AbstractsHistory

This investigation was concerned with the relationships between the superintendent of schools, the board of education, and the local teachers' professional organization in Tucson School District One for the period 1941-1978. Because it was the largest school district in the state of Arizona, as well as one of the largest in the United States, School District One may be considered a microcosm of many older school districts throughout the country. Many problems encountered by District One for the first time during the late 1960s and 1970s had been experienced by other large school districts in earlier decades. The relationships between the school board, superintendents, and the local teacher organization moved through three distinct phases in the years covered by this study. The first phase was a period of consensus during the years when Robert D. Morrow was superintendent of the school district. The second phase, under the administration of Morrow's successor, Thomas L. Lee, was one of transition. The harmonious relationships between the superintendent, trustees, and teachers' organization began to become strained. The third phase, under Wilbur Lewis, Lee's successor, was characterized by conflict and ended in a teacher strike in 1978. During the years 1941-1978, the superintendents' relationships with both the school board and the teacher association changed from that of close cooperation to one of increasing hostility. Among the school board members themselves, little effective dissent existed prior to 1972. In that year, the first of two major critics of the school trustees was elected to office. When she was joined on the board in 1975 by the second dissenter, the community realized that the era of cooperation and quiet disagreement was at an end. The local teachers' organization, the Tucson Education Association (TEA), began in 1917 as little more than a social and educational arm of the school district. As the teacher groups nationally became more militant in the 1960s, the TEA developed a more aggressive attitude towards educational and professional conditions in Tucson. In 1978, relationships within the school district had deteriorated to such a degree that two of the most dramatic incidents in the school district's history occurred: the teacher strike in October, and the resignation of the superintendent the following December. Years later, the effects of these two events could still be observed.