WDRB reporter Toni Konz posted a couple of Tweets a few days ago regarding the importance of the principal being a real leader in the school. She’s right about that.

BUT, thanks to Kentucky’s awkward School Based Decision Making laws, which come from the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990, principal leadership is seriously hampered in Kentucky.

Instead of supporting strong principals, Kentucky’s schools have a mandatory rule-by-committee system, a governance system that often proves problematic in human organizations.

Principals in Kentucky can get in a lot of trouble when they try to be strong leaders, as Stacey Overlin, the principal of Paducah Middle School, found out the hard way recently. The Paducah Sun reported on May 19, 2017 in “State report faults conduct of Paducah Middle principal” (subscription) that Overlin didn’t follow his school’s SBDM’s policies and bylaws. Overlin failed to get that SBDM’s OK to hire new staff members, yet another rule-by-committee process mandated by Kentucky’s school laws.

Overlin didn’t comply with the law. But, it seems clear that the state’s SBDM laws really hamper a principal’s ability to lead.

In fact, Kentucky’s SBDM laws make it difficult to hold anyone accountable for poor school performance. That includes local school boards, their district superintendent, and even principals. All can point to the SBDM as hampering their doing the right thing for students.

An SBDM’s prerogatives are extensive. By statute, they include:

1. Determination of curriculum, including needs assessment, curriculum development and responsibilities under KRS 158.6453(7);

2. Assignment of all instructional and non instructional staff time;

3. Assignment of students to classes and programs within the school;

4. Determination of the schedule of the school day and week, subject to the beginning and ending times of the school day and school calendar year as established by the local board;

5. Determination of use of school space during the school day;

6. Planning and resolution of issues regarding instructional practices;

7. Selection and implementation of discipline and classroom management techniques as a part of a comprehensive school safety plan, including responsibilities of the student, parent, teacher, counselor, and principal;

8. Selection of extracurricular programs and determination of policies relating to student participation based on academic qualifications and attendance requirements, program evaluation, and supervision;

9. Adoption of an emergency plan as required in KRS 158.162;

10. Procedures, consistent with local school board policy, for determining alignment with state standards, technology utilization, and program appraisal; and

11. Procedures to assist the council with consultation in the selection of personnel by the principal, including but not limited to meetings, timelines, interviews, review of written applications, and review of references. Procedures shall address situations in which members of the council are not available for consultation.

Kentucky’s school laws say all of these major responsibilities specifically belong to teacher-controlled SBDMs. That makes it hard to hold the local board and their superintendent to account. Neither has any real control in the schools they supposedly oversee.

Once on tenure, teachers are hard to hold accountable, too. Teachers can mess up royally on their SBDM duties and nothing is likely to happen.

That can leave a principal out to dry. If teachers don’t want real change, they can resist principal leadership very effectively by hiding behind the SBDM laws. That’s not good for Kentucky’s kids, but that’s the way things currently work in the Bluegrass State.