Degree Name

EdD (Doctor of Education)

Program

Educational Leadership

Date of Award

December 1980

Abstract

The problem of this study was to identify existing factors affecting professional personnel of Johnson City and Washington County, Tennessee, public school systems and to project the effect merger would have on these factors. Subproblems consisted of identification of the criteria for maximum professional personnel performance, present approaches for meeting the needs of professional personnel in event of merger, and the factors involved in successful and unsuccessful merger attempts to determine what effects merger had on professional personnel. Professional personnel employment conditions would be altered after merger of the two systems. Projections could be made of these conditions. The information presented to the Metro-Joint Committee would be helpful in its study. The background research was limited to a review of the literature related to the subject. The study focused on the Johnson City and Washington County, Tennessee, school systems but presented data from other Tennessee systems where merger had been considered. The study employed the descriptive method of research. Items identified as having to be adequately supplied for maximum professional personnel performance were salary and fringe benefits, instructional materials and equipment, physical facilities, extraclass activity duty, planning time, research, in-service, negotiations, para-professional help, additional 100 percent funded personnel, and administrative positions. In the successful mergers of Nashville-Davidson County and Clarksville-Montgomery County the advantages of merger were noted as being: better use of qualified personnel at higher pay on the salary scale; more efficient management in purchases, warehousing, and inventory control; improved curriculum and up-dated curriculum guides; new facilities and higher level of maintenance; removal of duplicated functions; improvement of supervisory practices; maximum utilization of classroom facilities; elimination of disruption of county schools by annexation; increased effectiveness of in-service programs; additional aides, clerical help, and locally funded support personnel; greater effectiveness in methods of obtaining state and federal funds; growth of cohesiveness and unity of city and county areas; extension of programs for exceptional children; equalization of educational opportunities; reduction of waste, inertia, and petty politics; and extension of experimentation and research. Johnson City spent approximately one-third more per pupil than the county system. All expenditures of the city system exceeded those for the county system. County personnel would benefit from the merger. Inequality existed in Washington County and Johnson City school systems for both students and professional personnel in all areas. The city provided higher salaries, additional instructional materials, more 100 percent locally funded personnel, additional Title I aides, and adequate physical facilities above the county system. Annexation was not the solution for the school systems' problems. Inequality existed among the county schools in the amount of extraclass activities required of the professional personnel, planning time provided, and facilities supplied. It was impossible to predict actual cost of equalizing educational opportunities offered in the event of merger. The benefits were impossible to compute in dollar amounts.

Document Type

Dissertation - unrestricted

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