Problems Facing Kennedy High School - Assignment Example

Weis declined to hire security guards to deal with insecurity in school in a bid to depict the school as peaceful to the public. His failure was rooted in conflict avoidance instead of coming up with strategies and solutions to counter them as they arose.

The main sources of conflict in the school were security guards and locking doors to fight violence and external interference. The presence of security guards was considered to give a negative image of the school to the public (Pg. 3). Moreover, it would break the community trust the school was striving so hard to establish. The locking of the doors would interfere with the autonomy of the houses and free-market policy would affect the quality of education.

Flexible staffing was to enable students to choose courses from other departments. However, some department heads argued that the move would destroy the house system. Weis had created a culture of individualism whereby staff could only criticize each other in private. On the other hand, King was striving to create a collective culture whereby staff and students could share a platform and raise their issues freely.