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At the moment I think a lot of leaders are bogged
down in a lot of administrative tasks that need to
be delegated and I think that that's one thing
that we need to be looking at in terms of how,
how we manage school autonomy and I think that a leader needs
to be leading, teaching and learning in a school.
But currently the managerial side of a principal's role
takes over. So I think we need to get the balance right.
I think we all want to have some autonomy over or
empowerment over our staff selection so that we
can employ staff to meet the needs of our students
and we know our contexts best, so we know the
needs of our school, our children and our community.
So picking the right people to match that I think
is important and whilst I think it's important you know that
this agenda about empowerment has many positives, I still
think we need to keep a sense of a collective group and
that we have that strong network between schools.
I don't think any of us as principals want to be
out there on our own. I think we all want to learn from
each other and have the support of each other but
have that decision making opportunity at a local level.
I'm one of these unusual people that don't really
welcome school autonomy because to me, I think the
only difference it would really make would be in
that I would be having to take on more HR
responsibilities. We have a small school. We have a
small number of children but I have 100 staff
which are part - some of them - most of them are
part timers and I have one admin officer that
covers my whole school for 100 and - so, so I
would find taking on more responsibility unless it
was funded specifically to manage the clerical
load I just see it as it would take me - time away
from instructional leadership which is where I
believe I should be in my school.
If I had the ability to have full autonomy of
my school, I certainly would believe knowing that
Cabbage Tree Island School is a very unique school,
100 percent Aboriginal student population I
would like to ensure that the teachers that I
have at my school are the best quality teachers
and certainly are those that bring with them an
understanding and knowledge of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander students, culture, history,
so that I have the best teachers to be able to
relate to my students and I would also be ensuring
that I had Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
staff employed within the school.
If I had autonomy, I would like to be a self
managed school in which I had autonomy over
everything and then there were groups of people I
could actually be supported with and buy in from
outside which would be my resources and in terms
of there was a general payroll staffing function
from outside. But again I would like to have far more
autonomy about selecting my own staff, the composition
of staff and in our state the employment of staff
so that I could employ psychologists,
social workers and the range of professionals and
semi professionals that are needed by my community.
That's a very, very good question. The - autonomy
within my school, I would like to have autonomy
over who I employed and having the money to be
able to do that and to adjust budgets to have a
choice whether how I allocate my, my staffing,
particularly in being - having the ability to
employ specialist staff such as speech
pathologists and occupational therapists which we
could really well, well deal with. Centrally I think
still school - our school would appreciate that the
money that just comes through from - for essential services
would flow through and would come through to schools
like that. But I think otherwise I would find it really
beneficial to our school and to our school community
to have much greater control over our school
funding and how it is spent within the school.
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