As an educational leader, having a personal code of ethics that guides decision-making is essential. Best practices of laws, ethics and standards for professional dispositions should be the base for this code to ensure that all the decisions are made with integrity and benefit parties included. From my research on the NELP Standard 2, NASDTEC Model Code of Ethics for Teachers, AASA Code of Ethics, and the state and district codes of ethics, I have developed a personal code that shows the values and principles of these best practices.
Professional Dispositions, Laws, Ethics, and Professional Standards
Professional dispositions for school leaders refer to the attitudes, behaviours, and values of an individual holding a leadership position in all educational settings. These play a vital role in contributing to the culture and climate of the school because maintaining respect and dignity between the stakeholders is always upheld.
Among the leading practices to include as professional dispositions for school leaders, I reviewed sources I had used, including National Educational Leadership Preparation (NELP) Standard 2, National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (NASDTEC) Model Code of Ethics for Teachers, the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) Code of Ethics, as well as my state’s code of ethics and my school district’s code of ethics.
One of the significant findings from this research entails understanding that professional dispositions for education leaders constitute a commitment to ethical behaviour, transparency, and accountability. The NELP Standard 2 considers leaders’ requirement to illustrate ethics and professional conduct, be transparent in the decision-making process, and be accountable for performance (Sari, 2023). The NASDTEC Model Code of Ethics for Educators highlights the four major ethical principles that should act as the foundation for professional relationships with learners: integrity, respect, fairness, and honesty.
The AASA Code of Ethics touches on the leaders and their role in enforcing ethical standards and establishing an environment that upholds honesty within their schools. The South Carolina State Code of Ethics and standards of professional conduct elaborates on duties to provide confidentiality responsibilities, anti-discrimination, and obligations to avoid conflict of interest.
NELP Standard 2
NELP Standard 2 emphasizes that the leader must be capable of creating and sustaining an ethical school culture characterized by fairness, caring, equity, and democracy, among others (Atela, 2021). This standard is compulsory as it places the school leaders directly on the requirement of setting high degrees of ethical standards for both themselves and other people in their school setting.
NASDTEC Model Code of Ethics for Teachers
The NASDTEC Model Code of Ethics for Educators lays out expectations regarding professional conduct. On the surface, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, and relationships with the families of students and other teachers appear appropriate. This model code guides educational leaders to promote ethical behaviour in their schools and districts.
AASA Code of Ethics
The AASA Code of Ethics enumerates integrity, respect, responsibility, fairness, and diligence as the guiding values. It displays how ethical leadership should be done at various levels and serves as an avenue in decision-making and taking action.
[State] Code of Ethics and Requirements for Professional Conduct
The State of South Carolina Code of Ethics and Requirements for Professional Conduct presents a set of guidelines concerning professional conduct, which guides in pointing out potential ethical challenges (Lerman et al., 2022). The emphasis on professionalism, under this code, is what drives one in making decisions as well as maintaining essential decency among stakeholders.
Self-Assessment: Ethics and Professional Norms
Reflecting on Ethics and Professional Norms
As an educational leader, ethics and professional norms are integral to my proficiency as a principal. Maintaining high ethical standards and adhering to professional norms as laid down by my state and district go a long way in ensuring all stakeholders’ safety and helping build trust and confidence amongst each other within my school community. I value acting with a sense of ethics, with professional norms that guide my decisions, and I must serve as an example of this behaviour for others.
Strengths in NELP Standard and State’s Code of Ethics
One NELP standard that aligns well with my strengths is Standard Four: “Creating positive school culture.” Creating a positive school culture is of significant essence in fostering an environment of respect, innovation, and growth. As a principal, I have tried hard to create a culture where all the stakeholders feel respected, appreciated, and valued. For example, I have helped implement a recognition program that celebrates the staff and student success monthly (Keup et al., 2023). This program reinforces positive behaviours and encourages community within the school.
One standard from my state’s code of ethics that represents my strengths is Rule 1.1: “Maintaining confidentiality.” This is fundamental to many personal and professional contexts, so I have always taken it seriously. I ensure confidential information is handled appropriately and only shared with authorized persons. For example, it concerns the student information I want to discuss with the teacher or another staff member. In that case, I will ensure that the information is only at the level of the students without any personal but unnecessary information (Yeung et al., 2022).
Opportunities for Improvement in NELP Standard and State’s Code of Ethics
One NELP standard that signifies an area of growth for me is Standard 7: “Ethics and Professional Norms.” Acting in a manner consistent with the professional norms my state and district laid out are traditional ones I hold to. Yet, I recognize there is always room for improvement. In furthering my commitment to ethical behaviour, I will continue to engage in professional development opportunities and seek consistent feedback from other workmates and stakeholders.
One standard from my state’s code of ethics that presents an opportunity for growth is Rule 3.6: “Avoiding discriminatory practices.” I work to create a diverse and welcoming learning environment for all students and staff, but I also realize that implicit bias can manifest itself subconsciously in my decision-making. I will engage in more cultural competency training to address this and learn more about diversity, equity, and inclusion (Ribeiro et al., 2022). I will also commit with my staff to ensure our current and future policies and practices are inclusive and equitable for all our students.
Personal Code of Ethics
[Complete Figure 1 below to form your code of ethics. Introduce Figure 1.]
Figure 1
[Name’s] Personal Code of Ethics
| Purpose Statement | As a leader in the school, making decisions with integrity in the best interest of all stakeholders remains my duty. Developing my code of conduct guarantees that my decision-making process is based on the philosophy of making decisions consistent with ethical and professional standards, besides reinforcing a positive culture in the school. This code serves as a guide for decision-making and helps to build trust and confidence within my school community. | ||
| Personal Traits | · Integrity: Being honest, transparent, and consistent in my actions and decisions.
· Respect: Treat all stakeholders with dignity, empathy, and understanding. · Accountability: Taking responsibility for my actions and decisions and being open to feedback and constructive criticism. · Collaboration: Working with others to achieve common goals and promoting teamwork and inclusivity. · Growth Mindset: Continuously learning, growing, and adapting to new challenges and opportunities. |
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| Relationships | As a school leader, I would like to maintain and foster relationships in my community by being accessible, sensible, and reliable. Effective leadership communication should be about paying attention, showing others the gratitude they deserve, and getting the message across. This means that I will work towards developing positive relationships between the students, staff, families, and community people on matters of inclusivity, diversity, and a mutual respect accord. I also work to avoid conflicts at all stages respectably, remedying such issues on time. I aim to foster a positive school culture that promotes trust, collaboration, and growth. | ||
| Ethical Statements and Guidelines | Ethical Statements | Guidelines | |
| 1 | I will act with honesty and transparency at all times | I will communicate openly and honestly with all stakeholders, even when difficult or uncomfortable. I will provide clear and transparent explanations for my decisions and actions. | |
| 2 | I will respect and value diversity in all forms. | I will try understanding and appreciating different perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences. I will actively promote inclusion, equity, and diversity in all aspects of leadership. | |
| 3 | I will prioritize the safety and well-being of all stakeholders | I will ensure that safety, physical, emotional and psychological levels, remain the most significant concern for all stakeholders. I will ensure enhanced celerity in ascertaining that no risk or damage of any probable sort ever occurs. I’ll keep looking at our school security regimes from time to time. | |
| 4 | I will uphold confidentiality and respect privacy. | I will disclose private information only when necessary and appropriate, always with the proper authorization. I will protect the confidentiality of all individuals I owe a professional responsibility to. | |
| 5 | I will avoid conflicts of interest and act in the best interests of all stakeholders. | I will avoid any positions of conflict of interest and always act primarily in the best interests of the students, families, and colleagues. I will communicate to all parties interested the nature of my interest when a conflict arises or may reasonably be seen to arise. After that, I will refrain from participating in any decision-making process in which the conflict exists. | |
Evidence-Based Rationale
As a leader in education, it is imperative to develop a professionally identified code of ethics so that teachers make decisions with integrity and in the best interest of all players. From validated research that I derived from reliable sources such as NELP, NASDTEC, AASA, and my state and district codes of ethics, I have recorded the values/principles that would support best practices for dispositions based on professional dispositions, laws, ethics, and professional standards. My code of ethics espouses dedication to transparency, accountability, honesty, respect, inclusivity, and a growth mindset. The adherence to this code will contribute towards building a vibrant school culture for all partners by enhancing trust, collaboration, and growth.
In today’s complex school set-up, circumstances are such that decisions have far-reaching implications. It is in the school’s best interest and even outside that school for a school leader to act with integrity and professionalism. Coming up with a credible personal code of ethics equips the leader with an honest tool for decision-making from sound principles. This tool will help me as a school leader prioritize safety and well-being concerns for everybody while ensuring that every action ensures confidentiality, conflict of interest is avoided, and whichever action is suitable for all players who have a stake in the issue. My code of ethics also reflects my commitment to promoting inclusiveness, diversity and respect for others within the school community, which will contribute towards fostering positive and supporting the school culture.
Mentor Feedback
During the meeting with my mentor, we marshalled my self-assessment results and my code of ethics, which was well received. The mentor appreciated my efforts at developing a well-articulated personal code of ethics that will prove integral as a guiding principle for decision-making. We also discussed strengths in my unique code of ethics directionally aligned with my past performance and identified some opportunities for improvement. The feedback my mentor gave me was instrumental in my professional growth, especially areas of my ethical behaviour to work on to be an example and help create more inclusion and equity in our school culture. The meeting went off productively and left me inspired and supported to advance further as an ethical educational leader.
Self-Assessment Feedback
During the mentoring session, we discussed my self-assessment feedback with the mentor concerning strengths and growth areas in my leadership skills and dispositions. My mentor gave me more insights and feedback on using my strengths to improve my leadership. We also discussed ways to seek professional development as one of the approaches in addressing the areas for improvement besides receiving feedback from colleagues and other stakeholders.
Personal Code of Ethics Feedback
Positive feedback from my mentor suggested the code of ethics aligned well with best practices. It would have been accepted based on ethical standards if submitted to a cohesive exemplary code for educational leaders. We further discussed strengthening my commitment to conduct ethics and inclusivity, such as engaging in cultural competency training and advocating for a more diversified and inclusive school culture. Their feedback has motivated me to work further and make appropriate revisions and changes to my personal code of ethics, reflecting the best as an educational leader.
Conclusion
Through self-assessment and researching best practices in the area of ethics and professional dispositions for school leaders, I have formulated my code of ethics that guides my decisions and allows a proper view of the culture of schools. Their feedback and insights from my mentor will help shape insight into my particular leadership areas of strength, as well as the places from which I could improve as a leader in a range of contexts, and their ideas about how I might best do so will be precious for me continuing striving for excellence at this role. I plan to use what I have compiled in this assignment to reference how best to handle different ethical issues and make decisions that foster a culture of integrity, respect, and inclusivity in the school community.
References
Atela, S. O. (2021). The Influence of Ethical Leadership on Performance of Public Secondary Schools in Dagoretti Sub County, Nairobi, Kenya (Doctoral dissertation).
Keup, J. R., Petschauer, J. W., Groccia, J. E., Hunter, M. S., Garner, B., Latino, J. A., … & Friedman, D. B. (Eds.). (2023). The first-year seminar: Designing, implementing, and assessing courses to support student learning and success. The National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience.
Lerman, L. G., Schrag, P. G., & Rubinson, R. (2022). Ethical problems in the practice of law. Aspen Publishing.
Ribeiro, D., & Varajão, J. (2022). Ethical Standards for Information Systems Professionals-30 years after “A Case for a Unified Code”. AIS Transactions on Replication Research, 8(1), 1.
Sari, A. R. (2023). The Impact of Good Governance on the Quality of Public Management Decision Making. Journal of Contemporary Administration and Management (ADMAN), 1(2), 39-46.
Yeung, M. W., & Yau, A. H. (2022). A thematic analysis of higher education students’ perceptions of online learning in Hong Kong under COVID-19: Challenges, strategies and support. Education and Information Technologies, 1-28.
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