Professional Readings
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Professional Readings includes reviews of recent publications and highlights of reports on current issues that affect schools. Your contributions are welcome. Send them to principal@osu.edu. Please indicate if we may use your name in the “contributor” credits.
Professional Code of Ethics: Principles and Principals
Steve Harsh and Mike Casto
School administrators are called to a critically important profession in our current culture of educational crisis. To understand the privileges and demands of that calling it is important to understand what it means to be a professional. In his article “What Is a Profession” (Journal of Allied Health, August 1983, 169-176), Edward Pellegrino defines professionals as those who “profess themselves dedicated to moral standards that oblige them to place the good of those they serve above their own self-interest.”
Because of the importance of the educational task and the trust students and their families place in them, educators, like other helping professionals, must hold themselves to a higher ethical standard than the average members of society. Vulnerable and less powerful students require and deserve an atmosphere of safety, confidentiality and respect where teaching and learning at all levels can occur. All school personnel, of course, are responsible for creating and maintaining such a community conducive to academic, emotional and social learning, but the principal is the primary architect and promoter of the values and standards that ensure everything and everyone in the school building function according to the highest ethical standards. And when those standards are not met by any member of the school community, including the principal him or herself, the principal as the leader must be equipped to take responsibility for caring and constructive but honest and direct steps to address those problems so everyone can learn from them.
A key concept in professional leadership is responsibility. Professionals are granted freedom and latitude in judgment because they are responsible to a code of ethics and not just compliant to a set of behavioral guidelines or a supervisor’s expectations. Professional responsibility requires clarity about core values and principles so daily decisions and actions are grounded in something more stable and universal than what is pragmatic, politically correct, or what just “feels right” on any given day. Those “easier” solutions are too often infected with self-interest and other human frailties.
The principal’s office therefore requires a leader who takes time on a regular basis to reground him or herself on solid ethical principles, to clarify in her/his mind what his/her primary responsibilities and core values are. This is necessary so that decisions made in difficult situations are not just reactive but are proactive ones that profess and exemplify an ethical standard she/he can be proud to teach to students, parents, colleagues and the larger community.
An “official” Code of Ethics governs most every licensed professional, including school administrators. Professionals should certainly become familiar with their own code. The School Administrator’s Code of Ethics should be one of the early stops along the way to addressing any ethical conflict with which a principal may be confronted as they fulfill their responsibilities.
It is also important for the instructional leader of the school building to be familiar with the Code of Ethics of the other professionals who have various responsibilities for the well-being and educational performance of students: teachers, school counselors, nurses, psychologists and social workers and other school professionals. Many of these codes provide a set of “principles” by which to guide decisions. Most often, however, they have become prescriptive in their approach by closely defining appropriate and inappropriate behaviors. For example, the NEA Code of Ethics for teachers consists of a list of inappropriate behaviors such as the educator “shall not unreasonably deny the student’s access to varying points of view.” On the other hand, the Code of Ethics for Educational Leaders offers a list of appropriate behaviors and approaches to ethical thinking such as the educational administrator “fulfills professional duties with honesty and integrity.”
One of the shortcomings of the NEA code is that it was created years ago and apparently has not had a formal review since its adoption (NEA 1975). Much has changed in the past 30 years, and many of those changes require fresh approaches to ethical thinking in the practice of the education professions. As you review your professional Code of Ethics, you may want to suggest to your professional association that they take a fresh look at the principles that govern ethical decision making for principals and school administrators.
The American Association for School Administrators adopted standards of ethical behaviors for school leaders > .
The educational leader:
- Makes the education and well-being of students the fundamental value of all decision making.
- Fulfills all professional duties with honesty and integrity and always acts in a trustworthy and responsible manner.
- Supports the principle of due process and protects the civil and human rights of all individuals.
- Implements local, state, and national laws.
- Advises the school board and implements the board’s policies and administrative rules and regulations.
- Pursues appropriate measures to correct those laws, policies, and regulations that are not consistent with sound educational goals or that are not in the best interest of children.
- Avoids using his/her position for personal gain through political, social, religious, economic, or other influences.
- Accepts academic degrees or professional certification only from accredited institutions.
- Maintains the standards and seeks to improve the effectiveness of the profession through research and continuing professional development.
- Honors all contracts until fulfillment, release, or dissolution mutually agreed upon by all parties.
- Accepts responsibility and accountability for one’s own actions and behaviors.
- Commits to serving others above self.
—Adopted by the AASA Governing Board, March 1, 2007
Links to Codes of Ethics for Related Professions in Education
Education
National School Boards Association Code of Ethics (Word document)
School Administrators
School Counseling
School Psychology
Special Education Code of Ethics
Expanded discussion of the application of the Code in PDF format > (651 KB)
For information on numerous other professions visit the Center for the Study of
Ethics in the Professions > .
