Essay On Merced County Office Of Education

Looking closely at the design of an organization will tell you how it functions from the front lines to the administrative level. Design guides the way strategies are created and determines how they will be carried out. It establishes the jobs, roles and responsibilities of an organization’s members. Essentially, organizational design furnishes a map with a clearly defined goal the organization wants to reach and the route to attain this goal. County offices of education provide services to school districts by taking on tasks that are better handled at a county level due to complexity, resources needed and specialized requirements. The Merced County Office of Education is one of these institutions who support multiple school districts and

Adopting this structure was necessary due to the size and nature of the organization. As a government entity, MCOE is required to follow the California Education code which consists of thousands of laws, regulating everything from student attendance to teacher training. It also employees hundreds of workers at multiple school sites throughout the county. In order to function efficiently and maintain control, the organization embraces the practices of work specialization, departmentalization, formalized rules and procedures, centralized authority and management with small spans of control following a clear chain of

Politics also play a part in this dynamic on a large and small scale, from the board members who must campaign for their position to individuals engaging in self-promotion in hopes of improving their position. Legitimate formal power and direction comes from the top of the pyramid on down through the ranks. Perched at the top of the power pyramid are five elected county school board members and the county superintendent of schools. Below them are five assistant superintendents and at the next level down are a combination coordinators and program managers. Lastly, all other staff make up the base of this formation, having the least amount of influence and dependent on mid-level managers for resources, information and approval of decisions. While this design ensures standardization and yields consist results it has the drawback of creating red tape that hinders action and results. Aggravating to staff, like teachers who often spend their own money to buy art supplies because the process of ordering them through the organization is too lengthy. Unfortunately, with multiple levels of management the result is often that small problems like classroom supply issues have to be forwarded on from one supervisor to another higher-ranking supervisor for