The dilemma we present here is real, told to us for your consideration. We change only names and occasionally some of the details to protect privacy of the individuals and/or organizations involved. If you have an ethical dilemma that you would like to share, please contact the editorial staff at Independent School ([email protected]).
Jill Notter has been in her position as school head for less than two years at a small Midwestern day school. She has recently worked with her staff to prepare a board report regarding the implementation of an innovative program designed to provide assistance and support to low-income/no-income families with the ultimate goal of improving diversity levels at her school. She has shared the draft of the report with the board chair, Michael Winters, who in turn has shared it with board member Frank Jessup prior to the board meeting where this would be an agenda item.
Later, Jessup comes to see Notter to tell her that he wants her to change some of the data, including lowering the budget implications in the report to make the issue a more compelling one, which would be more likely to get a majority vote. Later in the day, Winters indicates that Notter should accommodate the board member’s request. After all, he explains, the data she has presented is based on projections that could change in their favor. Wouldn’t it be better to get the program approved than to miss the opportunity entirely because her data was too conservative?
After examining and analyzing the decision she was being asked to make, Notter concluded that she was in a truth-versus-loyalty and individual-versus-community dilemma. There was compelling logic to keeping the report as written, and compelling logic to change it.
Truth-Versus-Loyalty
Notter knew that it was right, on the one hand, to let the draft stand as written because all the research and data have led her to the appropriate projections and recommendations, including the budget implications. Notter sees that it is also right to change some of the data out of loyalty to Winters. He may be looking at the data differently and projecting data that supports what he is asking her to do.
Individual-versus-Community
In addition, Notter saw that it was right to secure more funding to improve diversity levels, but that it was also right, on the other hand, for all the board members to allocate funding based on the merits of the data she feels is accurate.
What is Notter to do?
Resolution:
After morally reasoning her way through her dilemma and applying the guiding resolution principles, Notter made a rule-based decision. She believed that her own standards for presenting information and data to the entire board should be maintained so that all board members could make informed decisions.
In the long-term, this helped to establish the credibility of her own judgment, since the board voted in favor of the program despite the conservative numbers, and the program proved to be a success. Winters and Jessup learned to respect her decisions, and Notter learned that sticking to her own standards was the best way to operate.