁliated with any political partisan
groups. For them, however that does not mean that they are not involved in political life.
On the contrary, politics is all around them; hence they have to have political clout. They
gain that through supporting the aspirations of people at the grassroots level. For
example, they admitted that they marched in the streets against the creation of the
separation wall which resulted in more interruptions of school operations, like the case in
Qalqilya, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem suburbs. They have also carried signs in
demonstrations against the US war in Iraq, ignoring the fact that they are not allowed to

participate in such activities as stated by the MOEHE regulations.

Spokesman and media inﬂuencer:

Superintendents engage the public and encourage broader discussions to enhance
respect and mutual trust between school staff and parents. Superintendents also talk to the
media when things go wrong, to explain the size and nature of the problem, and ensure
that negative repercussions are not multiplied, and precautions are considered. In this

role, they clarify misconceptions in order to help the public gain a better understanding of

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the issues under consideration. Therefore, they participate in panels and debates on TV,
and lead open discussions about the purpose of schooling, how to improve schooling
service, the role of school compared to other social institutions, the type of notions and
attitudes students acquire, how to deal with students’ trauma, how to deter students from
participating in activities causing school interruptions like stoning Israeli troop vehicles.

However, some superintendents think that the press is self serving. Sometimes,
they felt used by the press. One superintendent mentioned that he will never forget when
a reporter came to him with a microphone right in front of his face. Exhausted and
frustrated, that superintendent couldn’t respond for awhile, nevertheless the reporter kept
the camera on, causing further criticism. Despite all of that, a superintendent is a very
important public ﬁgure who has truthful stories relate about schooling operations because
he follows up minute by minute on what goes on both at schools and in surrounding

environments.

Summm:

Studying what 7 education superintendents in Palestine do has shown that they
perform 15 types of major functions. One of those is categorized as managerial, which is
supervising ﬁnancial and personnel affairs. There are 6 functions that could be
categorized as leadership, those include: community builder, vision provider, buffering
agent, provider of moral support, handler of paradoxes, and media inﬂuencer. The
remaining 8 functions are categorized as a mix of both leadership and management, those
include: decision taker, gap closer, emergency manager, capacity builder, peace mediator,

public relations manager, political, and instructional.

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Considering that instability and unpredictability are major features of the research
context, it is safe to say that bureaucratization on its own is insufﬁcient to maintain the
sustainability of the education system under these circumstances neither it is adequate to
respond to the needs of people in the educational organization. This is so because
bureaucratic systems are based on predictable plans and clear lines of specialization,
work divisions, and standardization none of which can easily be maintained under
unstable conditions. This is why issues of leadership and management are critical to
successful outcomes in that education system. Hence, leadership and management issues
dominate the whole discussion. Next, I will discuss these two major concepts: leadership

and management and ways they apply to the research context.

Leadership and management

The central role of a leader involves developing followers, empowering them,
and creating a learning culture, while the role of a manager places primary emphasis on
efﬁciency, control and directing with a pre-determined set of rules and regulations. Being
part of a bureaucratic organization in a “namely” centralized system compels Palestinian
superintendents to conform to mandates and rules. However, superintendents in the
research context have used those mandates and regulations very sparingly, i.e., as a
general framework. Those superintendents have conﬁrmed that their decisions were
informed by mandates and conformed to the essence and spirit of the laws, but that they
did not necessarily follow the letter of the law. For example, certain tactical decisions
taken during the emergency would be considered unacceptable and unwise if applied

under normal conditions. Although education superintendents, in the research context, do

119

not consider themselves CEOs, however they try to make the best of the relationship
between management and leadership. (Johnson, 1996)

Most importantly, research participants believe that bureaucratic norms- chain of
command directives, set expectations and ﬁxed courses of action- do not ﬁt well in an
unstable context. Due to the unpredictability of emergency contexts, and a lack of
authority to rely on as is normally provided by positional power (being a superintendent),
superintendents had to depend on cultural and social bonds to maintain order and control.

Social and cultural bonds are formed by those who share national common
purposes, collective goals, beliefs, and exalted meanings. Lacking authority based on
positional power participant superintendents in that context developed moral authority
and informal power derived from those bonds. Thus they became team members and
team builders rather than heads of bureaucratic hierarchies. To put it differently, the
informant superintendents emphasized the notion of giving up positional authority
(located in superintendency) to gain inﬂuence and popularity (located in leadership), an
idea strongly voiced by various scholars including (Green, 2002; Sergiovanni, 2005).

Rather than controlling and commanding, participant superintendents have relied
on helping, engaging, facilitating and basically involving. The critical learning here is
that in order to be successful in an emergency context, people at the implementation
levels need to be given more discretion and freedom to do what they can do as allowed
by the situation. Having authority to act on their own will help building principals and
others gain capacity and conﬁdence. As a result they are in a better position to claim
ownership and be accountable for any course of action they take. In practice, a

superintendent and his district staff would never be able to entirely monitor what goes on

120

at each site, whether at schools or in classrooms, particularly when the average number of
schools per district is no less than 80, in some districts it is more than 200 schools. The
second major ﬁnding here is that sharing responsibility is a preliminary step towards
distributing leadership, which can yield fruitful outcomes for the sustainability of the
organization.

Additionally, informant superintendents have used the symbolic meaning of
education to capitalize support for the education system, through creating partnerships,
and reaching out to retired professionals, business groups, and representatives of political
factions, civil organizations and local public education committees. In that context, those
superintendents lead through emphasizing a common purpose, sharing power, and
engaging members of the education organizations, and community.

Not only were superintendents able to collaborate with “important others” but
they have been successful in inﬂuencing them. The minimum degree of inﬂuence was
helping others to understand the complexities of the context, and subsequently turn them
into the support team. Those important others included the teachers union, parents’
councils, and civic organizations, representatives of political factions, and foremost
school principals and teachers. More on this will be clariﬁed in the leadership paradigm
which follows next.

Leadership Paradigm

In this study, I found out that the informant superintendents’ leadership
comprises major components. Those are; a common purpose, knowledge and skills,

though most importantly are beliefs and values. Those components have generated

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certain strategies that were employed during emergency. From here on, I will explain

each of these components.

Pumose:

Education superintendents, in the research context, perceive their role as
community builders, who get the work done through creating a common purpose and
persuading others that such purpose is very dear to patriotic Palestinians. Those who
long for getting rid of Israeli occupation, and dream of an independent free state, where
education is a major capital for future generations, (Abu Lughud, 1996). This purpose is
based on social, religious and personal beliefs, i.e., their views of the world. Those beliefs
are also entrenched in a number of personal values including, uprightness, passion, trust,
piety, fratemity, service, commitment, bravery, risk taking, empathy, patience, and
hopefulness. The blend of values, beliefs and common purpose are demonstrated in a
number of strategies which proved to be very helpﬁrl in sustaining education in that

conﬂict torn context as shown in (ﬁgure 2, Leadership Paradigm).

122

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Next is an explanation of the other components of other components of the leadership
paradigm.
1.3M;
Political belief:

There is a strong belief among Palestinians including participant superintendents
that “might does not make things right”, which indicates that although the Israelis are in a
more powerful position, this does not make the occupation of the Palestinian lands as a
correct act. For Palestinian superintendents, sustaining education, and equipping
Palestinian children with knowledge and skills is a way of empowering them. In turn, this
will hopefully lead to reducing the disequilibrium between the powerful and the
powerless, and subsequently sabotages the intentions of the occupiers and strengthens the
occupied. Education superintendents also believe that if they were born in a different part

of the world, superintendency would then be a less challenging mission.

Religious belief:

 

Two superintendents think of their role as a priest who has made a vow to serve
his people, and therefore try hard to perform miracles and heal the sick. One
superintendent asserted his belief that superintendency is a calling that he was summoned
to. Others too have mentioned that it is like a sacred covenant, while still others said that
it is a colossal undertaking embedded in a heavy legacy, which was created by historical
conditions and international injustice imposed on Palestinians

In general they believe that it is their providence to come to the world during this

turbulent phase of history. In conformity with God’s willing, they said they have to

124

accept responsibility, and act professionally. Those superintendents have a strong belief
in life after death, when people will be penalized for their bad actions and rewarded for
good deeds. In this sense those people are considered to be pious. In that context, piety
does not mean to isolate one’s self to worship God. Instead piety means socializing,
working and making good deeds, in order to please God. Though the salaries that
superintendents are paid are very minimal compared to the many challenging tasks they

have to accomplish, but the moralistic rewards are invaluable.

Social Belief:

They believed that education is a social stabilizer and gap closer. Likewise,
schooling exists to enhance equity, and provide equal opportunities for all children
regardless of who they are, and which social class they belong to. Such belief is based on
values of civility, fair mindedness, and commitment to public welfare.

Personal Belief:

On the personal level, participant superintendents see their role as a spiritual
commitment, by which they are accountable for shepherding the education of other
people’s children, and help them shape their lives. For them, the purpose of school is to
develop a holistic character, so that a child will become a good citizen of his country and
a world citizen as well. They also believe that what makes them powerful is their
commitment to national aims and aspirations. Superintendents conﬁrmed that this
commitment combined with integrity and uprightness is the secret of their power, rather
than afﬁliation to the clan or partisan political groups. In fact, all of the 7 superintendents

denied afﬁliation to any political faction. Six of the seven research participants

125

highlighted that they have a genuine passion to education and learning, and focus on what

they want the education service to achieve. This notion has also echoed in the discussions

with parents’ council members, school principals, and teachers.

Survival and Sustainability Strategies

Visibility and communication:

 

Visibility is an important point that enables a superintendent become aware of
what is going on, through attending at the spot and try to be in control (Bolman & Deal,
2003, Sinclair, 2002; Payne, 1998). That would always let the people at the receiving end
feel protected. Complimentary to this is opening all communication channels.
Superintendents were able to communicate almost everything in exceptionally very short
time without the use of internet or fax machines, and may be very few cell phones or
none. They had the schools divided into geographic clusters, and in each cluster, there
were local coordinators.

In that place a superintendent had to have very good assessment and evaluation
skills to decide on alternative scenarios of intervention and support. Being good assessors
has helped the superintendents to minimize potential risks and maximize positive aspects
and potential gains. Analysis of the factors that led to the crises, and identifying
supportive elements, or stumbling forces is another major strategy. These also included
the monitoring and follow up of various kinds of crises to draw lessons on how to make
the best of each situation, and how to minimize negative impact and how to use the crises

as a change catalyst and ﬁnally improve the status quo.

126

Collaboration and Partnerships:

 

Informant superintendents have used the symbolic meaning of education to
capitalize support for the education system, through creating partnerships, and reaching
out to retired professionals, representatives of political factions, business groups, civil
society organizations and local public education committees. In that context, those
superintendents lead through emphasizing a common purpose, sharing power, and
engaging members of the education organizations, and community, (Davies, 2003;
Sinclair, 2002; Payne, 1998)

Not only were superintendents able to collaborate with “important others” but
they have succeeded to inﬂuence them. The minimum degree of inﬂuence was helping
others to understand the complexities of the context, and subsequently turn them into the
support team. Those important others included the teachers’ union, parents’ council, civic
society organizations, representatives of political factions, and foremost school principals
and teachers. In general, informant superintendents were largely considered as
professional lobbyists and grassroots activists

As supportive followers, principals and teachers continued working during the
time when they were not paid their salaries for 7 months in 2006. Another indicator is the
increased numbers of volunteers in emergencies. Those volunteers included for example
retired professionals, unemployed university graduates, and members of public local

committees.

127

Preparedness and proactive emergency planning:

 

The Webster dictionary deﬁnes preparedness as “a set of decisions to be made,
and procedures to apply”. In the research context, preparedness refers to the state of being
ready and expecting the worst to happen. To be prepared, superintendents and their
teams specify the incoming information, its type, its resources, and its timing.
Information has to be screened through triangulation procedures. This should be followed
by coordinating and communicating the information ﬂow to highlight the issues that
managerially affect the crises. Coordination also requires deﬁning and identifying the
type of interventions, or any type of support (IIEP, 2002; Bird, 2003, Davies, 2004).
Based on the analysis of the information, a superintendent depends on a very critical tool
which is the macro emergency plan. This includes all schools’ emergency plans. Those
plans are a way of showing preparedness, and being proactive.

Emergency plans offer various alternatives so as to better respond to the
emergency, and to reorganize inputs, and human resources to ensure that no one party
remains completely deprived, neither absolutely privileged. For example district staffs,
school teachers are redeployed particularly when some teachers are unable to arrive to
schools. Therefore, other teachers who had arrived will take over, and combine classes. If
no teachers have arrived, brilliant students are given the opportunity to lead classes. In
case those students do not show willingness to do so, the nearest retired professionals are
urgently informed to attend and take over. Usually, those retired professionals anive in
no time.

Furthermore, if a closure or curfew is imposed, then local TV stations will start

transmitting curricular lessons led by professional teachers. Additionally, the whole

128

curricula lessons particularly in math and science are provided on CD3. However, there
are some times when there is an electricity blackout, therefore students, living in the
same quarter, come together in small groups to talk about what each has read. Those
groups are usually supervised by local public committees. In this regard ﬂexibility and

openness are critical keys, (Obura, 2003).

The nature of the role

Due to the variety of expectations laid on superintendency, a Palestinian
superintendent has a very complex role since he has to deal with many societal groups
and various political factions, in addition to the people in schools, student families,
district staff, and international agencies. The complexities of the role, (Huston, 2001) and
the complexities of the context cause few people to consider becoming superintendents.
Additionally, the role is not neatly packaged, neither coherent, and that lack of
cohesiveness is a basic feature, (Cuban, 1988; Peterson & Barnett, 2005).

The role is also shaped by pressures outside the education system. Therefore,
superintendents should be fully aware of those pressures. Similarly, they need knowledge
of history, sociology, psychology, and clan demographics. So far, Palestinian
superintendents have relied on their social capital, community linkages, and relational
trust (Bryk & Schneider, 2002) to make sense of the superintendency role in a volatile
environment.

Different from the American context, the family and clan are still strong social
institutions that people rely on and feature prominently in the social psychology of that

research context. Another essential part of the social capital is the strong community

129

links. Those links facilitate the development of reciprocal role relationships leading to
relational trust with its consequent mutual commitments.

There is a job description; however it is a general framework and it is broad. It
states everything in general terms. A quick look at the document is deceptive for the
actual functions are quite different than those stated. Informant superintendents said they
never looked at the document to see what they were supposed to do, because a novice
superintendent can do what is listed in the job description and fail miserably. For
example, if he plugs in responsibility A in socket A, and plugs responsibility B in socket
B, and C in C, that would then be incongruent. Superintendency functions are woven,
not parallel or linear, and are very complicated. To do a good job, superintendents should
weave together beliefs, values, skills and strategies to form a secure foundation of
leadership that sustains the people and the system. Otherwise, it would be like a lot of
unconnected threads that people tread on, as opposed to having them woven together into
a whole cloth.

Similarly, the available job description does not relate to authenticity, as it
requires a superintendent to perform incompatible activities, like improving students’
achievement, and ensuring that expenditures on teaching aids do not exceed certain
amounts of money. That document actually covers what a superintendent needs to do in
order to take care of the management issues like ﬁnance, budget plans, the personnel,
distribution of work and those kinds of things.

My point is that an accurate description of what a superintendent should do to
succeed at his job is not documented anywhere. Missing in the description are functions

such as developing relationships, building consensuses, adjusting to various personality

130

styles, trying to ﬁnd commonality amongst various groups to build a shared purpose, and
other leadership issues. Palestinian superintendents have highlighted that there is no way
a job description can articulate the real work done in the emergency context. The
document that they have to follow is adopted from two major sources; the Jordanian
ministry of education, and the Egyptian ministry of education. Though both countries
have myriad issues in common with Palestine, nevertheless Superintendency functions, in
the West Bank and Gaza are very different ﬁ'om the seemingly idealistic prescriptions for
societies like Jordan or Egypt where both enjoy a normal pace of life.

A major issue to consider in the job description of a superintendent is whether or
not schools and districts are loosely coupled organizations, (Carl Weick, 1967). Thus a
job description such as the one adopted from Jordan and Egypt would work well in an
organization which is very tightly coupled, but not be adequate in a loosely coupled
organization. On examination, organizational structures in Palestine are found to be
tightly coupled in terms of culture, and loosely coupled in terms of administration.
Additionally, elementary schools are more tightly coupled than high schools. Not
surprisingly, most of what Palestinian superintendents deal with comes from high and
middle schools. Almost 85 percent of problematic issues arise there. The organization is
more loosely coupled at those schools, than elementary ones, which makes schooling
operations less predictable.

Informant superintendents have also conﬁrmed that their previous conceptions of
the role, i.e., before taking the job, were different from what they found out in practice.

Moreover, that role constantly develops according to the context; hence it is continually

131

re-conceptualized, which implies a need for using a larger repertoire of skills, knowledge,
and further use of ﬂexible strategies to respond to the volatile context.

To survive in this role a superintendent needs knowledge of the political terrain,
because schooling is embedded in an historical, political, and economic context. Hence,
collaboration, building coalitions, and partnerships with all concerned stakeholders is key
to survival. The second major key is conceiving the role as a sacred covenant, where self
denial and moral obligations are the essence and spirit of that covenant, (AbuLughud,
1998; Sirgiovanni, 2005). As one research participant explained, “to be a superintendent
is like a lieutenant in a mine ﬁeld, who has to ﬁnd pathways and pave them for other
soldiers to follow and reach the target with the least possible loss”. This type of perilous
negotiation requires a very good knowledge of one’s locale, assessment and evaluation
capabilities, interpersonal skills, an ability to foresee and predict, and a willingness to

take risks.

Comparison to American Superintendency

Not only in the United States, but almost all over the world, education is
considered a social good and cultural capital, thus it is believed that all citizens have a a
right to receive the best education possible. Such belief has critical consequences for
public school administrators, a factor that makes their leadership and managerial tasks
more challenging than other types of administration.

US superintendents represent the district, and instructional issues are at the core
of what they represent. Hence, their major function is to ensure that the system is

focused on teaching and learning and that outcomes related to learning are what

132

everybody is working together to accomplish. Rather differently, in Palestine,
superintendents’ major aim is sustaining the school system, and maintaining the safety of
children and teachers. Within that context, instructional quality issues are inevitably not
the major priority. In the US, the schooling system is very diverse and complicated. To a
large extent US high schools are loosely coupled which again brings very challenging
responsibilities to superintendents especially in urban centers.

In the US, scholars differentiate between different sized districts and different
types of districts. It is easier to manage the operations in a smaller district than it is in an
urban district, or middle sized districts, (Bjork & Kowalski, 2005; Willis & Peterson
1992; Schumruch & Schumruch 1989; Kowalski 1995). In the US, there are a huge
number of laws and regulations and expectations that have to be met, accountability
issues, the NCLB, and other federal policies that require attention. Consequently,
superintendents have to do a lot of managing to ensure that the district is following the
expectations which come from the state, the federal government, the board, the local
school board or local community. Additionally, a superintendent’s role is closely
connected to the day-to-day management of the operations; some districts may have a
$20 million dollar budget, which by itself is a huge task to monitor. A real dilemma for
some US superintendents is downsizing. Often superintendents are expected to make
recommendations to their boards about stafﬁng, service cuts and school closures. To sum
up the superintendency role in the US is a heavily managerial role, (Kowalski, 1999;
Bjork 2005; Callahan 1966).

The superintendency in the US is also very political (Holdaway & Genge, 1995;

Jackson, 1995; Johnson, 1996). As is the case in Palestine, superintendents in US urban

133

districts, encounter various political problems. In those districts there are a lot of media
attention, and teachers unions, school boards. US superintendents are headed by
governing boards that impose competing demands and incompatible perspectives on how
a district should be organized and managed. Therefore, many scholars (Blumberg, 1985;
Kowalski, 1999) have mentioned that superintendents consider their boards as a front of
frequent strife. Not only the boards, but other educational stakeholders whether parents,
corporate leaders and religious ﬁgures pose unrealistic expectations on school
superintendents.

Trying to alleviate political pressures, consumes a big portion of a
superintendent’s time and energy. In my interviews with 3 US superintendents (one from
Queens/New York, and two from Michigan, in 2005), they all admitted that 25- 40 % of
their time was spent in handling political issues. Those issues included disagreements
with the school board, teachers union, business groups, the chamber of commerce, and
parents of students. One of those superintendents stated that “Some community members
would like certain kids to be more important than other kids, and so there is a notion that
someone should be unequal”.

In other terms, US superintendents in urban districts suffer from continuous
political distractions; so it seems that Bloomberg’s (1985), and Kowalski’s (1995)
comparison of managing a school district to ﬁre ﬁghting is still accurate. In this respect,
Palestinian and US urban districts superintendents have similar political roles,

notwithstanding that the kind of contextual politics are very distinct.

134

Conclusions

 

In spite of ending up with 7 informant superintendents as my focus sample, this
study has consolidated my understanding of superintendents’ roles, their leadership
conceptions and practices in unstable environments. In sum, the role is very complex, as
well as very political. In the peculiar context of the West Bank and Gaza, superintendents
put on different hats for different situations. In practice, almost all superintendents have
experienced 15 different roles. The major characteristic features of a superintendent’s
role in Palestine are diversity, complexity, and very political by nature. The range of
functions represents a wide spectrum that includes ﬁnances, budget planning to
community building, emergency management and peace mediation. Moreover, almost all
ﬁmctions that a superintendent performs require strong relationships with many stake
holders inside the education system and outside of it, which justiﬁes the political nature
of the job.

From another perspective, I see that there is no really deﬁnitive role, it is ﬂuid.
Superintendents’ leadership in that context is “radically context speciﬁc”, (Patricia Irvine,
in conversation). Such kind of leadership is outside the typical box of roles that
superintendents in Western education systems exercise. In those systems, there is an
organizational structure which dictates the superintendent’s moves.

In the research context, superintendents’ moves are predicated on what the next
morning brings, if for example, there are extended road blocks, and then the major
concern will be on ﬁnding some people on the other side of the road to go and teach in

classes, this is how radical it is.

135

In this context, there is no “normal” day, due to Israeli troops’ incursion inside
populated cities, school students stoning soldiers and settlers carrying M16, or soldiers
holding guns and preventing children from passing the checkpoints to go into schools,
sudden closures of whole cities, road blocks that make a 50 minute ride, consume half a
day, or disapproval of passage permits, which if issued may sometimes become invalid.

Therefore, superintendents have to make decisions without the possibility of
going through bureaucratic procedures, particularly because they need to respond to
whatever emergency arises. Consequently, they ﬁnd themselves struggling alone to make
things go in the best possible manner.

Although, there is a ministry of education to which Palestinian superintendents
refer to, nonetheless that ministry is also under the same pressures facing district ofﬁces.
In unstable contexts, central ministries as well as other parts of the system are debilitated.
To a large extent, there is a breakdown of the organizational structures due to the
conﬂict-ridden context, (Nicolai, 2002).

Therefore, superintendents in the West Bank and Gaza see themselves as lone
rangers without much support from the MOEHE, which seems to be as helpless as the
district ofﬁces during turbulent times. However, it should be highlighted that although, it
appears that superintendents operate as lone rangers, and subsequently, not constrained
by organizational bureaucratic regulations, superintendents still have multiple constraints
in their effort to make the education system operate given the volatile environment in that
conﬂict-ridden context.

In fact, superintendents report to the ministry on what happens during

emergencies. Similarly, they compete to get ﬁnancial resources to cover district ﬁnancial

136

 

plans. Additionally, when things seem to be relatively quiet, superintendents have to
defend the MOEHE mandates regarding educational reforms in part, because they were
assigned superintendency to represent the ministry at the district level and vice versa.
Therefore, those superintendents have to close the gaps between the policy formulation
level and policy implementation level regarding instructional issues.

The issue is that in times of turbulence, bureaucratic chain and regulations fall
apart, hence people facing the emergency have to make decisions on the spot given the
situation that exists at that moment. So, they have to make do with whatever is available.
For example education administrators including superintendents work 17 to 24 hours on
some days, and sleep in the ofﬁces, which is completely against the rules, if the situation
is a normal one. In other words, superintendents have to make do what the conditions
dictate. Ultimately, the circumstances dictate what the role is, not only on day-to-day
bases, but from hour to hour.

In a context where the emergency has become normalized, a leader has to step off
the plate to make it happen. Leaders are expected to come up with miraculous solutions,
and that is what leaders do. Sometimes they are reactive, and some times they are
proactive. Superintendents in that context always expect the worst to happen and
therefore, they have various scenarios from which to choose according to the type of
emergency that exists. They have become the real popular champions as they employ
“creative maladjustrnents” (Kohl, 1992). Such adjustments have become common place
in that context. Subsequently, superintendents formulate the policy that ﬁts the situation

and use different strokes for different folks. Hence, the type of leadership approach is

137

mainly situational, (Feidler, 1967), where the situation determines the type of response

and the kind of strategy to be used.

Reﬂections

In the West Bank where I grew up and worked, I have observed superintendents
for the last 15 years, and have found out that who ever was assigned superintendency
would be either strongly criticized or highly praised. A ﬁiend of mine put it simply as:
“Superintendency position can be a terrible nightmare or an intensely self rewarding
vocation”. Such discrepancy in people’s views regarding an education superintendent’
job has increased my curiosity about what it was that made the occupants of that position
either miserably fail, or greatly succeed. Feeling a need to know about leadership in
educational administration has encouraged me to make a turning point in my career and
become a scholar again.

Therefore, I came to Michigan State University, and enrolled in the EAD
program. Because the courses’ readings and class discussions were full of American
names and references, my ﬁrst impression was that those courses might be very irrelevant
to my scholarly needs. Shortly, after the ﬁrst few sessions, I felt relaxed to ﬁnd cut that
EAD courses tackle educational issues of a universal type like schooling purposes,
resistance to educational change, organizational dilemmas, leadership and management,
disconnect between policy makers and policy implementers, balance between structural
and cultural perspectives on human organizations, balancing the bureaucratic and human
relations approach in running organizations. In each class session, I was deeply reﬂecting

on how such content ﬁts in the unstable context where I come from. After each class, I

138

thought to my self: “well this has given me a deeper understanding of why we had that
quandary, why Mr. X or Mr. Y has behaved like that, what could have been done
differently. Each course has actually enabled me to use different lenses through which I
could see things from a broader perspective.

On the other side, coming to MSU, and being away from the turbulent context has
given me an opportunity to see the brighter side of the world. Similarly, I became more
relaxed and much more open minded. Likewise, I had more occasions to reﬂect, and to
become more empathetic, and consciously take the sides of “the different others”,
including other nationalities who exist in that part of the world.

Equipped and retooled with research methods, organizational analysis models,
knowledge about educational change, leadership and management approaches, I went
back to the West Bank as a researcher in December 2006. There, I made every effort to
think and behave like I am an outsider, so as to help me perceive the “familiar as
unfamiliar”, hoping that such attitude would deepen and broaden my perspectives.

Being away from the tense environment in Palestine during the last 4 years, and
living in the US has helped me to become relaxed, refreshed and more optimistic.
However, when I went back home in December in 2006, to move from one place to
another, in the West Bank, and wait for hours at military checkpoints, has reminded me
that I can not entirely separate my self from the history of the place.

It was one of those mobile military checkpoints with one patrol and a few soldiers
on the road between Sal feet and Qalqilya. About 5 vehicles were in the line in front of
our car. Very patiently, the driver said “It will be a few minutes or a whole day. Let’s

wait and see”. One hour passed and the queue was getting longer without any forward

139

progress. If any of the drivers in the line attempted to approach the patrol, the soldiers
would start yelling. No one knew why we were stopped. Similarly, no one understood the
language used by the soldiers, it wasn’t Hebrew, yet people made guess based on hand
gestures that we should go back and wait. Ninety minutes passed which looked like
ninety hours, therefore I decided to go and talk to the patrol soldiers.

Trying to be brave, I walked the 30 meters to get to the military jeep ignoring the
Israeli soldiers’ gestures for me to stay away. The people behind me were calling “ya
Bint irja’ee balash bahdala”, in Arabic this means “Hey woman, come back and wait,
otherwise they will be very rude to you”. Trying hard to look indifferent, I forced my
self and spoke to the soldiers in Arabic and then in English, trying to push a soldier to
look at the letter I handed him. He looked and seemed to make no sense of it. It was a
support letter from the associate dean of international studies at MSU. The soldier gave it
back to me. I tried again and handed the letter to a lieutenant saying that he should read it.
Suddenly, the lieutenant went wild, tore the letter and held his riﬂe upright; repeating
some words in a strange language, probably it was Russian. Very ﬁ'ustrated, I went back,
walked to reach the last car in the queue, and offered to pay the driver for the whole car
ride if he could send me back to the nearest stop where I can ﬁnd another car and go back
to my place.

On my way back home, all the bad memories ﬂooded back. Although, I and my
family live in a peaceful neighborhood, away from turbulent zones, still I have
experienced or witnessed numerous events in which the Israeli occupation ruthlessness
was strongly engraved in my memory. One of those events surfaced intensely in my

conscious on that trip. It was in the early 19703 at my 8th grade at Rammallah Secondary

140

Girls School. At that time, the school had around 700 (all female student), and 20 class
sections. Located downtown, the school shared the same wall with the General Post
office of the West Bank. In the 19703, the post ofﬁce was headed by an Israeli ofﬁcer,
who had around 10 to 15 soldiers as guards. They used to stay at the main gate adjacent
to the school gate.

Some times few students used to throw stones on the neighboring soldiers. In
turn they would start ﬁring into the air to scare everyone away. The school principal used
to tell us “Make sure that when you pass by them, not to look at their side. If you know
any one who throws stones, let me know I would call her parents. I don’t want her at my
school. Remember, those Israelis just want an excuse to close the school; they want to
keep you ignorant. You are more of a threat to them when you are educated”

With all of that, the next day, more stones would be thrown on the Israeli soldiers,
and so retaliation ﬁring, and tear gas bombs would be thrown inside the school yard. In
consequence, this meant that we would be deprived from the class breaks. There were
two breaks at 10:30 am, and 1:15 pm during which we leave classes to get fresh air in the
school yard. One day, stone throwing started, though surprisingly there was no
retaliation ﬁring. The school principal and assistant secretaries went around from one
class to another to inform us that there are many “Dawreyat” in Arabic meaning Israeli
army patrols, and a large number of soldiers at the main gate. She added that we should
stay quietly in class, and very shortly we will be leaving from the back garden fence gate.

Before she ﬁnished her sentences, about 25 soldiers broke into the class.

Some of them were carrying the M16 riﬂes to guard the rest who were equipped with

long broad beige sticks with a metal hook at the bottom end. Immediately, they started

14]

beating the principal and the teacher who was expecting. She fell on the ﬂoor bleeding.
The principal screaming I’m “mudira” meaning the principal, as if no one heard, they
continued. Horriﬁed, some students jumped off the windows, and had their limbs
broken. Like my other peers, I was harshly beaten in the class, at the end of the ﬁrst
corridor, at the end of the second corridor, at the main door, and ﬁnally at the school gate.
Bruises stayed all over my body, for at least three weeks before recovering, and the
school was closed for 110 days. Not only this event but many similar events ﬂooded my
memory, and reminded me that detaching my self completely from the history of that
place might be very difﬁcult. At 6pm, I arrived back to my home and told my parents that
that day was not a productive one.

Next day, I had to wake up as early as 4:30 pm, get ready to start a new journey
for the research purposes. In addition to interviewing superintendents and district staff, I
made school visits to see how principals and teachers relate to a superintendent’s
leadership. On one of those school visits in Bethlehem, I was very cordially welcomed,
the principal has told me that she was one of my students 16 years ago; hence all of the
teachers gave me an exceptionally warm welcome. For them, I was the teacher of
teachers, and the great guest on that day. They even insisted to carry my briefcase, and
invited me to home made pastries and cookies. Moreover, some of them invited me to go
home with them and stay for a week or even more as long as my time permits.

Though the purpose of my discussion was to ﬁnd out how they relate to the
superintendent’s leadership practices, the discussion has changed direction to highlight
their ﬁnancial difﬁculties, and the atrocities of the Israeli settlers and troops. Therefore, I

asked the teachers why they think the Israeli settlers and soldiers behave in an aggressive

142

manner. Immediately, a teacher responded: “well because they are sadist”, another said,
“It’s their arrogance”. A third said: “in this phase of history they are victorious; if we are
in their position we will behave the same way”. The fourth one said: “because they were
oppressed, but Miss Sakeena what do you think???” I responded: “They are aggressive
because they feel insecure, its insecurity. We never tried to understand their feelings,
their trauma, the Holocaust experience and their fear that it may happen again. If they
were secure, they wouldn’t have such devotion to military power. As Palestinians, we
are part of the insecurity feelings that haunt them, suicide bombers are Palestinians”.
With that I was interrupted very angrily, “Oh miss Sakeena, but the Israelis are occupiers.
In the US, they have washed your brains. You speak and look like pro Israel Americans”.
That discussion has reminded me that as a researcher I have to listen more than speak.

Regarding the pseudonyms used for research participants, I chose certain animals’
names. Deep rooted in the Palestinian culture, people like to be given animals’ or birds’
nicknames due to superstitions that such things may bring luck or deter mischief.
Moreover, each animal is known for a prominent quality. For example, my grandfather
was nicknamed the horse in reference to his integrity. Therefore, I tried to ﬁnd the most
dominant characteristic of each superintendent’s personality and nickname him
accordingly. In fact three participants have chosen their pseudonyms, meanwhile the
other four left me the decision to choose a proper nickname according to what I thought
most applies to each of them.

When going back home, I’m not intending to become a superintendent. Instead, I
will take a teaching job at the University of Bethlehem. In other words, I did not mean to

carry out this study as a preparation for a superintendency job. However, I believe that

143

the research journey has profoundly developed me both professionally and scholarly.
This study was a great learning experience, something beyond description.

Moreover, the ﬁndings of this study will help both aspiring superintendents, and the ones
who are currently on the job. Other stakeholders will get a sense of the pressures and
functions performed by occupants of this position including international bodies and

organizations.

144

Appendix
Appendix
Appendix
Appendix
Appendix
Appendix
Appendix
Appendix
Appendix
Appendix

Appendix

4

5

6 Invitation letter to participate “all superintendents .

APPENDICES
Map of Sykes-Picot Treaty.
Map of West Bank and Gaza.
Statistics on School Governing Bodies in Palestine.
Map of District ofﬁces in West Bank and Gaza.

District Organizational Structure (average size)

9,

7 All Superintendents’ Survey.

8 Participants’ Informed Consent.

9 Observation Protocol.

10 Interview Protocol.

1 1 Interview Questions.

145

Sykes Picot- Treaty

1

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Picot of France "

146

 

(Appendix 2) The West Bank and Gaza

Following the 1967 war

 

  
    

Jordan

Egypt ’ ._ " é: ;. '~-~-/‘

Saudi Arabia

SIC-II. E
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, Israel
1:] Lands occupied by Israel

147

(Appendix 3) Statistics on School Governing Bodies

 

 

 

 

 

Governing
Body Government UNRWA Private Total
Area
GAZA 250 357 32 639
WEST BANK 1418 93 249 1760
TOTAL 1668 schools 450 schools 281 schools 2399
schools

 

 

 

 

 

 

MOEHE 2007 statistics. P 139

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(Appendix 6)

Invitation to participate in the research on “Superintendents’ Roles and Leadership
Approaches in Unstable Contexts”.

Dear Ms. / Mr ............
Education Superintendent of ............. District Ofﬁce.
Greetings;

I would like to thank you for responding to the Superintendency Questionnaire,
and invite you to participate in the research project about superintendents’ roles and
leadership approaches in unstable contexts.

To carry out this research we will have focus group meetings in 3 district clusters, so as
to brain storm issues related to the research topic. Later, we will have individual
interviews with you and other district staff and school principals and may be other parties
as is available.

Carrying out this research is a learning experience for me. We will work together
on partnership bases, and your insights will be highly appreciated. The interview
questions that I will send will provide a framework for the discussion; you may add or
delete some questions the way you think is most practical. Besides, it will give you the
opportunity to reﬂect on the dilemmas, and challenges you encounter as an education
superintendent. The results of this research will hopefully be very useful for current and
aspiring superintendents. The research outcomes might also be useful to education
administrators in other world parts of the world where conﬂict is a major feature of the

daily life.

Thanks for your anticipated cooperation.

Blessings! 1!

Sister Sakeena Elayan.
Educational Administration, MSU

150

Appendix (7)

A11 Superintendents’ Survey

Section 1:

District Name:

Location:

Total number of district staff:
Total Number of schools:
Total Number of Students:
Type of school:

Basic:

Secondary: ........
Mixed ............

Male: .........

Female: .....
Co-educational: .........

 

Section 2:

your opinion:

Please read the following statements and choose the response which most expresses

 

Num

Item

Strongly
Agree

Agree

Don’t
Know

Disagree

Absolutely
Disagree

 

1

The role of an education
superintendent is to run the
organization and manage the
processes.

 

The work of the education
superintendent is mainly political.

 

The work of the district

superintendent is mainly instructional.

It requires the follow up of
instructional qualityin classrooms.

 

The major responsibility of the
district superintendent is to manage
the ﬁnances, budget plans, personnel,
and facilitate the work of schools.

 

The major responsibility of the
education superintendent is to resolve
conﬂicts, reduce tensions, and
manage external relation including
NGOs, and all other stakeholders.

 

 

 

The major responsibility for a district
superintendent is to develop

 

 

 

 

 

 

151

 

 

educational vision and communicate
it.

 

The job description articulates a
realistic account of the functions and
tasks performed by a superintendent.

 

The most important people who
impact the work of a superintendent
are ministry ofﬁcials.

 

The most important people who
impact the work of a superintendent
are teachers and school principals.

 

10

The most important pe0ple who
impact the work of a superintendent
are his assistants and district
employees.

 

11

The major challenge that encounters
the work of schools is the unstable
political situation.

 

12

The major challenge that encounters
the work of school is the lack of
funding.

 

13

The major challenge that encounters
the work of school is dealing with
incompatible expectations.

 

14

The major challenge that encounters
the work of school is lobbying for
instructional initiatives.

 

15

The basic component for the success
of a superintendent is his expertise in
teaching and learning

 

16

The basic component for the success
of a superintendent is the support he
gets from local community.

 

17

The basic component for the success
of a superintendent is the dedication
and cooperation of school principles
and teachers.

 

 

l8

 

After practicing superintendency, you
found out that it is very similar to
your previous conception of the role.

 

 

Thanks for your cooperation.

152

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix (8)

Participant Informed Consent

Research Title: Educational Superintendents and role conﬂict in Unstable Contexts

Responsible Investigator: Dr. Chris Dunbar.
Principal Investigator: Sakeena Elayan.

This research study is intended to gain a better understanding of how educational

superintendents in Gaza and in the West Bank of Jordan perform in the role of
instructional leadership. The interview will take approximately 1 1/2 hours. The
information gathered in this interview will be kept conﬁdential and your identity will not
be associated with your responses. Your conﬁdentiality will be protected to the
maximum extent allowable by law.

The investigator will explain/discuss the purpose and the relevance of this
research to inform you as a participant in this research activity, but if at any time
you have questions during the interview you may ask them at any time.

Your participation in research is voluntary and you may choose not to participate
at all, or you may refuse to participate in certain procedures or answer certain
questions or discontinue your participation at any time without penalty or loss of
beneﬁts.

If, during the course of the study, signiﬁcant new information that has been
developed becomes available which may relate to my willingness to continue to
participate, the investigator will provide this information to you.

Any information derived from the research project that personally identiﬁes you
will not be voluntarily released or disclosed without my separate consent, except
as speciﬁcally required by law.

If at any time you have any questions regarding the research or my participation,
you can contact the investigator, who will answer your questions. Please contact
Sakeena Elayan the Principal/ Secondary Investigator at the following phone
numbers: (517) 355 0971 , or her phone No. in Bethlehem: (972) 2274 5613. You
may also contact her at the following email address: elayansa@msu.edu .

If at any time you have comments, or concerns regarding the conduct of the
research contact the responsible investigator, Dr. Christopher Dunbar by mail at
404 Erickson Hall, Michigan State University, 48823, by email at
dunbarc@msu.edu or by phone at (517) 353-9017.

If you have questions or concerns about your rights as a research participant,
please feel free to contact Peter Vasilenko, Ph.D., Michigan State University's
director of Human Research Protection Programs, by phone: (517) 355-2180, fax:
(517) 432-4503, email: irb@msu.edu, or regular mail: 202 Olds Hall, East
Lansing, MI 48824.

153

0 Please check the appropriate box for this research interview to be audio-taped.
You agree to be audio taped as part of this research — YES you [ ] consent to be
audio taped or YES you [ ] do N_OT consent to be audio taped. The written and
audio taped materials will be viewed only by the principal investigator and
members of the research team.

0 You will receive a copy of this consent document
By signing below signiﬁes your voluntary agreement to participate in this
research study.

Participant’s signature: Date:

 

Participant’s Name: __

 

IRB: Michigan State University
202 Olds Hall
East Lansing, MI 48824
United States

154

,F'TT-T‘” 1r ~

Appendix (9)

Observation Protocol

Research title: Educational Superintendents in Unstable Contexts: seven case studies
from the West Bank and Gaza.

Researcher: Sakeena Elayan

Day: Date: District: location:

 

demographic descriptive reﬂective

 

 

 

 

 

 

155

"Eur

 

Appendix (10)

Interview Protocol.

Section A 1 Interviewer instructions: Some golden rules to keep in mind while

interviewing are:

Keep focused on the purpose of the research; let the purpose guide the

interviewing process.

Understand the strengths and weaknesses of different types of interviews: the
informal conversational interview, the interview guide approach, the standardized

open-ended interview.

Understand the different kinds of information one can collect through interviews:

behavior data, feelings, opinions, knowledge, background information.
Plan how different kinds of questions can be apprOpriately sequenced.
Ask clear questions using appropriate understandable language.

Ask truly open ended questions.

Use probes to follow up questions to solicit depth and detail.

Listen attentively, and respond appropriately to let the informant know that she is

being heard.

Understand the difference between depth interview and an interrogation.

Qualitative researchers conduct depth interviews, but tax auditors interrogate.

Observe while interviewing. Be aware and sensitive of how a person reacts to

different questions.
Tape record to capture full and exact quotations for later analysis.

Check the interview recording immediately for malfunctions, review notes for

clarity, and elaborate where necessary.

156

Section B: Superintendents’ Interview Questions:

5199.3?!"

10.

ll.

12.

l3.
14.

15.

16.
17.

18.

What are the goals of schooling? Why do children go to school?

What do you think is the main goal of the education district ofﬁce?

Describe the mission of the school district?

What are the mechanisms and procedures that you use to develop these goals?

How do you communicate these goals in practical terms?

_

What are the responsibilities and functions that you perform in this ofﬁce?
What are the additional responsibilities and functions, which are outside the job

descriptions, what other functions that you perform as a result of unstable political

.1" E ”EE- : 33'???
C
1 ‘ -.

context?

How is your staff hired?

Describe your role as a superintendent, can you classify your functions in general
categories?

13 superintendency as you practice it similar or different from your initial
perceptions? If different, in what ways?

What are the various aspects of the superintendency role? Are there any
conﬂicting aspects of this role?

Suggest a metaphor of how or what you perceive as a superintendent’s role? Why,
how does this metaphor ﬁt?

What kinds of issues or problems impede the progress of your functions?

Do you have a job description; is the description of your role clearly articulated?
If not, why?

Does the job description authentically reﬂect the type of tasks that you are
supposed to perform?

What is the most difﬁcult task that you have had so far?

What are the major problems confronting your school system? What type of
community do you have?

What kind of strategies do you use to tackle such issues and alleviate the negative

impacts of the unstable situation?

157

 

19.

20.

21.
22.
23.
24.

25.
26.
27.

28.
29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

Who are the key stakeholders impacting a superintendent’s educational leadership
approach?
Describe the role of an instructional leader? Is that how you describe your focus
of activities?
How in general would you describe the last 4 weeks?
Describe a typical working day? How was yesterday like?
Which day stands most in your mind, why, describe it?
To what extent do you participate in professional development of district staff? of
principals, of teachers?
What makes you powerful? What is your view of power?
What is your view of the world?
How do you see the educational system? Which of the following perspectives
applies most to your view of an educational organization:

A) Structural Bureaucracy

B) Human relations ﬁeld

C) Political forum

D) Cultural Entity
What is the nature of the leadership paradigm that you have?
What underlies this leadership paradigm (assumptions, believes, values,
knowledge, ideologies, remarkable personal events, etc. . .)?
Name three national or world leaders that you consider very effective, why?
How does the unstable context affect your leadership approach?
What is the deﬁnition of an effective educational leader in this type of unstable
context?

How do you see the future of the educational organization?

158

Appendix (1 l)

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.
46.

47.

48.
49.

50.

Superintendents’ Interview Questions

What are the goals of schooling? Why do children go to school?

What do you think is the main goal of the education district ofﬁce?

Describe the mission of the school district?

What are the mechanisms and procedures that you use to develop these goals?
How do you communicate these goals in practical terms?

What are the responsibilities and functions that you perform in this ofﬁce?

What are the additional responsibilities and functions, which are outside the job
descriptions (ﬁrnctions that you perform as a result of unstable political context)?
Describe your role as a superintendent, Can you classify your functions in general
categories?

Is superintendency as you practice it similar to what you thought it would be
when you started up? Is it different from your initial perception?

What are the various aspects of the superintendency role? Are there any
conﬂicting aspects of this role?

Suggest a metaphor of how or what you perceive as a superintendent’s role? Why,
how does this metaphor ﬁt?

What kind of issues or problems impede the progress of your functions?

Do you have a job description; is the description of your role clearly articulated?
If not, why not? 1

Does the job description authentically reﬂect the type of tasks that you are
supposed to perform?

What is the most difﬁcult task that you have had so far?

What are the major problems confronting your school system? What type of
community do you have?

What kind of strategies do you use to tackle such issues and mitigate the negative

impact?

159

51.

52.
53.

54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.

60.

61.

62.

63.
64.

65.
66.

67.
68.

69.

Who are the key stakeholders impacting a superintendent’s educational leadership
paradigm?

How is your staff hired?

Describe the role of an instructional leader? Is that how you describe your focus
of activities?

In what ways do you use the budget to enhance instruction?

Are you involved in planning, and monitoring instruction? If so to what extent?
How in general would you describe the last 4 weeks? I
Describe a typical working day? How was yesterday like?

Which day stands most in your mind, why, describe it?

 

Are there policies or procedures that would enable principals gain higher
awareness and skills as instructional leaders?
“Professional education research”, is there a need for a superintendent to be aware
of that? If so how is this done?
To what extent do you participate in professional development of district staff? Of
principals, of teachers?
What makes you powerful? What is your view of power?
What is your view of the world?
How do you see the educational system? Which of the following perspectives
applies most to your view of educational organization:

E) Structural Bureaucracy

F) Human relations ﬁeld

G) Political forum

H) Cultural Entity
What is the nature of the leadership paradigm that you have?
What underlies this leadership paradigm (assumptions, believes, values,
knowledge, ideologies, remarkable personal events, etc. . .)?
How does the unstable context affect your leadership approach?
What is the deﬁnition of an effective educational leader in this type of volatile
situation?

How do you see the future of the educational organization?

160

 

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