ABSTRACT
This study analyzed the crisis management skills and challenges of the school heads in the Division of Batangas Province. It used a descriptive quantitative type of research, and an adapted survey questionnaire was administered to 343 school heads who were purposively selected to be the respondents of the study.
It revealed that school heads had high level of crisis management skills and school crisis’ challenges happen in high extent. There were no significant differences when the crisis management and the extent level of the challenges faced by the school head when grouped according to their profile at 0.05, but in years of service and extent level of the challenges faced by the school heads. Also, there was a relationship between crisis management and the extent level of the challenges face by the school heads at 0.05. Lastly, Project Sinag was created to serve as the crisis strategic communication work plan of the study wherein school head’s involvement to stakeholders, maintained school head’s ethical behavior and communication before, during and after crisis must be established for the school to function in the case of a school crisis.
Keywords: challenges, school crisis, school heads and strategic communication work plan
INTRODUCTION
Schools hone the holistic skills of students to be real world-ready individuals. As what Flook (2019) mentioned, schools can encourage students' development in their relationships, identities, emotional abilities, and general well-being in addition to academics. Since youth is emphasized as a vital element of the school system and their development is important, a conducive and safe school is what they really need so that they can better become society’s future (Paul, 2022). As what the National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environment (N.Y) said, all learners should be protected in safe schools from dangers such as bullying, use of illegal substances on school property, exposure to weapons and threats, theft, violence, and other situations since improved student and academic performance are related to school safety and academic achievement is specifically correlated with emotional and physical safety at school. In fact, as what Ismail (2022) emphasized, school is one of the public places that makes students safe to grow as a relevant individual for the community.
Unfortunately, Cobanoglu and Demir (2022) stated that there are different school crises that trigger schools not to be classified as a safe place for school’s stakeholders such as an assault of a student or a member of their family, missing students, violent deaths, accidental overdoses by students, sexual harassment or assault of students, staff member or student suicide attempts or fatalities, bullying and even natural phenomenon. For instance, Green (2020) revealed that in the United States of America, 6.7% of students missed school because they felt unsafe in the 30 days, and roughly 6% of students had been threatened or hurt with a weapon in the 12 months which is based to a national study conducted in 2017. Meanwhile, in contrast to the average of 23 percent of OECD countries, 65% of Filipino students reported experiencing bullying at least a few times per month, according to the 2018 cycle of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) (Philippine Institute for Development Studies [PIDS], 2021).
Asvaroglu (2022) as cited to Ocak’s study said that crises in schools are circumstances that arise because of things that will stop schools from operating entirely or fully disrupting the educational process. However, these challenges and school crises can be prevented if school administrators are systematic and can preparedly manage the school. As Ulusoy (2020) emphasized, one of the essential figures in the organization and crucial to the establishment of an accredited educational institution is the school principal, whose leadership style and expected crisis management ability level are of great importance. Having said the significance of a school principal to the growth of the school, there are still other skills and characteristics that each school leader should have to become an efficient and effective school team leader especially before, during and after the school crises such as collaboration, communication, decision making, budgeting, having the ability to create crisis management plan or emergency plan and must possess good ethical behavior.
Having said these things, Chatzipanagiotou and Katsarou (2023) revealed that the recent COVID-19 pandemic global outbreak disrupted the delivery of educational services, exposing flaws in school leadership skills that were largely related to the failure of most school principals to adopt the necessary crisis management techniques to successfully address impending challenges at both the organizational and instructional levels. Because of this, the researcher conducted this study to assess the level of crisis management skills and extent of the challenges faced by the school heads in the Division of Batangas Province. After being analyzed, it was used to create a crisis strategic communication work plan to enhance the school leadership training in the said division.
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