Taylor Connard

Education 650

Standard Activity 7.32C

For this activity, I met with two Department Chairs. Tasha Pennington is the chair for the

English Department and Shawn Krajeski is chair of the Special Education Department. During

our meeting we discussed their responsibilities, the autonomy they have to make decisions, and

recommendations for department chair. This meeting was extremely beneficial and each chair

had a different perspective on their role.

Tasha Pennington has been the English chair for two years. We discussed at length how

leadership at the school has changed the role of chair. Prior to Tasha taking over, the chair was

Lisa Arnold. At the time of Lisa’s role as chair, we had a different principal. Chair during this

principal’s time was extremely important. We met with Lisa frequently and receiving important

information through her. She provided handouts to us, kept us up to date on important

information, and relayed our concerns to administrations. During this time, they also had

monthly meetings where all chairs met with administration to communicate about the school.

Since our new principal has been in charge, those leadership meetings no longer occur. The chair

position has almost ceased to exist. Tasha explains that her responsibilities are supposed to be

helping with content, textbook adoptions, and providing teachers with information. She felt that

when the chair role is used, she is free to make decisions. Her recommendations are that we need

to reinstate those leadership meetings and get chairs more involved again. She feels that the

current way chairs are delegated is not effective and teachers are suffering for it. She explains

that it would make administration’s job easier if they would allow chairs to relay information for

them.
 Shawn Krajeski’s role as chair is a bit different. He explains that he is the go-to for

special education. Often people will come to him about students that he does not have, but is

expected to know their IEPs and situations. His responsibilities include helping facilitate

trainings for general ed teachers on IEPs and modifying assignments. He delegates a lot and

sends teachers to the appropriate special education staff member. Shawn would like clarification

on his role as chairperson and wants more communication with administration.

The clear issue with the chairperson model is that administration has let it go to the

wayside. Of the two chair people that I spoke with, they both agreed that they need leadership

meetings to come back and more opportunities to speak with administration about concerns.

They also feel that they need clearer guidelines on what it means to be a chair person and what

their responsibilities are.