District Administration - September 2009 - (Page 70)

Managing generational Diversity County, many districts issued reduction in force (RIF) notices, or pink slips, to teachers hired after 2000. Some districts went even further back. In accordance with state law, teachers were notified of a possible layoff by March 15, and final layoff notices were issued by May 15. This meant that teachers were under the threat of a layoff for almost half of the school year. Cracks and fissures among faculty communities were bound to appear. Additionally, layoff lists were created based on the hire date of teachers. Therefore, the most junior teachers were the most vulnerable to layoffs. These are the Generation X and Millennial teachers. In many school districts, the public seeks salary rollbacks for teachers in order to maintain smaller teacher-student ratios in kindergarten through grade 3, in effect, saving some jobs for junior teachers. Veteran teachers are less likely to sacrifice salaries won through difficult collective bargaining in order to preserve smaller class sizes, and veteran secondary-level teachers are less likely to concede salary to save the jobs of less-senior elementary teachers. Obviously, the potential for a split along generational lines is immense. Teacher seniority is one fault line. Boomers fought hard for collective bargaining in response to the sometimes capricious decisions by school boards and administrators in the past. Teacher seniority is one of the sacred cows to teacher unions. Veteran teachers feel that they have paid their dues and should be protected by their veteran status during teacher layoffs. Generation X teachers, and Millennials in particular, favor merit over hierarchy, and many have voiced displeasure over the unfairness of using seniority rather than teacher performance to reduce teaching staff. Interestingly, these two groups differ in their general reaction to the process. Generation X teachers tend to be more resilient and have been quicker to seek jobs in other schools or in other professions. The Millennials, by contrast, have been slower to move on to other options and continue to rail at the unfairness of it all. The finality of a layoff, which they experience as a type of failure, is new for many teachers who were promised the world upon entering the teaching profession in the past five years. Remember, this is a group that won trophies merely for participating in youth sports and was sheltered from failure by helicopter parents. How they react to adversity will define their future as teachers. During troubled times in the past, teacher unions could be counted upon to maintain a united front. Now that solidarity is cracking, and many union leaders have come under attack from younger union members for not providing enough protection for their jobs. Similarly, Boomer and Generation X teachers have criticized their Millennial peers for breaking some unwritten rules and crossing boundaries regarding teacher seniority. Millennials have protested at board meetings about the use of seniority to determine layoffs, rallied parents against principals and District Administration Suzette Lovely’s Generational Profiles Veterans were born between 1922 AnD 1943 AnD liveD through Some of the most definitive events of the 20th century, including the great Depression, Pearl harbor and world war ii. these events formed their worldview and molded their core values of hard work, fiscal conservatism and traditional values of home, family and patriotism. this is the generation that built the infrastructure of the country and, in educational terms, built the school system as we know it, with the emphasis on hierarchy and the paying of one’s dues based on seniority. Some veterans still work in our schools, where they tend to hold positions of high status. Baby Boomers, born between 1944 and 1960, are numerically the biggest generation and currently hold most positions of power in government, corporations and schools. Defining events to boomers include the vietnam war, the Civil rights movement and the assassinations of John Kennedy, bobby Kennedy and martin luther King Jr. boomers challenged the world as they found it, making their own rules as they set work and social norms. this is the group that brought us 40 as the new 30, 50 as the new 40, and now 60 as the new 50. this group is so large that it dominates American culture. in the world of schools, boomers championed equality with title iX and never-ending school reform (boomers just can’t help but innovate and break new ground), and they created a cottage industry for collective bargaining in labor relations in schools. Generation X, born between 1960 and 1980, has lived in the shadow of the baby boomers and has had to survive the excesses of that generation. For example, gen Xers grew up in the era of latchkey kids, sky-high divorce rates, oil embargoes and stagflation. this makes them skeptical of authority and reliant on themselves and their network of friends, associates and co-workers. their survivor mentality, as lovely and buffum describe it, makes this generation resilient and innovative; this is, after all, the group that ushered in and survived the internet and dot.com eras. gen Xers tend to favor equity over hierarchy in the power structures of schools, and they thrive when given options and opportunities to work in teams. many of our newer school leaders are from generation X. Millennials, born between 1980 and 2000, are the newest generation. the high school class of 2000 is typically seen as the first of the millennial wave to hit the workplace. every fourth generation, generational cohorts tend to recycle, so that millennials are most like the veteran generation in terms of their optimism, confidence, respect for order and can-do attitude. this generation grew up during the financial booms of the 1990s and the dot.com bubble. it was a time of laserlike emphasis on the family, with highly structured activities for children. Soccer moms were a large voting block, and child safety became paramount after Columbine and child abductions made the headlines. this group has never known a world without computers, and most can’t remember life without the internet and social networking sites like Facebook. the first millennials are showing up in our teaching ranks. lovely realizes, of course, that these descriptions are general in nature and that individual differences will abound. Still, they offer useful guidelines for how school leaders may make progress with school reform. 70 September 2009 http://www.dot.com http://www.dot.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - September 2009

District Administration - September 2009
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
Health Update
Curriculum Update
Stimulus Monitor
Conversations
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Administrator Roles Shift with the Times
Turning Around Schools in Need
Global Learning
Managing Generational Diversity
New Products
Professional Opinion
How Well Does This Web Site Work?
New Books
Tech Disruptions
Online Edge

District Administration - September 2009