This study is designed to understand how principals perceive the common stressors associated with leading an educational enterprise and propose strategies for relief from job-related stressors. As such, the same survey results from principals in 2009 and 2012 are analyzed. The results indicated increases in the perceived state of stress with…

The increasing number of special education-related lawsuits has become costly, time-consuming, and a strain on school-community relations--in short, an issue of growing concern to U. S. school systems. To identify factors associated with this type of litigation, this study analyzed data from one state's 10-year experience with due process special…

By enabling students to mediate their own disputes, educators may be synthesizing the finest potential in the school--the creative, constructive dynamic inherent in conflict. This article describes a mediated dispute resolution program used in several schools and offers implementation advice. (MLH)

Examines the dynamics of conflict and anger expressed by irate parents and offers principals a simple, effective method to resolve conflict and reduce anger in an integrative way. Well-managed conflict helps improve interpersonal relationships, promote healthy interaction, and develop creative, synergistic solutions to undesirable situations. (MLH)

Success in conferring with hostile parents is a result of careful planning, understanding human behavior, and frontline experience. This article encourages principals to develop the necessary skills to handle emotion-charged encounters with alienated, calculative, and committed parents. (MLH)

Suggests a system for classifying problems to help educators identify their problems and understand their complexity. Presents the Problem-Identification Matrix, which helps clarify the cause-and-effect relationship that exists in any problematic situation. (WD)

If administrators personalize attacks, defend themselves, or argue with detractors, anger will escalate and the situation will degenerate further. This article explains why people attack and advises how to respond by using reflective listening, inviting criticism, focusing on the problem itself, exploring suggested solutions as legitimate options,…

Mediation and conflict resolution have numerous school applications. School mediation programs create new forms for social interaction in which fighting and violence are unacceptable methods of resolving differences. The New Mexico Center for Dispute Resolution has successfully applied mediation techniques to gang disputes, parent-child impasses,…

Focuses on the identification of principles and strategies to be followed in conflict resolution. (Author/MLF)

For schools, teachers, and principals, there is no censorship insurance--especially against attacks directed at learning techniques involved with problem solving and higher order thinking skills. Pincipals faced with disputes must work for consensus before, during, and after a controversy and mitigate self-righteousness and arrogance on either…

Authorized by Title X of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Community Relations Service (CRS) is a mediation service dealing with community racial disputes. CRS has spent much of the past three years working in Los Angeles and is now handling problem solving in multiracial, multicultural schools in Stockton, California. Workshop participants usually…

Participants in the Honolulu School District's Dispute Management in the Schools Project strongly believe that students can effectively participate in activities affecting their destiny. Preliminary evidence shows that student mediators and disputants demonstrated a 95 percent success rate of conflict management during the three project years.…

Instead of avoiding, eliminating, or managing interpersonal conflict, school leaders should explore its transformational uses. A Consensual, no-conflict approach to decision making is impossible. Conflict can serve transformational purposes by helping to organize motives; broadening, strengthening, and clarifying values; and detecting and…

A recent study of Houston secondary schools shows that assistant principals' work centers on routine clerical tasks, custodial duties, and discipline. Daily activities are characterized by brevity, variety, and fragmentation. Assistant principals are seldom charged with instructional improvement activities, except for teacher appraisal. The…

To further home-school communication and help parents resolve possible conflicts regarding their children, schools should have strictly reinforced guidelines. A checklist/question format is helpful. Parents should be encouraged to establish relationships with teachers, telephone the school if a conflict arises, forgo anonymity, and develop best…