| This qualitative study examined the context of school administration as it related to special education inclusion within a preschool special education site. Although school administrators may have a general view of leadership, it is the complexity of special education, and preschool in particular, which requires unique understanding of disabilities, highly trained personnel and partnerships with outside agencies. This study of emerging special education leadership characteristics in a single site preschool program began with district level administrators in order to gain a perspective of their involvement with the decision to transform an elementary school into a single site preschool program. Included in the interviews were two area directors, the district's finance officer as well as the public information officer. In-depth interviews, observations and analysis of documents provided the data for this study. In particular, focus was given to collecting the data from the site's leadership team which included a special education supervisor, consulting teacher and the program's "lead teacher." Findings of the study involved six year areas. They included (1) the leadership team's greatest strength was their special education relationship, (2) there was a lack of dedicated time for the school, (3) the three participants lacked any foundation in visionary leadership, (4) that the Matilin Early Childhood Center was successful due to the esprit which evolved among the participants, (5) documents and interviews indicated a lack of attention given to the effectiveness with the partnership with Head Start and (6) the Arbor school district used no evaluative tool to determine if the school's leadership was effective. The study's recommendations included a Leadership Boot Camp which would provide for administrative survivor essentials, including essential best practices, a manual of forms and timelines as well as elements of theory necessary to sustain a building's function. Additional recommendations included a mentor as a point of contact person, an experienced administrative secretary, a clear job description for a lead teacher, a defined mission and vision from the district level for the school; clearly delineated partnerships and the need to have an evaluation tool for the purpose of determining whether the lead teacher is an effective, functional and successful personnel design model. |
