5 credits

Effective education leaders demonstrate and collaboratively develop capabilities to foster cultures for learning based on mutual respect among students, teachers, staff, parents, and the larger community. Strategies for fairly and effectively administering discipline and resolving conflict are addressed. This course is intended to help leaders understand and treat individual and group differences and potential conflict as opportunities for developing the dispositions, knowledge, and skills that result in social competencies essential to civic participation and interpersonal effectiveness in school and beyond. Education leaders will leave with the knowledge gained from a better understanding of how to address disruptive student behavior and how to deescalate conversations as well as confrontations that are an everyday reality in the school setting. Leaders will also study issues related to safety and violence in schools, considering both methods of prevention and ways to respond to unsafe and violent situations. They can learn how to call upon district and community resources to preserve safety and well-being of the school's population of students and personnel.