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Greg Tolland, sixth-grade teacher, has come
into your office after school, quite annoyed. He says that
he has just gone into the supply closet to get 8 1/2 x 11-inch
white lined paper for his students to write final copies of
their essays for a contest. The essays must be turned in tomorrow.
His students have been working on the essays for nearly two
weeks and expect to have them submitted. The contest rules
say that the essays must be submitted on 8 1/2 x 11-inch white
lined paper. There is none in the supply closet, and the year
isn’t even half over.
He says that the reason the paper is gone is that other teachers
have taken it all and hidden it away in their rooms. The worst
offenders, according to Greg are Marina Pulaski and Sharon
Massi. Uland claims that the former principal had always allowed
the two of them to have whatever they wanted, even if it meant
that other people had to do without.
You know that you ordered 10% more of all paper supplies than
had been ordered the previous year, because several teachers
had complained that the supplies had run out before the end
of the year. In addition, the student population has been
rising slowly but steadily.
You go down to the supply closet with Greg and find that he
is right: All the 8 1/2 x 11-inch white lined paper is gone.
You cannot imagine that two teachers could possibly have stockpiled
enough paper to exhaust the supply this early in the school
year.
You tell Greg that you’ll get the necessary paper for
him by tomorrow. After he leaves, you go to Marina Pulaski’s
room and politely ask if she has any 8 1/2 x 11 inch white
lined paper. The pleasant look with which she greeted you
disappears and she says that she has two unopened reams and
a small quantity left of another ream. She invites you to
search her room if you think she has some huge stockpile hidden
somewhere. You say that won’t be necessary, but you
ask if you may borrow one ream, promising to replace it. She
hands you the paper in silence.
Case Questions |
| 1. |
What do you suspect is going
on here? |
| 2. |
Are there problems with the professional
relationships in your building—problems with which
you need to become involved? If so, what do you do? |
| 3. |
How can you tell if there is unproductive
tension among staff members? |
| 4. |
Your supply budget for the year has been
expended. What do you do about the shortage of 8 1/2 x
11-inch white lined paper? |
| 5. |
How do you go about ordering supplies
for next year? |
| 6. |
How do you monitor what has been happening
to your supplies? |
| 7. |
What can you do to ensure an equitable
distribution of supplies in the future? |
| 8. |
What else, if anything, do you need to
know to deal effectively with this situation? |
Tasks
1. Divide students into eight groups. Each question is assigned to a group to discuss a week prior to the chat room session.
2. Each group should prepare to post their answers in the chat room session and also is responsible for coordinating the online chatting for that particular question.
3. Allocate 10 minutes to the discussion of each question.
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