0.1 Babo, g.(february 2009) principal evaluation and leadership  (Page 4/9)

In the State of New Jersey, school districts are categorized as either urban or suburban with a special classification of “Abbott” for those districts that meet specific criteria for a percentage of the population that are identified as low income. School districts classified as “Abbott” districts are provided with extra state funding to supplement educational programs due to a lack of financial equity when compared to the state’s more affluent districts. These school districts generally have the largest educational, community and social problems to surmount. Of the CSAs involved in this study, none from “Abbott” classified districts responded. The majority of the participants, 92%, were from suburban school districts, 4% were from urban districts and 4% of the respondents did not identify his district type.

The State of New Jersey uses an additional coding structure to determine and classify each school district’s financial potential, defined as “District Factor Group” or DFG. Based on this specific coding it was determined that 25% of the survey respondents are currently CSAs in what would be considered affluent/wealthy school districts, 12% from upper middle class school districts, 12% from average middle to lower middle class (blue collar) school districts and the remaining 51% were equally distributed among the other 10 DFG factor ratings.

Results and discussion

Demographic findings

Regrettably, only 52 current working CSAs participated in this research study from a potential population of approximately 475. As had been mentioned previously, this accounted for approximately an 11% participation rate. This low participation rate can be attributed to three potential explanations.

First, the initial participation e-mail was distributed in early June, a busy time of the academic year, considering that most districts in the State of New Jersey are gearing up for the close of the official school year. The follow-up e-mail came two weeks later and conditions would not have changed much; in fact, they most likely grew more hectic.

Second, many school districts now employ filtering software as a security method to protect student and staff populations from receiving unwarranted solicitation from private web addresses and/or to guard against student and staff users from accessing unwanted websites. This fact alone could have eradicated numerous e-mail deliveries to potential participants without the researcher being made aware.

Finally, the low participation rate could also speak to the overwhelming nature of the job of the superintendent. Many CSAs are so busy with the daily operations and responsibilities of running a school district that participation in any research project is a luxury not afforded them because of the massive demand on their time.

Although more males (34) participated in the study than females (18), 65% and 35% respectively, this represented a more equitable breakdown by gender than is currently represented in the State of New Jersey. Currently, females represent 22% of the state’s superintendents while males represent 78% (Edmunds, 2007).