"It's Not in the Job Description": Principals' Stories of Disaster Response and Recovery

• In Event: 16.057 - Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: 16.057-18 - Mapping the Practices and Expectations of School Leaders

Abstract

This paper reports on case studies of five school principals as they led their school communities through the aftermath of the 2010/2011 earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand. Five major earthquakes over 6 on the Richter scale accompanied by over 12,000 aftershocks caused major damage and on-going disruption to the city of Christchurch and surrounding districts. School principals found themselves taking on emergency management and crisis leadership roles for which they felt ill-prepared. This paper creates five vignettes that encapsulate the principal’s role from immediate response, through short and mid-term recovery, to reconstruction and reflection. It uses theory from the field of emergent crisis leadership to frame the stories and concludes with a cross-case analysis of the major themes.

Author

• Carol Anne Mutch, University of Auckland