0.4 The art of successful school-based management  (Page 27/36)

Given the core values of the school, have we done the following successfully?

• Have we made all involved aware of the initiative?
• Have we provided information about the initiative and how it supports the core values of the district?
• Have we communicated the personal impact the initiative has on people affected?
• Have we provided strategies for managing the initiative within the current realities?
• Have we communicated what consequence the initiative will have on student achievement?
• Have we provided opportunities for collaboration among those affected?
• Are we willing to provide opportunities for the affected parties to work together to further extend and refocus theinitiative beyond its present form?

In order to achieve desired results of a given staff development initiative, principals will answer, in order, allthe questions above. Only after one is answered adequately can the next question be asked. Skipping or avoiding a question willprevent the successful implementation of the initiative.

At a local high school, the principal was considering various scheduling initiatives to support improvedstandardized test scores. Early in the school year, before students arrived, the principal and teachers agree upon the following corevalue:“We value knowledgeable, reflective, and thoughtful students.”At the school a committee, facilitated by the staff development leader, then examined various scheduling models thatwould support the articulated value. With district-level support, the high school team committed to team teaching for math-scienceand English-social studies.

The first order of business was for the principal, with the collaboration of the high school committee, tomake the entire staff aware of team teaching. The leader then provided information that clarified in what ways team teachingsupported the core value. Once the faculty had the team teaching information, it began asking questions like,“What does this have to do with me?”Individuals quickly moved to decide if the idea affected them personally. Again, the leader shared with the facultyhow team teaching affected them. The faculty then imagined how it, collectively and individually, would absorb or adopt team teachinginto its existing schedule. In other words, how would each teacher manage team teaching? Up to this point, questions focused on theteachers. When the faculty began to consider the impact of team teaching on student achievement, however, then their concern aboutthe initiative moved from inward looking to outward looking. The discussion about team teaching moved to the consequence on studentscheduling or student achievement. The phase revealed a significant shift in the focus of the faculty. The faculty (principal andteachers) ceased to think primarily of itself and more towards the students. It is important to note that the faculty could not beasked to consider the needs of the students until the first four phases were addressed.

An especially exciting moment was when the faculty moved to the next phase of concern and began askingquestions about how it might collaborate to further enhance the positive benefits of team teaching. This level of concernrepresented the best elements of site-based management and shared decision-making. This level, however, served to remind reformersthat systems change is a multi-year challenge and that there are few shortcuts. Finally, in very rare instance, this faculty beganto imagine how team teaching could be refocused or reconstructed to be an even better strategy for enhancing the quality and quantityof student learning.