Erin Clemmer

EL 504
Ethics in School Leadership

School leaders in general have been challenged, ethically and morally, to make difficult

decisions while simultaneously dealing with increasing high stakes pressure and policies from

both, often uninformed and inexperienced in the education context, public and political leaders.

A challenge occurs when leaders are required to balance conflicting state and federal standards,

legislations, community an student interests, and the interests of other stakeholders. This task

becomes even more daunting in our present age of increased expectations for improved students

success regardless of circumstance, paired with substantial decreases in school funding. In my

experience, all of the school leaders in my small network strive to maintain the highest ethical

behavior and as advocates for children, teachers, and families, are committed to providing the

highest quality educational experience to students possible, and I hold myself to the same

standards.

In order to sustain high levels of ethical behaviors, educational leaders must exhibit

personal courage. Challenges that leaders face seem to increase daily, however, quality leaders

still need to be willing to stand up against policies that are not helpful or are actually harmful to

their students. Dissenting opinions need to be expressed in a professional way in order to create a

positive and effective discourse.

Kants philosophy hold people at very high value simply for being a person. He states

that people should be respected at a fundamental level simply because they are human. This is

emulated through an educational leaders duty to place stakeholders, such as students and staff,
interest ahead of the needs of the leader themselves. We can also see this in Bentham and Mills

philosophy of Utilitarianism: the opinions and needs of students and staff (read: public) should

always precede the needs of the individual leader.

In respecting people for their mere existence as a human and making decisions based on

what is in the best interest of students and families, leaders must exhibit a certain level of self-

control, self-discipline, and integrity. These three characteristics could broadly be applied to any

type of leadership. However, when specifically speaking of school leadership this can be

exemplified through a commitment to fairness, consistency, modeling responsibility and

demanding it from teachers, understanding the nuances of the community in which he or she

works, and creating a safe environment for discussion and discourse.