Negotiation Strategies

Miami School District

Negotiation Strategies

MGT 445

23 Jun 2010

School District Negotiation Strategies

There are instances where school boards or school superintendents have to develop and release information which affects students and parents. The review of classroom sizes due to an unexpected increase in enrollment was needed by the Miami School District to better manage the district. The Miami school district needed to determine how to redraw the school boundaries while attempting to minimize the overall impact on the families and students. There will be parties who will not be pleased with the outcome no matter how much communication is made to assist them with the transformation. Miami is home to a large group of ethnicities and when talks of redrawing the school boundaries due to the increase in enrollment, it was sure a decision could not possibly appease all people involved. According to Putnam and Poole (1987),

. . . the activity of having or managing a conflict occurs through communication. More specifically, communication undergirds the setting and reframing of goals; the defining and narrowing of conflict issues; the developing of relationships between disputants and among constituents; the selecting and implementing of strategies and tactics; the generating, attacking, and defending of alternative solutions; and the reaching and confirming of agreements. (p. 550)

Miami is home to the fourth-largest public school district in the nation and in a city packed with students, the quality of education is of a major concern. In the Miami-Dade County District Strategic Plan, it lays out the recent achievements between 2004 and 2006. These achievements include engaging parents, increased reading performance, and upgrading schools from a “D” or “F” rating (Dadeschools.net, 2009). With this information, one could conclude that the education system in Miami is continually growing and becoming better with the intentions of becoming...