A study of the responsibilities and authority of the high school assistant principal as perceived by principals and assistant principals.

The study investigated high school principals' and assistant principals' perceptions of the responsibilities and authority of the assistant principal. One hundred fifty-two r and omly selected administrators from Southeastern Michigan participated in the study. A questionnaire was completed consisting of several demographic questions and sixty-five administrative tasks with responses requested for current degree of responsibility, ideal degree of responsibility, current degree of authority, and ideal degree of authority. Participants responded to the questions by selecting one of five choices. The choices for responsibility or authority, ranging from "No" to "Sole Responsibility or Authority." The statistical tests used to analyze the data were Analysis of Variance and the T-test. All Hypotheses were analyzed using an Alpha level of.05 to reject the null hypotheses. The major conclusions resulting from this research are as follows: (1) The assistant principals are broadly involved in the management of schools. (2) The typical responsibilities of the assistant principal are the supervision of the school in the absence of the principal, student behavior, and teacher evaluation. (3) Principals and assistant principals generally agreed on the assistant principals' responsibility and authority for the sixty-five administrative tasks. (4) Where differences existed between the assistant principals' and principals' perception of current and ideal authority and responsibility, principals indicated that the assistant principal had more authority and responsibility than assistant principals indicated. (5) The comparison of the assistant principals' current and ideal responses for responsibility and authority indicated that for most tasks, more responsibility and authority were desired by the assistant principals. (6) The ideal definition of the assistant principals' role as defined by work-activity was: supervising the school in the absence of the principal, monitoring student attendance, monitoring student behavior, dealing with student behavior, discipline, coordinate activities for student awareness of discipline code, supervising school's discipline code, planning pre- and post-observation conferences, consulting with parents and students, rewarding students for acceptable behavior, and conducting pre- and post-observation conferences.Ph.D.Educational administrationUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/161867/1/8812998.pd