A New Direction 1
Professional Portfolio Artifact 1
A Paper Outlining a School District Reform Initiative for a Struggling District
Context: This artifact was a product of the educational leadership coursework. The assignment
was to utilize the on-line collaborative tools of the IBM Change Toolkit as well as a wiki program
to collectively design and write a plan of action for a school district that is failing to move
beyond the status quo.
Product Development: This project was developed during the months of June and July of 2008.
My Role: My role in this project was to be a part of the planning process. There was a
significant amount of research and learning that was required before the product could take
form. Understanding the various components of the Change Toolkit: Change Wheel, Change
Masters, Change Fundamentals, and School Improvement, was a must before beginning. After
a lengthy process of collaborative planning we broke the paper into sections. I was responsible
for researching and writing the section on Professional Learning Communities. At the
completion of the section writing, the team came back together to join our sections and
edit/revise for flow and follow-through.
Specifications: This was a final group project for the course Organizational Development taught
by Dr. Thomas Valesky.
Grade: Our team received a grade of 100%.
Revisions: This project underwent weeks of revisions as it was a collaborative on-line effort
utilizing and the web tool wiki, which allows for group editing of text and media. The Change
Toolkit project workspace was also used to develop ideas that were later transferred to the
project.
Standards: This project addresses the following Florida Educational Leadership Standards

Vision

Instructional Leadership

Decision Making Strategies

Diversity

Human Resource Development
A New Direction 2

Ethical Leadership
Reflective Statement: Throughout the production of this project I gained insightful knowledge
in the change process and strategies that can be applied to insure successful change in an
organization. The components of the Change Toolkit will be an invaluable resources as a move
into the field of administration. Utilizing the on-line collaborative tool was a new way of
approaching group work that I had never experienced before. Since this project I have utilized
the wiki tool in other areas of my profession. The project itself focused on five components
that would be the source of change within the district. They are a common vision, site-based
management, data based decision making, professional learning communities, and innovation.
This project was an initial introduction into these pillars of organizational development.
Throughout my leadership experience since many of these components have become a part of
my own personal vision for what a school should be.
A New Direction 3
A New Direction: Manatee School District
Linda Kraatz
Amber Nelsen
Jeff Rexford
Carole Robbins
Florida Gulf Coast University
EDA 6192
A New Direction 4
Creating a Common Vision
Change. A word that for many is met with unease, yet for others can inspire. For 25
years the Manatee School District has been conducting business under the well-respected
leadership of former Superintendent Jones. I praise his hard work and dedication to our students,
and I take great honor in being selected by this board to carry forth the mission of our school
district: to provide high quality educational experiences enabling all students to achieve their
maximum potential.
Our district mission must be at the forefront of all decision making. It is my intention as
your new leader, to develop with you a shared vision for our district which will paint a picture of
a brighter, better future for all members of our learning community. Through a collaborative
development of our vision, we will develop an organizational commitment to the underlying
themes of our vision, the building blocks which will enable us to reach this future goal. We will
focus on identifying and articulating both the fundamental purpose of our organization as well as
“big ideas” which will help our district improve in capacity to achieve our purpose (DuFour,
2003). Our shared vision will be actionable, inspiring and motivating, a target not just a plan,
widely known, and broadly accepted; all qualities of an effective vision according to the
Common Themes, Shared Vision component of the IBM Change Toolkit Change Wheel.
As a leader I will be tight on the purpose and vision of our district. We will have a clear
sense of organizational direction. However, I will encourage individual and organizational
autonomy in the day-to-day operations of various schools and departments. I refer to this as
loose-tight leadership. It is my responsibility to help build the capacity of the members of our
learning community to accomplish the vision that we have for our students. It is my
responsibility to assure that we pay attention to clear evidence of the best, most promising
strategies for accomplishing our organization’s purpose and priorities. As we undergo this
change initiative our leadership team will continually ask itself, “What can we do to give people
in this organization the tools and skills to ensure their eventual success as they undertake this
challenge?” (DuFour, 2007; DuFour, 2003)
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Over the coming months, I wish to create a shared knowledge base to support the
decision-making process that we will undergo as we proceed through the change process. A
leadership team will be formed. It will consist of the superintendent, assistant superintendents,
central office staff, principals, and teacher’s union officials. Through a shared knowledge base
we will be able to make informed decisions that draw upon consistent information, operate from
the same conceptual framework, and use a common vocabulary when called upon to assess the
potential of these various reform initiatives. This will be the foundation for constructing
consensus (DuFour, 2003). The development of this Management Structure and Decision
Making Process, as referenced in the Change Wheel of the Change Toolkit, will enable the
organization to carry out critical functions and decide which processes to use in doing so. This
will influence the Policies, Procedures, and System Alignment referenced in the Change Wheel.
I present to you now a compilation of current strategies and reform initiatives that are
being practiced with great success and effectiveness throughout the country today. Current
research supports these initiatives in their effectiveness of improving student learning. The
district leadership team will research these current practices further. If it is decided that these
practices will enable us to progress towards our vision of the future, supported implementation
into our schools will be the next step.
Site-Based Management
At the turn of the twentieth century the goal of our schools was to simply provide our
students with a basic education; one that focused on math, reading, and writing. Today’s schools
face a far higher standard. Students arrive from diverse backgrounds, differing family situations
and speaking many languages seeking a high-quality multi-disciplinary education that will allow
them to succeed in today’s fast-paced world. Schools have looked to restructure their
organizations to obtain the desired results. Using the Change Wheel tool of Common Themes,
Shared Vision our district has identified our vision for the future and has identified
decentralization of decision making as one of the themes that will help us attain our vision.
Educational researcher, Larry Cuban identified first and second order change. Simply
reworking the current organizational structure without looking at the ways teachers,
A New Direction 6
administrators and students perform their roles is referred to as first order change. Second order
change focuses on shifting the “roles and relationships away from the traditional bureaucratic
models of schools and districts to a more open participatory system (as cited in SEDL, 1991).”
Site-based management is a second order change; one that necessitates starting anew to find
innovative ways to resolve problems.
Site-based management (SBM) is a system of local control of schools that moves the
decision-making process from the central district administration to the local school. The shared
decision-making model engages various stakeholders: administrators, teachers and community
members, and facilitative rather than directive leadership (Cromwell, 2000). Site-based
management in its effort to be more responsive to the needs of the school community:
·
Is a form of district organization
·
Alters the governance of education
·
Represents a shift of authority toward decentralization
·
Identifies the school as the primary unit of educational change
·
Moves increased decision-making power to the local school site (Cotton, 1992)
“Current research suggests that site-based management can be an effective tool to
empower stakeholders in bringing about meaningful changes in teaching and learning. These
changes will come about, however, only through the establishment of a clearly articulated vision
and through the work of administrators and teachers who have adequate time and training to
implement the process fully (Holloway, 2000).” Transformational school administrators
participate in relationships with other members of the school community in such a way as to
inspire them to accept and accomplish goals that rise above their own interests. Change leaders
create collaborative, inclusive decision-making processes. Team members will fill out their ideas
of where we stand as a district in each action category of the Senior Leadership Action Plan from
the Change Wheel section dealing with Management Structure. Teams of decision makers will
then work together to suggest the action steps necessary to attain the goals outlined.
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Kerri Briggs and Priscilla Wohlstetter studied research conducted by the Chicago
Consortium on School Reform of SBM schools in Chicago. Chicago began implementation of
school-based management in 1988 following the enactment of the Chicago School Reform Act.
The Act required that each of Chicago’s public schools form a local school council. Each council
includes six parents, two community members, two teachers and the principal. Briggs and
Wohlstetter (1999) identified eight key elements of the successful SBM schools:
1. Successful SBM schools have an active, living vision focused on teaching and learning
that is coordinated with district and state standards for student performance.
2. Successful SBM schools have decision-making authority in the areas of budget,
curriculum, and personnel, and they use that authority to create meaningful change in
teaching and learning.
3. Successful SBM schools disperse power broadly throughout the school organization by
creating networks of decision-making teams.
4. In successful SBM schools, the development of knowledge and skills is an ongoing
process oriented toward building a school-wide capacity for change, creating a
professional learning community and developing a shared knowledge base.
5. Successful SBM schools have multiple mechanisms for collecting information related to
school priorities and for communicating information to all school stakeholders.
6. Successful SBM schools use both monetary and non-monetary rewards to acknowledge
individual and group progress toward school goals.
7. In successful SBM schools, school leadership is shared among administrators and
teachers. Principals often take on the role of manager and facilitator of change, while
teacher leaders often take on responsibilities around issues of teaching and learning.
8. Successful SBM schools cultivate resources from outside the school through involvement
in professional networks and through entrepreneurial activity in the local business
community.
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In the Manatee School District we will begin the process of implementing site-based
management with a series of trainings led by the Federal Mediation Conciliation Services
(FMCS) on interest-based problem solving for labor management relations teams. Working with
External Partners as suggested in the Change Fundamentals will allow our district to join forces
and collaborate on this project with the FMCS. Looking outside the organization, we are able to
train the individuals involved in our site-based management groups. Abiding by a decision to
accomplish more with less, using grant monies from the federal government to put one of our
initiatives into place is an extremely wise financial decision.
Principals, teachers, parents and community members who serve on site-based
performance and partnership councils (PPC) will be required to complete two days of training.
The local teachers’ union, working with each site’s union representative, will select the teachers
who serve on the council, although they do not have to be union members. Community
representatives and parents will be chosen by a consensus reached by the appointed teachers and
the principal. In an effort to show my commitment to this important change, as suggested in the
Symbols and Signals portion of the Change Wheel, I also plan on participating in the training
sessions. This will send a clear, credible message that I understand the benefits of consensus
building and demonstrate the district’s dedication to making creative, responsible, quality
decisions at each school site.
Training will begin with an outline of the interest-based bargaining process:
1. Identify the issues (What is the problem?)
2. Determine interests (Why is it a problem?)
3. Develop options (How might we solve it?)
4. Standards (How shall we evaluate the options?)
5. Select a solution (Discussion and consensus on which option to choose) (FCMS, 2002)
These sessions will also include training in conflict resolution, participative workplace
relationships and consensus forming. Working well together and having the requisite skills to do
so, keeps in mind our desire to Develop the dream: Nurturing the working team from the Change
A New Direction 9
Masters toolkit. The benefits of consensus building include quality of decisions, creativity,
commitment, satisfaction and fostering of values and skills of group members.
Once training has been completed the site-based management council will meet no less
than once monthly. The PPC secretary will compile an agenda for each meeting and record the
minutes. Agendas will be posted to the schools’ electronic bulletin boards no less than two days
prior to each meeting. Minutes from the groups’ meetings will be posted on the school websites
no later than two days after each meeting. Topics that would have normally been handled by
faculty council will now fall under the jurisdiction of the PPC. PPC members will form
subcommittees of other school community members to work on special projects and to make
recommendations. For example, these professional networks will be formed to interview
prospective teachers and administrators. Members of the staff from the Federal Mediation and
Conciliation Services will continue to meet with PPC members at least once each school year to
debrief and offer continuing training. By engaging in continuous training I hope to have our
teams avoid the difficult middles as described in the Change Masters section of the Toolkit.
Many an initiative gets off to a great start. But as an administrator I know I’ll have to avoid the
tendency of many to “launch them and leave them.”
Following one of the suggestions of Briggs and Wohlstetter to collect and communicate
information, part of our School Improvement plan will incorporate the Toolkit tool of data-driven
decision making. We will make timely use of data available in order to make informed decisions
about instructional practice and operations within the district. Making use of the data available,
we can link input to results.
Data Based Decision Making
There is a growing demand by all stakeholders in education to measure success by what
really matters: whether children are learning or not. Using the Data-Driven Decision Making
component in the School Improvement part of the Change Toolkit I realize that the move to
accountability represents a shift in educational policy, to a new concept of targeted, accountable
results for all students, regardless of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or ability. This
environment places important new demands on schools and districts. Implementing data-driven
A New Direction 10
decision making from a Data Measurement and Analysis system (DMA) is a systematic change
that will require new approaches, attitudes, and behaviors from everyone within the organization.
Schools that engage in data-driven decision making understand that data analysis is the critical
tool in fulfilling their mission to help students learn. Data analysis is a central component of their
instructional and operational decisions, and it is used to improve student learning. I will
demonstrate how data-driven decision making incorporates different aspects of the Change
Wheel, Change Masters, Change Fundamentals, and School Improvement Factors within the
Change Toolkit.
Gathering quality firsthand information provides me with the facts that I need to learn
about the environment of the school district. As new superintendant some of the skills for
sensing needs and opportunities under the Change Masters that I must have are being adept at
anticipating the need and potential for change, gather a solid understanding of the current
educational landscape, and identify gaps of what is and what could be. One of the most
innovative ways of doing this would be to select a DMA suitable for the needs of the district.
Choosing a DMA becomes one of the most important tasks that you are presented with
as you look towards using data analysis to drive decision making within a district. The system
has to be secure, have capacity to hold all of the pertinent information, be user-friendly, and
flexible so you can add/change items that you may think of in the future. Most importantly, it
must provide feedback of quality data. Data quality can be defined as the state of completeness,
validity, consistency, timelines, and accuracy that makes data appropriate for a specific use (Reid
& Rust, 2007).
According to the Measures, Milestones, and Feedback section within Change Wheel,
long-term change projects are hard to sustain without some way to judge progress. Developing
high quality measures and milestones is challenging and takes time but the feedback that it
provides the district with is invaluable. This will be the purpose of the DMA data reports. Data
reports should be used as assessment tools to drive instruction. These reports should be used by
administration, educators, and office personnel depending on what reports are generated. The
reports should be analyzed by the appropriate personnel at least every quarter to ensure that
measures can be taken to make changes in instruction and re-teach any content that is needed.
A New Direction 11
Data reports will be used to determine if any modifications need to be made in the curriculum.
These reports provide feedback of the strengths and weaknesses within school programs. It will
help indicate what students are having difficulty with and the reports will serve as an individual
education plan for each pupil. It will also be a wonderful reflection tool that can be used by the
teachers to see any areas that they need to focus on in their instruction. The administration and
teachers will use these reports to identify which students need differentiated instruction and they
can brainstorm strategies to use in order to benefit the students. Another important aspect of
attaining feedback from the data is to celebrate successes and accomplishments made by the
students and staff. Rewards and Recognition in the Change Wheel creates a positive cycle of
recognition both big and small and it keeps people motivated, focused, and willing to contribute.
DMA systems free up time for administrators, teachers, counselors, and others to focus
on improved student learning and proficiency. With the DMA system the teachers can enter
grades electronically based on a skill taught within the curriculum. Reports can then be utilized
from the system to determine what students need additional support based on these progress
monitors. All of this information is available at your fingertips instead of scrolling through
manual grade books. The benefit of being able to pull up individual, class, grade-level or school
reports is imperative to be able to determine the strengths and weaknesses within a school and
how to make positive changes within the curriculum to benefit individual students and narrow
the gap between student achievement. Administrators and educators can use this time to
determine how to use the available resources to support the goals of achievement for individual
students or the school as a whole. It will help to demonstrate whether students are making
appropriate academic growth regardless of their various levels of achievement.
Education, Training, and Action Vehicles are critical components of the Change Wheel
Factors. It is stated that every professional will need; self-discipline, empowerment, tools,
standards, feedback, and measures, and peer learning and teaching. I will make this a top
priority when implementing the new DMA system in the district. Effective data management is
often hampered by a lack of knowledge about the data itself (Reid & Rust, 2007). A school
support system will be put into place along with the new data-management system. A team of
staff and teachers will be trained thoroughly with the new system to ensure there is on-site help
A New Direction 12
available along with the technical support the system offers. This technology committee can train
and help other teachers, staff, and even administrators with using the new program and reading
and disaggregating the data. Collaboration has been proven as a helpful technique to use in
schools. By taking the less technologically savvy people on campus into consideration and
pairing them with a more advanced technologically savvy person, the school personnel will be
more willing and comfortable to work with the new system. This also initiates structure within
the new program, giving a more stable foundation for the system to be laid.
All of this is encompassed in the vision of the Coalition of Essential Schools developed
by Theodore Sizer.(CES). CES’s primary goal is “to improve teacher quality and student
achievement” (Shank, 2006). The whole school reform effort fosters a collaborative, democratic
approach where teachers are a part of the decision making process. Teachers coach, share, and
reflect with one another as they move through the process of making the school effective for
every student. One other important aspect of CES is the partnership between school, family, and
community. All stakeholders need to be involved for it to be effective and sustainable.
As stated above, it is imperative to use data assessment to drive instruction. Data-driven
decision–making systems offer the staff and policy makers the knowledge of what measures
need to be taken to improve areas of weakness, so they can modify the curriculum to meet the
individual student needs. Armed with this information, educators can be proactive in making
instructional choices and how to use their resources to the best capacity to ensure that every
student has the chance to succeed. A streamlined, individual report helps educators determine the
best way to address opportunities for improvement with the focus primarily on the academic
needs of the individual child. The reports identify the strengths and opportunities for
improvement, grade to grade, subject to subject, and student to student.
Professional Learning Communities
In the last half century the term “Professional Learning Community” has emerged among
researchers. The concept is based on a business premise regarding the capacity of organizations
A New Direction 13
to learn. In the education world the professional learning community (PLC), has become a
concept which strives to develop collaborative work cultures for teachers. Five essential
characteristics describe PLC’s; shared values and norms must be developed by the group, there is
a clear and consistent focus on student learning, there is reflective dialogue that goes in depth to
matters of curriculum, instruction, student development, de-privatizing practice, and a focus on
collaboration (Vescio, Ross, & Adams, 2007).
As a reform effort, the implementation of PLC’s into a school organization is a shift from
a focus on teaching to a focus on learning. A review of literature of 11 studies conducted on the
impact of professional learning communities on teaching practice and student learning found that
PLC classrooms had little change in pedagogy, but considerable change in professional culture.
The change in professional culture was an increase in collaboration, focus on student learning,
teacher authority, and continuous teacher learning. Of the 11 studies, 8 made an attempt to
assess the effect of PLC’s on student improvement. All 8 studies reported improvement, the key
being the PLC’s focus on student learning (Vescio, Ross, & Adams, 2007).
According to the Education, Training, Action Tools component of the Change Wheel,
change-adept districts turn every member of the organization into high performing professionals
who encourage competence in others. Every professional needs a professional network to
communicate new findings quickly and learn from others. Communicating Useful Approaches, a
component of the Change Wheel, describes three main challenges to organizations related to the
creation, dispersion, dissemination, and adoption of new ideas are cultivating and environment in
which useful approaches are likely to arise and be talked about, creating flexible and crosscutting communication channels, and enabling potentially useful ideas to be developed, tried out,
and applied. A professional learning community can provide an avenue for averting these
challenges. An effective PLC creates a culture that fosters the sharing of effective practices and
the communication of new ideas.
To build successful professional learning communities, schools must be allowed
autonomy in decision making, but within well-defined parameters that keep the focus on the “big
ideas” of our shared vision. It is here that I hope to blend our site-based management initiative
with the effective research based collaboration tool, PLC’s. To begin, I will share with the
A New Direction 14
leadership team professional reading from scholarly journals that support the PLC initiative. I
will ask that all members of our leadership team attend a two-day workshop on PLC’s so that we
may build our shared knowledge base in order to make informed decisions (DuFour, 2003).
After we have acquired a shared knowledge base, I will facilitate a series of discussions
to construct a consensus of our PLC trainings, and decide if this initiative would help our district
to achieve our shared vision. If a consensus is reached, we will begin the implementation
process with necessary trainings and support for all. This will not be a quick or easy process, but
change in an organization is rarely without struggle. Building professional learning communities
in schools requires cultural change, but I am dedicated to supporting the change process and all
those who are involved. Seeing our vision through to its realization is the task of this district,
and using the most effective tools and strategies to get there is our responsibility (Honawar,
2008).
If we chose to move towards implementation of professional learning communities it will
be crucial that we properly institute the change, and undergo the deep change in professional
culture within the school. It will not be enough to simply say that we are utilizing PLC’s or to
rename our grade level teams PLC’s. There will be specific characteristics of PLC’s that will be
required in order to do this right.
The first concept is the hallmark of professional learning communities, a focus on
learning. Administrators and teachers at all levels will need to focus on three critical questions:
1. What is it we want all students to learn?
2. How will we know when they have learned it?
3. How will we respond when a student is not learning?
Every school will be required to monitor the learning of every student. Support and
accommodations will be provided to any students experiencing difficulty. It will be up to the
individual schools to develop a plan monitoring progress and providing support. Plans may vary
from school to school to meet the needs of the various learning communities (DuFour, 2003).
A New Direction 15
The second required concept will be the organization of professional staff into
collaborative teams. All professional staff members must be a member of at least one
professional learning community. The focus of these collaborative teams must be students
learning. The ways in which the teams are structured is a decision left to individual schools.
Ideas for ways teams may be organized include but are not limited to grade level, course specific,
interdisciplinary, vertical, or departmental. Each team will be required to identify specific,
measurable performance goals, which will result in a demonstration of higher levels of student
learning (DuFour, 2003).
The leadership team will be responsible for overseeing the implementation process.
Members of the leadership team will act as sponsors of implementation, and will guide the
champions, those who lead the day to day work of the initiative. Both champions and sponsors
are change agents in the process, a term used by the Champions and Sponsors component of the
Change Wheel. Measures, Milestones, and Feedback, another component of the Change Wheel
will help guide this process. The leadership team will work to develop measures of progress
which will help us to understand if our change process is headed in the right direction.
Milestones, concrete events and observed results will be collected as data from individual PLC’s.
Each PLC will use their measurable performance goal to regularly assess the effectiveness of the
PLC on student learning. Additional planning, sharing, and staff development will result as
needed.
I will meet regularly for performance reviews with members of the leadership team. In
these meetings we will discuss the following questions adopted from Richard DuFour’s 2003
article on building professional learning communities.

Planning: What is your plan for implementing the professional learning community
process in your school or department? What specific steps do you plan to take and when
will you take them? What are you doing to align the practices and processes of your
school with these concepts?
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
Monitoring: What are your strategies for monitoring each student's mastery of essential
learning? How are you monitoring the productivity of your teams? How will you assess
the results of this initiative in your school or department?

Modeling: How are you modeling a focus on student learning and your commitment to
collaboration? What have you done to create a guiding coalition to assist you in this
important endeavor in your school or department?

Driving questions: What questions have you posed to guide the work of the teams and the
progress of the initiative?

Allocating time: How have you ensured that every student who experiences initial
difficulty is provided additional time and support for learning during the school day?
What steps have you taken to give every collaborative team time to work together during
the school day?

Celebrating: What are you doing to celebrate the work of teams and the progress of your
school in order to sustain this initiative?

Confronting: What resistance and obstacles have you encountered and how have you
responded?

Feedback from these performance reviews will drive the implementation at various
schools. By working within the parameters of our school vision we will have a clear
sense of the direction of our organization, but with that a better understanding of how
each member of our school district can contribute the collective effort of realizing our
district vision.
Innovation
After a 25-year status quo, it was quite evident that the school district was looking for
change when they hired me as their new superintendent. Because I was unanimously voted for
by the board I will expect support for innovative ideas that will bring the school district into the
21st century. I have appointed a strong, motivated leadership team to assist me in the change
A New Direction 17
process. One of the first changes will be to implement school-based decision making for those
schools that choose to take on that responsibility.
It is important to note that it is necessary to meet the unique learning needs of all
students, not because of the move for accountability, but because it is the right thing to do. The
Change Masters Kaleidoscope Thinking challenges the established way of believing how things
should be done. It is a philosophy that considers there are many approaches to every problem
and that break through ideas come from this “out of the box” attitude. To encourage new ideas,
Kaleidoscope Thinking suggests that we foster a safe and supportive environment, make sure
everyone’s ideas are valued, and consider that a different physical environment may elicit
additional creativity.
The Change Fundamentals Fostering Innovations shows that many seeds are necessary
to produce one implemented and successful innovation. My first step will be to elicit volunteers
to be a part of innovative team. According to Change Fundamentals Fostering Innovations there
must be certain elements in place to encourage the team; these include: job assignments and
responsibilities, substantial autonomy in the team, a diverse group in the team that has the power
to make decisions, a team that has a strong school culture and are willing to go the extra mile for
the team. Furthermore, we may reflect on the fact that major innovations sometimes involve
placing a new face on old ideas, and that is the direction we will begin to explore in our efforts to
bring our district into the 21st century.
I will request schools to volunteer to undertake whole school reform. There are several
Whole School Reform Models in existence today that have proven to be somewhat successful.
Two reform models that, based on research, have shown to be effective are: the Accelerated
Schools, developed by Henry Levin, a school-wide program with an accelerated curriculum
which utilizes challenging learning activities in place of drill-practice and remediation skills and
School Development Program, developed by James Comer and the Yale Child Study Center, this
program creates a cadre of significant adults in students' lives--at home, in school, and in the
community--who work together to support and nurture each child's total development. This is not
to say that if the innovative team has other ideas that these will not also be considered as long as
A New Direction 18
there is a consensus for its adoption. The idea is to look for something that will improve all
students’ success.
Accelerated schools were designed to bring at-risk students into the academic mainstream
through academic enrichment and acceleration by replacing remediation with gifted and talented
instruction. The conversion to acceleration requires an internal transformation of school culture.
The Accelerated School operations are built around three principles that empower the school
community to adopt accelerated strategies: Unity of Purpose-an agreement by school staff,
parents, and students on common goals, a search for strategies for reaching them, and
accountability for results; Empowerment with Responsibility-the participants to make key
decisions in the school and home to implement change and to be accountable for results; and
Building on Strengths-the identification and utilization of the strengths of all of the participants
in addressing school needs and creating powerful learning strategies. In order for this program to
be successful it is important that principals concur with the philosophies of the reform. Research
indicates that adopting this model “the principal has to be a special person to be an Accelerated
School principal –not authoritarian”. (Christensen, 1992).
Comer’s School Development Program is characterized by a positive school climate. It
was developed to improve the educational experience of poor ethnic minority youth by
improving school climate through a collaborative, consensus-building, no fault approach to
problem solving between parents and school staff. The nine component process model includes
three mechanisms (a School Planning and Management Team; a Student and Staff Support
Team, formerly known as the mental health team; and a Parents' Team); three operations (a
comprehensive school plan, staff development activities, and ongoing assessment); and three
guiding principles (a no-fault attitude toward solving problems, decision-making by consensus,
and collaborative participation that does not paralyze the principal). (Comer, 1988). In a study
done by Aguilera et al, schools in the study displayed characteristics of a positive school climate
and the parent/community involvement also contributed significantly to the overall school
climate and therefore the academic success of its students.
In order for any reform to be successful everyone must be “on the same page” and this is
achieved by developing an organizational culture that promotes that success. Change
A New Direction 19
Fundamentals Shaping Organizational Culture suggests that key aspects of organizational
change are related either to designing the change project and its components to fit the culture, or
helping modify the culture to support the reform. Helping to modify the culture can be achieved
by making people feel comfortable by providing a sense of familiarity, reinforcing shared goals,
improve communication, ensuring a consistent direction, and enhancing a sense of organization.
It also recommends allowing as much autonomy and flexibility in the teachers’ work as possible,
respect of everyone, and a healthy and attractive work environment.
One of the first steps in designing a change project is to establish a steering committee.
According to the Change Fundamentals Designing Change Projects the steering committee
responsibility is to set priorities and identify issues, provide project direction, create project
teams, provide interim reports, manage communications and create structures that motivate,
reward, and recognize outstanding contributors.
We should be aware that we must be willing to continually keep the momentum going
during our reform. Change Wheel Communicating Useful Approaches recommends frequent
reminders to help keep the change reform on the top of everyone’s mind. Several approaches to
achieve this are: showcase as an agenda item at a school board meeting, showcase it on the
district’s website, celebrate and reward the innovative people, use newsletters, launch a schoolwide innovation fair, etc. Change Fundamental Ensuring Continuing Change maintains that we
ought to be conscious no matter how great the plan, it will probably fail if it doesn’t have the
support of the powers that be. In order to keep the reform from going astray we must first make
sure it works; then we need to make sure our new practices are known and defined and people
know how to do and use them. We will need to keep pushing the change, make sure stakeholders
get the things they need and want, because momentum increases when more people use the new
practices, until finally it becomes “the way we do things around here”.
I will suggest that each “innovative” school establish a team that encourages innovation
within the classroom. Change Wheel Quick Wins, Local Innovations states “It is important to
start by realizing that everyone is innovative -innovation is not a special skill of a small group
within the population.” This also aids in transferring ownership of the project to those who are
directly involved in its implementation. Quick Wins, Local Innovations points out that allowing
A New Direction 20
specifics to be modified to the needs of individual schools, and it permits alternative approaches
to be developed and tested. And, what’s more important, it builds support where it counts among the administrators, teachers and students who will be the most affected.
Undergoing a reform of any kind takes great effort and sustainability in order to see the
fruits of our labor. All too often reforms fall by the way-side due to lack of support and
motivation. It is up to everyone to ensure we are doing the best we possibly can to facilitate
success in all our students.
Having earned my Masters Degree at Florida Gulf Coast University in Educational
Administration and Supervision, I am most anxious to return to Southwest Florida to put my
knowledge and expertise to the test. I look forward to working closely with the members of this
board and appreciate the show of support given me by your unanimous selection. Through the
cooperative efforts of the board, our newly appointed leadership team, the principals, the other
members of district administration and me, our district will emerge with an orientation toward
continuous learning. We will move forward together to meet the 21st century challenge of
helping all learners to achieve at a higher level than before. Our leaders, beginning with me, will
emphasize collaboration as a part of the process of innovation within the district. Moving toward
site-based decision making is the first of many steps toward that end. As district leader, I will
endeavor to collaborate with multiple constituencies, moving our district away from "principaldominated to principle-centered decision making." (Thurston, Clift & Schacht, 1993).
A New Direction 21
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