Conflicts at Thurgood
Thurgood School System was designed for “House System” and it had four separate houses with separate faculty, house masters and students. Its structure was designed on the basis of divide and rule concept.
Conflict regarding Curriculum policy
Conflicts had risen during the first year of Thurgood Marshall public school when Parker noticed that several Department heads and house masters had problems regarding the interpretation of curriculum policy. In response to this conflict, Parker introduced a free Market policy in which the house masters and department heads had to decide for themselves the courses that had to be offered and the teachers that had to be assigned to the courses.
I think that Parker made a wrong decision by putting the matters in the hands of his staff. He should have handled. This made the matters worst as the teachers were getting assaulted in the classrooms. I was in Parker’s Place; I would have arranged a meeting between the house masters and department heads and would have tried to bring them all to a truce. I would have designed the curriculum myself after discussing all the differences in opinion regarding the issue with the staff.
When the assaults began on teachers of Thurgood, Parker should have opted to assign security guards for the protection of his staff as one cannot create a learning environment amidst hostility.
Problems due to budget cutbacks
The Second year at school was tougher for Parker as he had to deal with the budget cutbacks which were ordered in summer of previous year. Eight teachers had resigned during the process resulting in lack of teachers as resources. In order to allocate the resources, Parker infused Flexible staffing policy which involved teachers of respective houses would teach other houses as well.
It was a right decision by Parker because that was the only way he could allocate the resources. This move was not acceptable to some employees like Wesley Chase; one of the...