A View from the Inside: School Building Leadership and Management. Report of the Select Seminar on School Building Leadership and Management (Rensselaerville, New York, September 27-30, 1987)

The goal of the seminar reported in this document was to consider the site leadership and management issue as it relates to professionals' changing roles and influences educational equity and excellence. The seminar attempted to bring sensitive reform movement issues back to those most affected by their implications. An important seminar element was the development of leadership models to be later implemented at various states throughout New York State. Each of six Principal Centers, New York University, and the New York City Board of Education will then coordinate, support, and provide technical assistance to school buildings and professional groups involved in the ongoing Leadership in Educational Administration Development Program (LEAD). This report consists chiefly of five presentations from mixed groups of administrators and teachers that express participants' thoughts and experiences. These presentations were the result of long hours of intense, often heated discussion, out of which a spirit of cooperation finally emerged, so that the groups achieved consensus of a philosophy and on alternative models for shared decision-making. All groups recognized that no one model was appropriate for every school, and some groups created a generic model that a school could adapt to suit its own environment. The groups all saw the need for a diversity of models. Each group's special contribution to the seminar is evident in their reports. A list of participants, an explanation of the seminar process, and a reprint of an article on the seminar are also included in this report. (MHL)