Rancho Solano
Rancho Solano Private School (RSPS) is a private school founded in 1954. Until 2013, the school continued to open educational establishments across the country. However, after 2013, the economic recession started to take its toll on the educational industry. In 2014, the school started announcing closure of several of their schools. These closures have continued over the past two years. At the same time, school enrollment is increasing across the country. In Arizona, K-12 enrollment is expected to grow by 23% by 2023 (Oke, 2015, p. 3). The RSPS campuses in Arizona closed in 2014. It is a necessity for there these schools to stop closing across the country. In order for that to be accomplished, extreme changes need to be taken at RSPS.
Implementing Change
People need to be attracted to RSPS in order to develop and maintain the type of change needed at RSPS. Human resources will recruit individuals to help assess and implement the proper change needed. The following discusses the main focus of RSPS human resource department and how change will be implemented.
Subsystem to change
Three subsystems that need to be changed at RSPS are the management subsystem, the financial subsystem, and the academic subsystem. The main subsystem that needs to be changed is the academic subsystem. In order for these schools to remain open, academia needs to be stressed. Some of these schools are closing for academic reasons because they are not able to keep up with the standards set forth by the U.S. Department of Education (Oke, 2015, p. 5). Due to this, schools are forced to close. It is important for human resources to focus on attracting and maintain proper teachers/staff in order to get these students the average standards of the Department of Education.
The reason this subsystem needs to be changes is due to the fact these schools are not able to meet academic standards. Three charter schools closed in Arizona because they all received F’s on their state report cards in 2014 (Oke, 2015, p. 3). In 2012, fifteen percent of districts closed schools that given year. That number rose from 2010 when school closings only affected 8 percent of schools (p. 3). Proper individuals need to be attracted in order to properly assess what these students need in order to succeed academically.
In comparison, one school in Arizona has implemented a successful change in order to handle the stress from the economic recession. The Bayer School took advantage of the closure of one of RSPS’s campuses. They hired 12 teachers/staff from RSPS. The Bayer School described these individuals as innovative, passionate, and invested individuals (Oke, 2015, p. 9). These individuals are the teachers and staff members RSPS’s human resources department should seek to obtain. Individuals who are passionate about changing the lives of children.
Changing the academic subsystem will have an impact on the other two subsystems. By increasing these student’s grades, the financial subsystem will be positively impacted. With higher grade averages, these schools may be eligible for more financial incentives from the government (Konz, 2014). The management should also be positively impacted. If human resources are able to recruit proper people who have a desire to change these students’ lives, then management should be affected.
Stakeholder impact
The proposed change will satisfy any three stakeholders of RSPS by increasing the quality of education that students receive. If RSPS is able to pull up their academic standards than all other subsystems should be positively impacted. Academics is the main goal of a school. It is important to put emphasis on academia and not the managerial or financial aspect of the organization (Konz, 2014). Why managerial components of an organization are important, what education these students are or are not receiving is more important. These children are the products produced from these schools. If these students are not able to pass standardized tests, then these schools are failing. Thus, human resource’s main focus is on developing and maintaining a workforce that is passionate about changing the lives of these children.
Implementation
RSPS should attract, develop and maintain the workforce required for this change by implementing a proper recruitment strategy, focusing on training and development, and balancing employee retention and turnover.
Recruitment. Recruitment will be the main aspect RSPS will focus on when it comes to workforce change. Recruiting is the process of attracting a quality workforce. The recruitment process at RSPS will be focused on finding a workforce that intends to stay with the organization. Turnover and training expenses can increase costs for the school and may lead to more school closures. It is important for these applicants to understand the struggle of the school, but also the dire necessity of their job.
Training and development. Training and development will help the workforce continue to grow with the school. Human resources should seek one individual specifically for training and development. This individual should be knowledgeable and up-to-date regarding the most recent literature on training teachers. Teachers need to be properly trained on how to handle different situations, as well as proper instruction techniques. Training and development should be implemented in order to make sure these teachers are knowledgeable about the best ways to conduct their jobs. One of the main reasons for the closures was due to the fact these children are not passing the class. In order to keep these schools open and continue to educate these young individuals, the teachers need to be adequately trained to help these children academically perform.
Employee retention and turnover. Human resources will also attract individuals who will focus mainly on employee retention and turnover. While teachers are easy to find, keeping and maintaining them to reduce costs associated to turnover is the problem. One way to decrease the unnecessary costs of turnover, individuals will be sought who will specifically deal with employee retention and turnover. It will be these individuals’ jobs to make sure the reasons for turnover is discovered and a solution is found.
Worldview-based component
Without proper education, an individual cannot properly succeed in this country. Education is a necessity. In this situation at hand, human resources should focus the future impact on society if these schools do not stop closing. It should be the mission of RSPS to seek individuals who understand the importance behind decent education for developing minds. Without proper education, an individual is not given all the proper tools to help them achieve in life. School closings and school enrollment cannot both continue to increase.
References
Konz, A. (2014). Schools shut down social media access after suicide. Retrieved on 14 August 2016, from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/15/schools-shut-down social-media-access-after-suicide-/7761251/.
Oke, M. (2015). Rancho Solano Case Study. Grand Canyon University.
