From Bystander to Ally: Transforming the District Human Resources Department

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April 2004
Christine Campbell, Michael DeArmond, Abigail Schumwinger

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Although policymakers and academics tend to overlook the behind-the-scenes role that district human resources (HR) departments play in education, the HR office’s effect is far from small. HR departments determine whether qualified teacher candidates make it to the classroom, or slip through the cracks. They can help principals find teachers who meet their school’s particular needs, or they can offer only perfunctory administrative support during the hiring process. The old adage that “the devil is in the details” is as true in school reform as it is elsewhere. One of the important details is the back-office support provided by district human resource offices.

This report sheds some light on how today’s school districts are rethinking this critical district function. It provides an introductory look at the issues surrounding HR reform by considering three districts that are actively engaged in reshaping their HR offices: Houston Independent School District, Milwaukee Public Schools, and San Diego City Schools. Each of these districts was in transition from a bureaucratic to a more performance-oriented approach to education, and had found that its HR office was not providing principals with the support they needed.

Based on 49 interviews with district and school personnel during the 2002-03 school year, the report’s aim is to identify key issues that leaders in districts elsewhere can use to begin thinking about how they might make their HR office more efficient or effective. Conclusions about the overall impact of HR reforms on teacher quality or school improvement as well as other broad generalizations about school reform and HR, however, are beyond the study’s scope.

One of the report’s central conclusions is that transforming the district HR function requires a combination of two things: administrative reforms to increase the departmental capacity and close attention from district leaders.

Administrative reforms in the study districts touched on three critical areas: the skills of the people who worked in the department, the way the department was organized, and the tools it used:

• To address skill deficits, all three districts hired new departmental leaders and provided training opportunities for current department staff; all hired new staff or reassigned veterans; and one used outside consultants.
• To provide schools with more streamlined HR contacts, two of the districts redesigned jobs in the department; all three districts changed the department’s standing within the district hierarchy to increase its clout.
• To improve the flow of information within the department and between the department and schools, all three districts made investments in information technology systems.

The study district’s experiences also suggest that administrative reforms alone are no guarantee of change. When superintendents and board members fail to take an interest in HR and its work, transformation efforts are haphazard and fail to stick. Leaders can “pay attention” to HR by

• Framing the department’s reform in the context of a broader vision for the district,
• Ensuring that adequate investments in professional capacity – starting with the department director – accompany new organizational structures in HR
• Supporting difficult personnel decisions that may come with upgrading talents and skills in HR, and
• Committing long-term resources, both dollars and people, to information technology improvements.

In the end, whether or not HR is able to transform itself into a new organization has as much to do with the quality of leadership at the top of the district as with the management of the department. When district leaders recognize HR’s importance, and think deliberately about ways to reorient their central bureaucracies to be more effective and to focus on schools’ needs, they may be in a position to marshal HR as an ally that supports, rather than hinders, efforts to improve schools and teachers for all students. The alternative to benign neglect, unfortunately, may be far from benign.