SCHOOL GOVERNANCE DURING THE PANDEMIC PERIOD: A CASE OF ALBANIA

How to cite this paper: Loloçi, R., & Halilaj, A. (2022). School governance during the pandemic A The study aims to identify the school principals’ role during the pandemic, and the measures they took to manage school activity in pandemic conditions. The measures taken by school leaders would aim to mitigate the negative effects of the situation, according to Holzer et al. (2021). The context of the study was focused on the protection that school leaders showed for the well-being of their teachers and students. The effectiveness of actions taken by the school principals was measured from the teacher’s perspective through a questionnaire and survey. The method used in the study is quantitative. School leaders, despite difficulties and unexpected events during the pandemic, managed to care for the well-being of staff and students and ensure good management of the educational institutions. The management of the pandemic COVID-19 united the school community around a common goal (Browne, 2020). This study may be interesting for school leaders and teachers because addresses issues about ways that school leaders have cared for the health of teachers and students, how they helped and identified teachers and students at risk by COVID-19, leaders’ knowledge of civil emergency legislation, training, new action plans as well as forms of co-operation with teaching staff, community, etc.


INTRODUCTION
Albania has faced consecutive unprecedented crises over the last three years, initially with the devastating earthquake of November 26, 2019, followed by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted normal life and brought a series of changes not only to public health but also to the operation of public and private entities. Online learning became suddenly the only solution (Dhawan, 2020). As shown in several studies, before January 2020, only one-third of teachers had experience with remote or online teaching and almost half of them had some experience with mixed teaching (Trust & Whalen, 2020). School principals were confronted with new situations, previously unfamiliar. Besides the responsibility for the due conduct of the teaching process, school leaders had also to take care of the teaching staff's and students' health. Each school has a daily routine, plans, schedules, and activities. The pandemic caused by the SARS-Cov-2 virus abruptly disrupted this activity, making school an unsafe place for the life of the school community. In these circumstances, school leaders were the first to face frequent and difficult decision-making. Teachers, students, and parents turned their attention to the decisions made by the principals who, on the other hand, were conditioned by the decisions of other governmental agencies.
Emergency response poses a challenge to the overall educational system and school leaders in particular. School principals are responsible for many aspects including human resources, financial resources, learning and teaching activities, external relations, students' and teachers' well-being, and teaching/learning arrangements. The COVID-19 response expanded the existing scope of their responsibilities. During the pandemic, school leaders not only had to coordinate measures to maintain the teaching continuity during school closure but also to provide a safe teaching/learning environment when schools would be allowed to reopen again. Albania based its activity during this period on Law No. 45/2019 on Civil Protection that obligates educational institutions to activate the civil protection service in case of emergency; it also defines the responsibilities of the institutional leaders, their cooperation with the subordinate institutions, their education, training, and monitoring. The data collected from the questionnaires of teachers indicated that previous training programs delivered to educational leaders did not comprise topics such as running the school in emergencies. Obviously, the pandemic and earthquake that hit Albania in 2019 highlighted the importance and added value of such training for school leaders. The educational activity during the pandemic had to comply with Law No. 69/2012 on Pre-University Education and the Regulation on the functioning of the preuniversity institutions in the Republic of Albania which provides for the right of students to perform their activities in peaceful and safe conditions for their life and health. In organizational terms, this requires an understanding of emergency changes, which usually characterize changes in complex adaptive systems (Khanal, Bento, & Tagliabue, 2021). School leaders had to respond by providing the necessary conditions to boost the participation of students in online classes as much as possible.
The study identified a number of problems that were observed during the pandemic period through research questions such as how teachers were informed about the legal, administrative, and organizational changes to the teaching and learning processes during the pandemic by school principals, on opportunities that school leaders gave to the teachers for training events on digital platforms used in teaching and learning as an alternative in the Albanian education in the future. The importance of the study lies in the fact that school leaders must be prepared to face any kind of difficulty that may arise for a variety of reasons. They should be aware that despite the new conditions that are created they have a duty to maintain the standards of teaching and learning. They must show the values of pedagogical and institutional leadership. The study involved 272 teachers, who were asked through a questionnaire how the pandemic was managed by the leaders of their schools. Although teachers have been stressed and tired of the surprises of COVID-19, they have been supported by school leaders. What was noticed in most of the answers given by the teachers was that the management and care, organization, and support by school principals have been satisfactory and they agree with these forms of management. We emphasize that teachers in Albania are part of the general conformist culture and a mentality of strong political influence. Regarding the security transmitted by school leaders to teachers, some of them, do not agree or do not agree at all with the measures taken by school leaders. This does not mean that no work has been done in this direction, but if this mass of teachers (with a margin of error of 2-5%) extends throughout the system, then it is very worrying as we are dealing with a significant mass of teachers who have felt insecure about life and their well-being. This is a problem that school leaders in Albania have to deal with seriously to gain the trust of teachers as the main link to copying with circumstances imposed by the pandemic. Referring to the answers given by the teachers, it was noticed that some of them used mobile phones to develop online learning. The lack of Information Technology (IT) tools was not only a cost but also an inefficient way to do online teaching. This study was conducted with the contribution of many teachers from different schools in Albania, both in urban areas and rural areas. Assistance was also provided by the principals of these schools who were engaged in distributing questionnaires and surveys to teachers. The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews the relevant literature. About 20 articles, manuals, recent reports and articles, legislation, newspapers, guidelines, and books, of which we reviewed information about the role of school leaders in the pandemic, the way they managed activities of schools during this period were used to analyze the data. Section 3 analyzes the methodology that has been used to conduct empirical research on the level of support that teachers received from school leaders regarding training, qualifications, and didactic materials, as well as the support they are given to be active in decision-making, on the care shown, and emotional support received (or not) by the principals, on the degree of adaptation of teachers to the changes that have taken place with shift teaching schedules, with the use of new online teaching and learning platforms, etc. Section 4 analyzes the study findings. The answers given by the respondents are extreme where the positive answers to their leaders prevail, although the reality may be different. Section 5 analyzes the responses from the point of view of what these data represent in relation to the role of school principals in pandemic periods and why this sampling was chosen and how important the geographical distribution of respondents is. Section 6 analyzes the conclusions and recommendations that emerge from this study.

LITERATURE REVIEW
The role of school principals took on a different value during the pandemic period. They needed to be more visionary in managing the situation.
According to Warren Bennis -Leadership is the capacity to translate a vision into a reality‖, and creating a clear vision is a key component of leadership in excellent organizations. Vision, then, becomes the substance of what is communicated as symbolic in aspects of leadership (Weinfurter, 2013). In this sense, the school functioning as a programmed tool makes what Mead, Biesta, and Tröhler (2008) call -anticipatory socialization‖ by guaranteeing -social interaction‖ through physical proximity, as a major condition to achieve this objective. The leadership complexity, as Fullan (2010) calls it, appears in four directions: 1) changes we seek now are much deeper than we had initially assumed; 2) in being so, there are a number of dilemmas, related to decision-making on what to do; 3) you should act differently in different situations or stages of the change process; 4) advice comes in the form of calls for action and not of the steps to be followed. The future poses significant uncertainties that reinforce the challenges; therefore, the protective measures are recommended to be further maintained. The educational system and activity are conditioned by the decisions of the Technical Committee of Experts, the Task Force on the Management of COVID-19, and the Government. There have been no representatives of education in this committee and, therefore, there was no use of the -decision support systems‖, even though the decisions are central by nature and sectorial by influence. The various scales of a decision-making process, for instance, in a human health domain, may include a wide range of organizations at different levels: international, national, and local. Informational support received with decision support systems (DSS) helps to mobilize and allocate resources, to set priorities, and share successful patterns and strategies (Sokolova & Fernandez-Caballero, 2012). As the educational system is a vertical decisionmaking structure, school leaders find themselves in difficulty as they are required to take accountability but, on the other hand, their competencies are minimal. Decision-making autonomy was affected by the pandemic situation (Collie, 2021). -Today's contemporary approach supports the idea that operative school functioning and development is typically accomplished when there is decentralized decision-making‖ (Cornito, 2021, p. 657). School leaders typically use vertical forms of communication and horizontal forms. During the pandemic period school leaders, teachers, students, and parents managed the pandemic as a single body. This form of school management was a new challenge, as it required the distribution of responsibility and authority in relation to the new guidelines issued by the subordinate institutions. Distributed leadership has become the predestined leadership response to this current crisis, which has brought together school leaders, at all levels, to connect, share, learn and network their way through issues (Azorin, Harris, & Jones, 2020). The models of leadership, according to classical definitions, were shaken as the concept of -everyday resilience" (Day, 2014) had to be applied more than ever to cope with the pandemic situation. -They should be in close touch with their communities, inside and outside the school; they should, above all, be masters of human relations, attending to all the conflicts and disagreements that might arise among students, among teachers, and among anyone else who chooses to create conflict in the school; they should be both respectful of the authority of district administrators and crafty at deflecting administrative intrusions that disrupt the autonomy of teachers; they should keep an orderly school; and so on‖ Elmore (2000, p. 14).
Relations with peers and educators, in particular, often prove to be very strong indicators of other well-being aspects (Panesi, Bocconi, & Ferlino, 2020). Staff support provided by school leaders involved ensuring that teachers are healthy and possess a level of confidence in engaging in new and different kinds of work (Hauseman, Darazsi, & Kent, 2020).

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The method used in the study is quantitative. The main data were collected through a questionnaire and survey structured in five parts. The survey was used to collect data on care shown by leaders for the well-being of teachers and students, and data on identifying students at high risk of contracting viruses, etc. Participants (teachers) had the opportunity to give their opinion by choosing one of the five alternatives for each statement regarding the 5-point Likert scale -5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. The study hypothesis is that the pandemic was well managed by school principals.
Some questions were drafted which would address issues related to the hypothesis such as: How clear were the instructions issued by the Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth, and how willing were the teaching staff to do additional tasks compared to the previous routine? Did the school leaders provide emotional, health, technical and social support to teachers during the pandemic?
What were the forms of communication? Did training take place to cope with situations created by the pandemic in schools? Were there students with special needs identified and how were their problems addressed? Were teachers, students, and parents involved in discussions to solve situations? Which were the difficulties encountered by teachers during online teaching?
This study has used the questionnaire and survey as a useful method to identify the problems that appeared during the pandemic is an extraordinary period that is not through yet and is expected to be present in the education premise even during the new academic year 2021-2022. A questionnaire and survey were prepared for teachers in pre-university institutions in urban and rural areas that participated 272 teachers from the districts of Durres, Elbasan, Kavaja, and Vlora. Questionnaires and surveys were completed in one week. The only criteria that were taken into the study were age, gender, and the areas of the school where they worked. The questions were compiled in -google form‖ and distributed upon permission by the Education Directorates of the respective districts. The participants were informed about the purpose of the study and told that they could leave the study at any time if they feel it is necessary. The subjects were made aware that confidentiality and anonymity would be preserved in compliance with the basic rules of ethics in research, and that the data would be stored anonymously and used for the study only. This research was conducted in several phases: the literature review phase, the preparation of the questions, the field research, the presentation of the final data, and finally the conclusions and recommendations. This study combines primary and secondary data. Primary data was collected through questionnaires and surveys with teachers. The secondary data is the result of a review and analysis of literature specifically related to the principal's role in school management with an emphasis on the pandemic period; from analysis of the documentation made available by relevant institutions; recent reports and articles, legislation, newspapers, guidelines of Ministry of Education, etc.
The questionnaire for teachers is divided into sections and a survey. The first section gives information on the communication priorities used by the school principals with the teachers, parents, and students. The second section presents collected data on the level of support that teachers received from school leaders regarding training, qualifications, and didactic materials. The third section presents collected data on the degree of adaptation of teachers to the changes that have taken place with shift teaching schedules, with the use of new online teaching and learning platforms. The fourth section presents data collected by survey with questions on the care shown and emotional support received (or not) by the principals. Also, the survey obtained data on the number of students who received psychological services during and after the pandemic.

The results of the first section of the questionnaire
As findings, we will consider those results which bring measurable concerns about the activities of teachers, students, and parents, from the perspective of maintaining the well-being of all actors in the school.
The analysis of data considered to constitute -findings‖ will pay attention to the percentage of neutral, or negative responses, due to the importance of this position towards issues that are crucial to the school management and operation. We will consider neutrality as a limitation of the teacher which reflects his/her reservations about the issue. We emphasize that teachers in Albania are part of the general conformist culture and a mentality of strong political influence. On top of this, dozens of studies conducted with teachers during this period have frustrated them further to tell the reality.
Provision of information is a fundamental point during this period; it is noticed that 10% of teachers are neutral and respond negatively to the question on information about legal, administrative, and organizational changes during the pandemic period. This is not a very high figure but deserving of analysis if we see it extending across the entire education system because lack of information means a lack of certainty and apathy in the educational processes, although, the majority of respondents (about 90%) responded positively.
Guidelines on digital teaching forms and training opportunities are vital to coping with the situation. In this regard, again about 15% of teachers are neutral, not a priority, and low priority.
This result needs to be further analyzed by leaders to change the approach. So, the obligation for teachers to receive training and instructions on online teaching is very important ( Table 1). Table 1. Data on the level of principals' support provided for teacher training and transmission of the information on the pandemic

Questions of the first section of the questionnaire Answers (%) Not a priority Law priority
Neutral High priority Essential priority 1. In your school, teachers were informed about the legal, administrative, and organizational changes to the teaching and learning processes during the pandemic.

The results of the second section of the questionnaire
Regarding types of equipment required for online teaching, 28% of the respondents were neutral or answered negatively. This means that teachers taught with their own IT tools such as mobile phones, which was an inefficient way to do online teaching. It turns out that 19% of the teachers were not involved in discussions, debates, or reflections about decision-making to cope with the situation. We assume that this figure is higher, given that the decision-making has been vertical; nevertheless, even at this rate (19%), the exclusion of teachers from participating in decision-making is a weak point of the school system and management. In this context, even the 19.5% for the non-inclusion of parents is worrying, because the support of parents in this situation is indispensable ( Table 2).  (Table 3). This result also shows the insecurity caused by online teaching, lack of preparation, and consequently the lack of success. Considering that online teaching was previously unknown in Albania, we assume that this figure is higher. We add that traditional teaching remains the most popular form among teachers, because in loose interviews without the constraints of questionnaires, they responded that they prefer classroom teaching. So, efforts in this direction must be accelerated to change the mentality of teachers and to adapt to the new circumstances.

The results of the fourth section of the survey
Based on teacher answers, the principals were regularly informed about the health of teachers and students. It was important to identify the existence of action plans for students with special needs, in this unusual situation. It turns out that 22% of teachers are neutral, or negatively answer the question of identifying students at high risk of contracting viruses. In addition, the attitude that is held toward talented students is worth discussing. This proves that for these students, 15.8% of teachers say that there were no action plans to meet their talents. We think that this point is very worrying for the measures needed for this category and requires an institutional response. In addition, 18.5% of teachers are neutral, or negatively answer the question on information from the psychologist about the number of students treated with psychological services during the pandemic.
Regarding the infrastructure, the number of students in the classrooms, laboratory equipment, and the implementation of hygienic measures in the teaching process, 15.5% of teachers were neutral, or negatively answer. On the other hand, 9.1% of them express reservations when asked if there is running water in their schools. The pandemic situation brought to attention the hygiene of physical premises, their health safety for the workers and students, etc. In Albania, despite the progress made in building a safe infrastructure with satisfactory hygienic parameters, the situation with drinking water and 24/7 running water needs to be further improved. This issue became even more problematic during the pandemic, as one of the WHO recommendations was to frequently wash hands with running water. Replies from teachers indicate that this problem was addressed with priority by the principals, owing to the cooperation with the local government. These figures are high considering that these elements are directly related to the safety of life and well-being of students, teachers, and all those related to the school. Regarding the security transmitted by school leaders to teachers, 12.4% are neutral, do not agree, or do not agree at all with the measures taken by school leaders. This does not mean that no work has been done in this direction, but if this mass of teachers (with a margin of error of 2-5%) extends throughout the system, then it is very worrying as we are dealing with a significant mass of teachers who have felt insecure about life and their well-being. This is a problem that school leaders in Albania have to deal with seriously to gain the trust of teachers as the main link to copying with circumstances imposed by the pandemic (Table 4).

DISCUSSION
The questionnaire with teachers was used to provide information on teachers' perceptions of the school activity during the pandemic and especially on the role of school principals in this situation. It must be said in advance that an unusual situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic triggers a different/very specific mobilization of school principals, teachers, and parents. This also explains the positive responses most teachers gave about their principals. Unlike any other community, the relationship of teachers with the principals is permeated by dependency ties and a friendly environment, which explains this positivity in most responses to the questions. The study involved 272 teachers, 25 males, and 247 females. Thirty point six percent (30.6%) belong to the age group 21-40 years, 65.1% of them belong to the age group 41-60 years, and 7% belong to the age group over 60 years. Sixty-nine point one percent (69.1%) of the respondents was in urban schools, namely: 19.9% elementary school teachers, 27.9% lower secondary school teachers, and 21.3% high school teachers. While 30.9% were in rural schools: 14% were elementary school teachers, 14.3% were lower secondary school teachers, and 2.6% were high school teachers (Table 5). As can be seen from the answers of teachers, in education women make up the vast majority of teachers nationwide, 247. This data does not affect the perception that teachers have of the role of leaders during the pandemic. It is known that schools that are positioned in urban areas have a larger number of students and teachers, so the volume of work of leaders has been greater. The problems that arise when schools are large require greater commitment and responsibility. Another situation we have in schools in rural areas where the number of teachers and students is smaller. In these schools, facilities are created for the management of the situation. Other differences between the management of schools in rural and urban areas are created because of the different mentalities that manifest in the populations in these areas. In the city, due to the closeness that people have with each other, they create a spirit of greater cooperation than in rural areas. This is a facilitating factor for the work of school principals in urban areas.
The questionnaire shows a contingent of teachers (10.4%) who chose the response -neutral‖, which shows their reservations about how the principals coped with the pandemic, the mobilization of teachers, the coordination with local and central educational institutions, etc.
Question 1 (see Table 1) about the transmission of information about the legal, administrative and organizational changes to the teaching and learning processes during the pandemic 90.5% of teachers responded positively. In times of emergency, people usually come together and show more responsibility and mobilization. Teachers' answers to Question 2 (see Table 1) on guidelines for digital teaching forms and training opportunities were met, referring to 85% of respondents. Seventeen point two percent (17.2%) of teachers answered Question 3 (see Table 1), that no information sessions on the pandemic and the measures to be taken to cope with it have been conducted, while 82.8% of teachers answer that information sessions have been conducted. Question 4 (see Table 2) on the support that teachers received from school principals with computers and didactic materials is worth discussing as 28% of the answers are negative, so teachers are not supported with IT tools, while 72% of them answered positively. Even in the answers given to Questions 6, 7, and 8 (see Table 2), most of the respondents 80% answered positively that school principals have cooperated and obtained the opinion of teachers and parents on teaching and learning issues. Although teachers were supported and encouraged by leaders with online learning training, in Question 9 (see Table 3) about how willing they are to use online learning platforms, 33.5% of them are not ready to use online learning platforms, while 66.5% of them answered that they are able to use these platforms while referring to answer to Question 10 (see Table 3) most of them were ready to perform additional tasks apart from the routine ones.
From the survey responses, it was observed that school leaders cared about the health of teachers and students (Question 1, see Table 4). As for the identification of students at risk from the pandemic (Questions 2, 3, and 4, see Table 4), 21% of respondents answered that school leaders did not take action and had no information on them, and 79% of the answers were positive. This means that not all executives have had this category in the focus of their work. Eighteen point eight percent (18.8%) (Question 5, see Table 4) of teachers think that school leaders and teachers did not receive information from the school psychologist about the number of students treated by the psychologist during the pandemic, while 81% of them answered positively. As a result of all the measures taken by the school leaders, the teachers felt safe during their teaching activity.

CONCLUSION
Based on the responses of the participants on the forms of communication priorities that school leaders used during the pandemic, we note that teachers were regularly informed about legal changes and received instructions on digital forms of teaching. On the other hand, some teachers responded negatively to the training opportunities and support with IT tools for online teaching. The difficulties encountered in this regard depend not only on the school leaders but also on the way all state institutions operate in general. Most institutional activities during this period were stalled, which normally reflected in the progress of the school.
Based on the responses, teachers were supported by school principals to train and qualify for digital forms of teaching. The data collected from the questionnaire identified that the decisionmaking process has involved teachers and the parent community. This is explained by the sensitivity to pandemics created in society. Accountability has been one of the moral values displayed by all the actors in educational institutions.
The data analysis resulted that emotional support and care for staff and students stand at the same level of perception; teachers have felt supported by principals.
In these situations, the psychologist has a key role, but the responses given outside the study by teachers about the work done by psychologists during the pandemic are different from those given in the questionnaire.
Responses indicate that the issue of physical facilities and safety at school is in the attention of the heads of the educational institutions; it is addressed in cooperation with the community and local government.
Assuming that the pandemic will continue, it is recommended that principals must organize training courses with teachers on online teaching. In parallel to these courses, it is necessary to increase the speed of the Internet in school and ensure unrestricted Internet access in this environment. Teachers often had to use mobile phones for online teaching, which created difficulties, so the provision of computers in school and family environments became a necessity. Poor and low-income families should be given priority in this process. A nationwide analysis of the online teaching process and a debate about the encountered problems may be conducted during the 2021-2022 academic year.
The Ministry of Education has every opportunity to get the best practices of developed countries regarding the teaching process in pandemic conditions, which should be adapted and made available to school leaders and educational directorates. Better coordination between the Ministry of Education and district-level educational directorates would help discard the cacophony of giving orders and instructions on online teaching in pandemic conditions (Monostori, 2021). Referring to the pandemic situation, stress, and anxiety that increased due to it, it is recommended to increase the number of psychologists in schools and develop concrete plans for the treatment of children who went through dramatic situations during the pandemic.
Despite the maximum care shown in this study, it has some limitations mainly related to the completion of questionnaires, as there may be doubts about the transparency displayed in providing the information. Another limitation of this study is that all data to measure the opinion of respondents regarding the questions of the questionnaire was collected in a self-reporting manner, where participants in the questionnaire may overestimate or underestimate their data. Overall, teachers' responses reflect their conformity with school principals, and this constitutes a limitation of the study.
Continuing the search for the role of the school during and after the pandemic, work is being done to obtain data on the role of school psychologists and the help they have given in maintaining the wellbeing of children. The effects of the school's cooperation with the parent community during and after the pandemic will also be studied.