Management Research News

Effective human resource management of school districts

John Thompson Brian H. Kleiner

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John Thompson Brian H. Kleiner, (2005),"Effective human resource management of school districts",
Management Research News, Vol. 28 Iss 2/3 pp. 42 - 55
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Effective Human
Resource
Management of
School Districts

Effective Human Resource

Management of School Districts
by John Thompson and Brian H. Kleiner
Abstract
This article addresses many essential ongoing school district human resource issues; however the central focus is on the extraordinary actions that
make human resource management in school districts truly effective. This is
achieved through research of human resource management books, articles
and case studies and by drawing on nine years of personal experience in
auditing school districts.

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This article focuses on effective human resource management of instructors in public school districts. The major topics explored within human
resource management are recruiting, employment and labour relations.
Effective recruiting can be achieved through ongoing communications and research to project needs and set up reasonable timelines so that
the best possible instructors can be hired. Teacher evaluations are a valuable
though underutilised tool to improve teaching and learning. With cooperative training and communication, the collective bargaining process
can be transformed from acrimonious to problem-solving.
Human resource directors should develop environments in which
central and school level administration work closely with instructors and
draw on the experience and leadership skills of instructors to get the most
out of the limitless human resource potential of the district.
In the fall of 2002, about 69.2 million persons were enrolled in
American schools and colleges. About 4.3 million were employed as elementary and secondary school teachers and as college faculty. Other professional, administrative, and support staff of educational institutions
numbered 4.8 million. So, about 78.3 million people were involved, directly
or indirectly, in providing or receiving formal education. In a nation with a
population of about 288 million, more than one out of every four persons
participated in formal education. The largest single group employed in education was elementary and secondary school teachers. This group of instructors has increased 27 per cent since 1990 to about 3.5 million in 2002
(Snyder & Hoffman, 2003).
The most valuable resource in the field of education is clearly the talents of people. Management of these people is one of the most important
functions in all of education. It is essential to use the most judicious means
to accomplish the goal of quality education within the existing budgetary
and other constraints.

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Focus

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There are many aspects to human resource managemnent of school districts.

The emphasis of this article will be on effective human resource management in school districts. It will focus on those activities that most contribute
toward producing the desired result with the human resources available.
Many aspects of human resource management in school districts are similar
to other organisations. This article will focus on the aspects that are unique
to school districts.

Effective Human
Resource
Management of
School Districts

School district employees are generally split into two major groups:
1) instructors who are referred to as certificated or academic employees and
2) non-instructors or support staff who are referred to as classified employees. The classified employees are generally a significant portion of the
workforce in any school district, often representing a majority of the numbers of employees and over forty per cent of the payroll. However, since the
human resource issues for classified employees in school districts are similar to other organisations, this article will focus on the certificated employees. Certificated employees generally include instructional support staff
such as counsellors, librarians and some administrators along with instructors. This article will focus on the instructors. The term school districts includes districts that educate some portion of the students in grades
kindergarten through grade 14. Grades 13 and 14 are generally taught in
community college districts. This article will focus on kindergarten through
grade 12 districts (K-12). K-12 school districts can further be split into public and private schools. This article will focus on public schools. The major
human resource management topics discussed within this scope will be:
*

Recruitment - getting good people,

Employment - keeping and developing good people and

Labour relations - keeping people happy.

Environment
It is important to understand the environment in which school districts operate before discussing human resource management. The school district environment includes the following major stakeholders:
*

Boards of education

Administrators

Instructors and support staff

Labour unions

Students/parents

The board members of the school district are elected by the voters
within the boundaries of the school district. The board sets the major poli-

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Effective Human
Resource
Management of
School Districts

cies of the district. They hire and fire the districts top administrators. The
district administrators are responsible for carrying out the policies of the
board of education. The instructors and support staff of the district perform
the work of the district including educating students and providing support
services to students, parents and instructors.

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They carry out the policies of the board at the direction of the district
administration. Labour unions negotiate with the district administration on
behalf of the teachers and classified staff. Students and parents are essentially customers of the district. They or their children receive education
from the district. Parents also provide support that is essential to good education by assisting students with homework and by volunteering their time
and resources to support school activities. As customers, students and especially parents have a voice in the education of their children. They can express their concerns to teachers, school administration, district
administration or the board members in private or at public board meetings.
They can also affect change in the district by voting and/or campaigning for
or against particular board members and/or policies.
Each stakeholder has their own and very unique perspective of the
school district. Their view of quality education, of where the district is currently and where it should be can vary widely. Each stakeholder has their
unique agendas and interests. The stakeholders are not always willing to
sacrifice their own interests for the interest of the district as a whole; they are
not willing to sacrifice short-term gains for long-term gains. So, the human
resource department of a school district, particularly the human resource director has the difficult job of trying to keep all of the stakeholders happy
while effectively managing the human resources of the district.
Effective human resource management is important in all fields. It is
especially important in service organisations. In school districts, where education is the ultimate goal and personnel costs (salary and benefits) account
for 70% to 80% of total budgets, it is one of the most important functions.
Recruitment
The first step to effective human resource management is recruitment. For
school districts this begins with a needs forecast. Forecasting your internal
demand for teachers begins with projecting student enrolments at all grade
levels. Human resource directors should work closely with the admissions
department and pay close attention to area housing developments, census
and demographic data and enrolment of feeder institutions to help prepare
enrolment projections. The admissions department will provide human resource departments with current enrolment projections based on current enrolment at each grade level, promotion rates, students leaving the district
and applications of new students. Longer-range enrolment projections can
be made based on area population changes based on significant factors like
new housing, new business developments and enrolment of feeder institu-

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tions. Feeder institutions are public or private schools or day care centres
that currently serve students who will eventually transfer to your school district. Enrolment projections should be compared to current instructor rosters
at target student-teacher ratios to determine hiring needs.
Human resource departments should set up recruitment time-lines.
Recruitment should start early enough to attract the best possible pool of applicants. Human resource departments must keep abreast of the external demand for teachers such as the needs of other local school districts. This can
be done by attending functions with colleagues from other districts such as
human resource meetings and meetings at county department of education
offices. Human resource directors can also pick up current trends and hiring
needs through lunches and regular phone conversations with administrators
at other districts. Holding offices in community or trade groups or boards of
other districts or joint powers associations help directors keep in touch with
the trends of the area. Human resource departments also must keep close
track of the supply of qualified teachers. Close relationships with area college career centres are helpful.

Effective Human
Resource
Management of
School Districts

Environmental changes
Human resource departments must also be flexible to act when significant
changes in the environment occur. For example, preparing the best possible
enrolment projections based on the information available is essential. However, even the best possible projection can turn out to be inaccurate. The
Lennox School District in Los Angeles County experienced significant increases in kindergarten enrolment in the late 1990s. This small elementary
school district is located in a low-income area directly adjacent to the Los
Angeles International Airport. The district boundaries covered only about a
single square mile. There was no new housing or apartment construction to
explain the increase in enrolment. So, the district had to act quickly when
new enrolment applications were submitted to recruit teachers to meet the
demand of the new students. The administrators speculated that the increase
in enrolment was due to heavy immigration from Mexico and multiple families living in existing homes.
Another example of change in the environment occurred when California implemented a class size reduction programme in the mid 1990s.
The programme funded the reduction of class sizes to 20 pupils per class
from the typical 30 pupils for kindergarten through third grades. When this
programme was initiated districts instantly had a huge internal demand for
elementary school teachers. Since this was a state-wide programme, the external demand for teachers throughout the state also increased instantly. The
districts that acted quickly in their recruitment efforts were able to hire the
most qualified candidates.
In the 1960s school districts had to make major adjustments, including major capital expansion to accommodate the baby boomers entering the

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Effective Human
Resource
Management of
School Districts

public schools. Baby boomers are the nickname of the generation of children of post-World War II parents who were born from 1945 to 1960. Today, school districts are dealing with a smaller, yet still significant bulge in
attendance due to the enrolment of the children of baby boomers. This generation of children is sometimes referred to as tidal wave II. Due mainly to
tidal wave II, enrolment in public elementary and secondary schools rose 21
per cent from 1985 to 2002 (Snyder & Hoffman. 2003). Adequate long-term
research and planning can ease the burden of these increases on school districts.
Class Size

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Class size is a key concern of all of the stakeholders of any district. One of
the jobs of the human resource director is to determine the target class sizes
at each grade level and at each school in the district. The challenge is to try to
balance efficiency with effectiveness. Efficiency is sometimes referred to as
productivity. Efficiency is the ratio of outputs to inputs, or the amount of
output per unit of input. Effectiveness is determined by the relationship between an organisations output and its objectives. In summary, an organisation is efficient if it does things right, and it is effective if it does the right
things (Anthony & Govindarajan. 2001).
In a school district, larger class sizes are considered more efficient
because more students are educated (output) with less teacher salary expense (input) per pupil. While a manufacturing company may focus only on
maximum efficiency (output per input), a school must be ever conscious of
the quality of education. With the goal of giving students the best quality
education possible, districts would make student - pupil ratios as low as possible. A district accountant might tout the cost savings the district would enjoy with teacher-pupil ratios of 100 to 1. The vice superintendent of
instruction might lobby for the quality education the students would receive
with teacher-pupil ratios of 5 to 1. The board of directors makes ultimate decisions of the major policies of the district. The director of human resources
should work with all stakeholders, help build consensus and make sound
recommendations to the board regarding optimal class sizes to help the district deliver the highest quality education at a reasonable cost to the taxpayers of the district. Almost as important as reaching the optimal number of
students per teacher is communicating clearly, to all stakeholders, the reasons for the final decisions made by the district. As in many aspects of business and life in general, perception is key. If teacher-student ratios are
perceived to be inappropriate by one or more of the stakeholder groups, it
may be a problem to the district even if the perception is unjustified.
Budgetary Concerns
The majority (roughly 75%) of funding for California school districts
comes from state general apportionment and local property taxes. Along
with this funding districts also receive millions of dollars annually in the

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form of state and federal grants. This money is essential to districts in carrying out many special programmes in support of education. Much of these
grant allocations are spent on personnel. The human resource directors must
be careful in using these funds for personnel costs. Some of these grants may
be ongoing sources of revenue, but there is no guarantee that these dollars
will continue in future years at the same rate or that they will continue at all.
So, the human resource director must make sure that the policies of the district communicate clearly that positions funded by grant money are only
available as long as the funding continues. In many districts, full-time positions become ongoing regardless of the funding source. In these cases, the
district must pay the costs of these positions out of general unrestricted
funds if the grant funding is reduced or eliminated. The human resource director must take these issues into consideration before approving the use of
grant funds for personnel.

Effective Human
Resource
Management of
School Districts

Advertising
The supply and demand for teachers will determine the extent of recruitment advertising necessary. The budgetary environment will also be a factor in the types and numbers of advertisements used. Internal flyers and job
announcements on bulletin boards are inexpensive and communicate job
openings to the internal workforce and their associates. However, if there
are many positions to be filled (high internal demand) and the surrounding
districts have a great need for new teachers (high external demand) and there
are relatively few qualified candidates (low supply), then the district will
need to use more extensive job announcement efforts. Advertising in local
and major city newspapers as well as trade publications is a cost effective
way to publicise open positions.
The state of the economy is a major factor in determining the extent of
recruitment advertising. In recent years, the recession has resulted in many
more applicants than there are jobs available. This has been as true in education as in other industries according to Workforce magazine. They also note
that the recent corporate scandals have resulted in a shift in the interest of job
applicants. While larger entities might have a tougher time attracting people, it could be easier for start-ups, governmental and non-profit organisations. The first week-end in August 2001, the Dallas Independent School
District had a career fair to recruit applicants for teaching jobs. The turnout
was so large that many people stood in line for hours to get in the door
(Workforce, 2002). In this environment the advertising costs and efforts
may be minimal. However, the district must watch environmental factors
closely and maintain the flexibility to shift into an aggressive recruitment
mode when necessary.
To compete in the modern environment, most districts use on-line recruiting. The growth of on-line recruiting is among the biggest changes in
the area of staffing. According to the Internet Business Network (1997), a

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Effective Human
Resource
Management of
School Districts

consulting firm specialising in the on-line employment industry, in December 1996 1.0 million resumes were on-line and 1.2 million job vacancies
were advertised over the internet (Kraut & Korman, 1999). This great technological change represents not only a challenge, but also an opportunity to
school districts. It may be difficult to gain budget approval for a web master
to set up and maintain a school district web site. Some districts use the services of existing information technology staff as part-time web masters. The
cost of this new technology will pay off for the district in many ways including expanding the recruiting area from surrounding counties to the entire
state and potentially the whole country.
Credentials

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In considering applicants for teaching positions, school districts rely on

teacher credentials, such as certification, or teacher tests to determine the
qualification of a candidate. From 1987-88 to 1993-94, increasing percentages of public school districts required passage of state tests of basic skills
and subject knowledge in the teacher hiring process, although teacher credentials were the most widely used criteria at each survey point (National
Centre for Education Statistics. 1997). In California, teachers must generally have current teaching credentials to be employed in the state. As in over
80% of school districts nation wide, in California, full standard state certification is the credential required (California Education Code Sections 44830
- 44929). The California Education Code also allows districts to administer
basic skills proficiency tests for teachers (Ibid, Section 44830(b)(1). The
Education Code reduces teacher requirements to allow districts to hire
teachers needed in emergency situations. Emergency or temporary credentials may be adequate in emergency situations. The Code specifically allows
districts to hire teachers for the purposes of class size reduction if they have
not taken the state basic skills proficiency test within the past 39 months
(Ibid, Section 44830(c)(2).
Employment
Staff Development
Once teachers are hired it is important to properly train them and develop
their potential. Teacher training begins with new teacher orientations.
These training sessions serve many purposes including introducing new
teachers to the new facilities, new co-workers and new administrative procedures. Teachers are also oriented into the goals and philosophies of the
district and the school. The specific curriculum for the grade and subjects(s)
they will be teaching is reviewed at orientation. Almost as important as the
formal training is the informal introduction to the general environment of
the school (level of administrative support, parental involvement, union
support, etc.) that the new teacher receives from casual conversations with
fellow teachers, support staff and parents.

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In the classroom training such as working as a teachers aide, student

teaching and substitute teaching help prepare teachers for their own classrooms. Well-planned staff development and career development educational sessions can provide growth opportunities for teachers.

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Compensation

Effective Human
Resource
Management of
School Districts

Attracting and retaining quality teachers are growing concerns among education officials and the public. This is especially true for beginning teachers
as school districts compete with each other and other industries for additional teaching personnel to cope with growing enrolments and an aging
workforce. Increased salaries potentially provide a means of attracting and
retaining the increased numbers of quality young teachers who will be
needed in the years ahead. As a wave of younger teachers hired in the mid1970s has aged, a demographic shift in the age of teachers has occurred.
For example, in 1975, 53 per cent of all full-time teachers were younger than
age 35; in 1993, the percentage of younger teachers fell to about 23 per cent.
The annual median teacher salary in constant 1998 dollars increased
only $986 or 2.9% from 1971 to 1998 nationwide (National Centre for Education Statistics. 1999). This moderate increase to the median teacher salary
of $35,099 in 1998 has occurred while the demographic shift has been an increase in older teachers who typically earn more than younger teachers. In
1971 the median teacher with bachelors degrees earned 16.5% more than
the overall median teacher. In 1998 this gap shrunk to 6.6% probably due to
the fact that more teachers earn bachelors degrees now than thirty years
ago. Local, as well as nation wide trends must be consulted when human resource departments begin to develop salary schedules.
Teacher Evaluations
Engaging in both formal and informal assessment and evaluation of classroom teaching and learning are roles common to all school administrators.
The teacher assessment process, when used as an evaluation tool, is often
routine and superficial and most teachers receive outstanding scores.
Clearly, opportunities are being missed for assessment of the teaching and
learning processes to support collegiality and collaboration, to identify professional growth needs, and to acquire the contextually specific data necessary to improve student learning.
Teacher evaluation is almost universally a role required of school administrators. Most teacher evaluation policies and practices have done little
to improve teaching, learning and schools. Sound teacher assessment,
evaluation and professional growth processes provide school administrators and teachers rich opportunities to enhance the quality of teaching and
learning in schools. Based on these two premises, it is argued that imple-

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Effective Human
Resource
Management of
School Districts

menting newer conceptions of leadership in schools is an essential factor

linking teacher evaluation to improved teaching and learning (Davis, Ellett
& Annunzita. 2002).
The results of large-scale studies over the past two decades of teacher
evaluation practices in the nations 100 largest school districts are rather
alarming. In short, these studies show that teacher evaluation systems and
practices are not typically used with the goal of improving student learning
and achievement despite attestations to the contrary. District level teacher
evaluation systems clearly continue to be bureaucratic systems worlds intrusions into the life worlds of individual schools. School-level professionals can choose to either use a system for the evaluation of teaching as:
*

A perfunctory and meaningless bureaucratic necessity, or

To use the teacher evaluation system as a meaningful process that

is viewed as a catalyst for improving teaching and learning in
schools.

The second choice requires leadership, not just from the traditional,
centrist view of school leadership (the school principal), but also from
newer, non-centrist perspectives that envision leadership role taking on the
part of all professional educators as essential to developing schools as learning organisations.
The teacher evaluation has been typically viewed from a narrow procedural or technical perspective that fails to appreciate schools as complex
organisations and systems. New forms of teacher assessment, evaluation
and professional development, when integrated with new conceptions of
developing leadership density in schools, can result in increased opportunities for learning among organisational members. These opportunities are essential elements of school reform and improvement (Ibid. 2002).
Evaluation system. How can schools take advantage of the rich opportunities the evaluations have to offer? First they must use new state of the art
teacher evaluation systems. The Professional Assessment and Comprehensive Evaluation System (PACES) is currently being used with all 23,000
teachers and instructional support personnel in the Miami-Dade County
Public Schools. PACES is a learner-centred, classroom-based assessment
and professional development system intended to improve the cultural context of teaching and learning in schools through new role taking on the part
of school administrators and teachers. PACES was built around the core assumption that teachers are the heart of meaningful change and reform in
education. The evaluation system is important, but the case study of
Miami-Dade County Public Schools shows that leadership plays an essential role and in the extreme cases it makes all the difference (Ibid.2002).
Extreme examples. Two extreme examples of the case study were labelled
metaphorically as the knight in shining armour and the small jazz combo.

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Just based on those descriptions, it is difficult to tell which is better; they

both have positive connotations. The principal in the knight in shining armour school was openly hostile towards the new teacher evaluation system.
This principal believed that the new district teacher evaluation system was a
threat to teachers professional careers and frequently expressed this concern to teachers. This placed the principal in the role of protecting the teachers from what he believed to be an uninformed, inconsistent, and hostile
evaluation policy that was being unfairly forced on teachers by a heavy
handed central administration.

Effective Human
Resource
Management of
School Districts

In contrast to the problems with the new evaluation system in the

school led by the knight in shining armour, the school fitting the description
of leadership reflecting the small jazz combo metaphor showed multiple indications of utilising the new teacher assessment and evaluation system for
the improvement of teaching and learning. This metaphor describes a
school in which professional educators are collaborating together towards
the goal of quality teaching and learning. While there is a recognisable melody known by all (it could be the curriculum, school philosophy, or even a
teacher evaluation system), all members of the organisation are free to explore possibilities within the structures of melody. In short, the small jazz
combo metaphor appears to eloquently capture the kinds of leadership for
meaningful school change and improvement described by leading writers in
the field. The leader in this type of organisation uses her talents as an educator to facilitate subtle changes in the metaphorical melody or move the melody to new levels. However, others in the organisation (teachers, students,
support staff), through their own expertise and interactions with others, also
have the ability to influence the music of the school (e.g. interpretation and
implementation of the core curriculum). Everyone has a part in the leadership necessary to implement change in a way that benefits the school (Ibid.
2002).
This is reminiscent of one of the main messages of Tom Peters in his
book. The Search for Excellence and his subsequent films. Instead of a
story of four leaders, Mr. Peters said introducing four company success
stories, It becomes a story of 4,000 leaders. Instead of being a directive
from district administration, the small jazz combo school used the new
evaluation system as a way to work as a team to improve the teaching and
learning environment. Instead of a district with one leader (the human resources director) or a school with one leader (the principal), it becomes a
school with 40 leaders (the teachers) and potentially a district with 4,000
leaders.
Labour Relations
History
Collective Bargaining - negotiation between an employer and labour union
representatives - is a relatively recent development in school districts. In the

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Effective Human
Resource
Management of
School Districts

1960s presidential orders gave public school teachers ammunition to influence state legislators on the issues of organising, bargaining, and binding arbitration. By 1971, there were 27 state collective bargaining laws for
teachers, although very few of these provided the right to strike. However,
in 1969-1970, there were 180 teacher strikes, compared to three in the
1960-1961 school year. By 1991, collective bargaining in the public schools
was a reality in many districts across the U.S. (Sharp. 1992). Today collective bargaining is the reality at almost all school districts in California and
labour negotiations is one of the most important functions of the human resources director.
Benefits of Collective Bargaining

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As in industry, the relationship between management and labour unions in

school districts can be characterised by distrust and acrimony. However, the
human resources director who can maintain good relations with organised
labour will provide great value to her district. At its best, collective bargaining provides a mechanism for:
*

Developing agreements concerning workplace operations;

Jointly set compensation and working conditions;

Provides for due process in dealing with individual problems;

Reflects our societys democratic values; and

Mirrors our constitutional system of checks and balances (Abbott,

Chisholm & Warren. 1994).

Of these negotiation issues, compensation draws the most attention.

Everyone wants to know, Whats our raise? That percentage raise is often
used like a students letter grade to judge the success of negotiations and to
compare to other districts and other organisations. This often oversimplifies
the depth of the negotiation process and may be quite inadequate in communicating what was achieved in the collective bargaining process, but it is a
reality that both sides of the process must be aware of.
Despite the generalising perceptions of many, a variety of employee
relations issues can be negotiated through collective bargaining and the human resource director must be aware of long-term implications of negotiated agreements. As an example, prior to the mid 1980s some districts
agreed to provide lifetime health benefits to retirees. That may have been a
reasonable commitment at the time, however, since then health care costs
have increased substantially (10% increases per year are now common) and
life spans are longer so that those benefits are now projected to be much
more costly than ever anticipated. Actuarial studies project the present
value of retiree benefits in the tens of millions of dollars for many districts.
Many districts are under funded in this area.

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Case Studies

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The potential of collective bargaining is demonstrated in recent case studies. In 1997, Lompoc Unified School District completed a 15-year journey
in the professionalisation of teachers as they implemented inclusive collaboration negotiations in their effort to reform education. Educational reform that focuses on professionalising teachers by expanding their roles can
result in long-lasting organisational change. In the Lompoc Unified School
District teachers were able to collaborate with management and make decisions about policy, teacher evaluations, and budgetary priorities. The implications for reform are vital because the traditional labour relations paradigm
of collective bargaining will be redefined as management and teachers work
hand-in-hand to transform schools (Cline & Necochea. 1997).

Effective Human
Resource
Management of
School Districts

A second school labour relations case study highlights the state-wide

labour management committee formed to improve relations in California
school districts through an intensive training process. The committee was
formed in 1989 comprising representatives of all the major management
and union organisations in the school sectors and personnel from Californias Public Employment Relations Board. The pursuit of a set of goals and
objectives has shaped the work of the committee from its inception.
Prior to the formation of this committee, the American public school
system was reported to be under siege. Teacher morale was low based on
Carnegie Foundation polls. The committees first goal was to facilitate the
ability of the participants to produce measurable improvement in the relationship in a district between the union and management within a collective
bargaining framework. The committee further specified the objectives of
the training by which participants would reach this goal as:
1.

Become familiar with the attitudes, skills, and practices which

promote effective labour-management relationships;

2.

Become familiar with and practice essential elements of effective

negotiations;

3.

Become familiar with and practice effective communications,

problem solving, and consensus building;

4.

Identify sources of conflict and distrust, and develop strategies for

building trust and effectively managing conflict; and

5.

Working as a team from each district, develop a plan to improve

their relationship.

The committees first outcome was the development of a five-day

training programme focusing on:
1.

Negotiating and problem-solving skills;

2.

Improved group and interpersonal communication skills;

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3.

Change management; and

4.

Relationship improvement.

Programme results. Several major urban school districts participated in the

programme and have reported excellent results from the training. Sacramento City Unified School District and San Juan Unified School District
both came to the programme with a history of adversarial relationships, hard
bargaining and strikes. Since the training, they have reported major differences in trust levels, substantial reductions in grievance activity, and increased scope of labour-management activity and discussion. Both also
faced major budget cuts and used the processes learned during the training
to develop mutually agreed strategies for meeting the new situation. One
union leader commented, Our district budget process this year was inclusive and has led to far less confrontation and public posturing than usual in
such circumstances. We are actually working together on solutions to some
problems that have festered for years.
Surveys evaluating the pilot phase of the committees work also indicated tremendous positive progress. Participants reported dramatic improvements in their labour relations after the training. Before the training,
70% characterised their relationships as adversarial, 20% as neutral, and 8%
as co-operative. After the training, 87% described their relationships as cooperative and less than 1% as adversarial (Abbott, Chisholm & Rose. 1994).
Some of these initiatives discussed may be quite lofty and idealistic.
In practice it may be difficult for the human resource director to go beyond
the traditional operations at a school district, but to achieve truly effective
human resource management in school districts, the human resource director must take an active role in the implementation of change.

54

Management Research News

References
Abbott, Jan; Chisholm, Les; Rose, Warren. 1994. Shifting the paradigm:
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Effective Human
Resource
Management of
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California Education Code Sections 44830 - 44929.

California Education Code Section 44830(b)(1).

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Cline, Zulmara & Necochea, Juan. 1997. Inclusive collaborative negotiations: A new labor relations paradigm in the Lompoc unified school district. Journal of Collective Negotiations in the Public Sector, 26,
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Volume 28 Number 2/3 2005

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This article has been cited by:

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1. Rhoda C. Joseph, Souha R. EzzedeenE-Government and E-HRM in the Public Sector 272-277.
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