Should an adminstrator be held accountable for their schools image?

If a school is know for gangs fighting and disorderly conduct coupled with academic performances of students and the school is not getting better but worse and losing its good students should the administrator be held accountable? or the community the school is in. What is your thoughts?

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Schools were never designed to be a police state. If a community has a higher rate of crime, drugs, gangs, and absent parents of course that will result in low test scores and higher crime rate within the schools. The community has to come together and do something about it, you cannot solely blame the administrator or Principal.

Many of these kids also suffer from a lack of coping skills. When kids are coming from broken homes you cannot expect the schools to be responsible for getting the families of these children to break the cycle. Many think it starts at home, but that's not always the case. I know of many "good" parents and "good" homes where the child goes awry regardless of the quality of care.
Kids need to be kept busy, the lack of respect I see from teens is deplorable and many having nothing to do and no one to oversee them. More reason why I am having my oldest, 17, volunteer starting this summer and he works to keep himself busy. If more kids had this mindset and felt they have a purpose the less likely they would find drugs and gangs attractive...it's the attention and the escape they are looking for when nothing else is available.

Given the situation with Gangs, violence and low academic performance, which actually describes many school districts; The entire school should be held accountable. My question "How does a school District get to this when children get into the upper grades?" If the School Administrator appropriately handled the situation in the first place, is it possible the problem wouldn't be at an all time high? Everyone involved should be held accountable with the older students, because at that point, it could be too late and then the kids are being shipped off to juvenile detention centers. I believe this is a growing problem. Our school districts are beginning to use the foster care system and the juvenile detention centers to solve their own academic situations. Parents need to be concerned and look into these issues when their own child is having a problem with these issues and then getting the school district to appropriately assist the parent could be another problematic issue. No one person can handle these types of issues once they have gotten into severe behavior phase. However I do believe that the administrator of the school district should step up to the plate and manage the staff more effectively and make himself/herself completely available when a problem does evolve within the students and the school. If school districts and parents of the students can't work things out where bad behaviors and low academic performance is ongoing, the students will be too confused and upset to co-operate and eventually retaliation takes over with these kids. I believe if parents and school district effectively worked through these issues together as opposed to fighting each other, it could help resolve the issues. But unfortunately education has become an educational political game and no one wins. The kids that are considered a problem for these schools, get shipped off or they quit school;whatever comes first. I saw a situation in our school where a learning challenged child (not mine), was being given a tremedous amount of school work that he was academically unable to do. The boy kept saying "this is too hard for me I need help" Finally the boy threw a pencil in class and got very aggitated. The school district labeled him a behavior problem and shipped to a school for bad boys. Again, I am concerned about the "Why" this stuff is going on in school. School Districts should be held accountable but the truth needs to be told about everyone, not just blame kids and parents and shipping the kids off. Parents are always held accountable no matter what, when our children get to school, what really goes on???

I agree that the entire image cannot fall on one person - but, if the frontline source of discipline does not get the support of administration to do what needs to be done (and I am not talking about anything wildly extreme - just being able to enforce the rules) - then the administration needs a good looking at. Maybe I read too much into this, but I assumed in asking the question that people had tried to work with the administrator and the administrator had not been responsive. There are families out there that put no value on their kids educations beyond what they can get out of it (the kids out of their hair, the free meals, etc.) - it is a harsh reality.

A school is a community and therefore the burden cannot fall onto one person's shoulders. The administrator will ultimately be held accountable for the school, but it seems wrong to put an entire school's "image" onto one person. As another poster previously said... "image" may not always be the reality. Teachers, parents and students play a large role in the school dynamic. The administrator is overseeing everything, but the teachers are the ones in the classes with the kids, on the yard, and the main source of discipline (or lack thereof it seems in this case.) Sounds like you need to be working WITH the administrator, other families, and the children to take back your community's school.

kjdmom - you make some excellent points.

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