The Roles and Responsibilities of School Administrators during the Emergency Remote Teaching Process in Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

When Covid 19 pandemic started, schools in Turkey, as in many parts of the World, were closed and then emergency remote teaching started. The purpose of this study is to explain the roles and responsibilities of school administrators related to emergency remote teaching after schools were closed. In order to reveal the purpose above, this research was carried out in qualitative research design. 105 school administrators from different regions of Turkey and different school levels participated the study. The data were collected through a Google Drive form with open-ended questions. The collected data were analyzed with content and descriptive analyses. The findings showed that the roles and responsibilities of the school administrators regarding emergency remote teaching included planning the process, starting online classes, opening different social media accounts, managing the online program, solving the adaptation problems of students and teachers, monitoring the actions taken and motivating teachers, students, parents; communication and finally it has been seen that they are in the act of transition to and maintaining digital management. During the Covid 19 pandemic, school administrators have mostly done “communication”. There were also changes in the communication styles of school administrators and social media tools were used effectively. The intensive use of technology in this period has caused changes in management processes and managers have mostly talked about digital management. The exhausting aspects of digital management are expressed as well as the facilitating ones. Since emergency remote teaching is not a common case in the K-12 Turkish education system, the roles and responsibilities of school administrators during such emergency periods have not been studied in national context yet. Therefore, what school administrators did in relation to remote teaching during this Covid 19 period was explored.