If anything came out of the Timpview High School schedule controversy, it's the need to clarify what "site-based management" means.

There was a significant difference of opinion between Timpview administrators and parents over how decisions could be made at the local level. The district needs to clarify this before more problems erupt.

Provo School District tries to operate through what it calls site-based management, which means that school administrators make management decisions for their individual schools instead of having the district office weigh in on every detail. As Superintendent Randy Merrill said, the goal is to push decision-making as close to the school as possible.

That seems to be a sound management approach. It gets away from top-down mandates that ignore unique circumstances, and it allows for a quicker resolution to problems. It also allows those at the district level to focus on weighty, strategic matters while others deal with the day-to-day details.

Unfortunately, the process wasn't defined well enough and war erupted over the Timpview schedule change. While principal George Bayles, to his credit, sought input from the school's faculty and community council in changing to a balanced-block schedule of eight classes, he did not give parents a sufficient opportunity to affect the outcome.

The first time parents heard about the change was when Bayles announced that the new schedule would be in the next school year. It was a fait accompli.

The subsequent uproar resulted in Bayles being asked by the district to conduct two open houses to hear parents' concerns. There was spirited discussion at a Provo City School Board meeting where the balanced-block schedule was ratified.

Merrill said that Bayles was acting within his understanding of the site-based principle, but it was clear that an important step was left out: soliciting public input. That's not to say that it's a democracy, with Timpview parents voting on whether to change. Nor does it mean that the people living near the school should be consulted on every decision. But this change is far-reaching enough that all stakeholders should have been consulted early in the process.

While it seems Bayles thought about the needs of the school, too little weight was given to the needs of parents. The new schedule shortens the school day, causing some parents to be worried that their children will not get adequate classroom time in academic subjects.

If an open house or two had been conducted while the schedule was still being drafted, much of the acrimony could have been avoided. Instead of anger against the school administration, there might have been stronger support for the final plan because parents would have had a sense of ownership -- or at least a feeling that they had been respected.

We hope the district and its school administrators learn from this experience.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A5.